Making the global local? Overseas goods in English rural shops, c.1600–1760

Abstract

This article draws on probate inventories from 36 villages in four counties to examine the shifting place of overseas goods in the stock of English rural shops. It shows that a range of colonial groceries and Indian textiles were to be found in village shops from the early-seventeenth century, but that their availability varied considerably, as did their relative to the retail business. Whilst they rarely appear to have underpinned the viability of the shop, their early and persistent presence draws the village shop and the rural consumer into the mainstream of consumption and retail transformation.