Of these 530 women, 401 left wills and it is important to note that, of those who did, less than a third mentioned clothing in some way. This includes women bequeathing individual items to specific recipients, women requesting that their clothing be sold to cover final debts, widows bequeathing their late husband’s clothing, and women leaving small gifts of gloves and scarves, as well as gifts of money for the purchase of mourning clothes. Though she left her daughter ‘all my Cloase’, for example, Everilda Harris also left ‘John Looke & Elizabeth his wife Each of them five shillings to by them gloves’. 28 We also find some women who did leave lengthy and detailed bequests of clothing to a number of recipients, and it is wills like this which have received the most attention. 29 However, we should note that many women simply bequeathed ‘wearing apparel’ or ‘wearing clothes’ to individuals or to several persons. 30 These more general bequests have not been read in the same way as those which contain detailed description, perhaps based on an assumption that they served a primarily economic function. 31 Some women did clearly specify that their clothing was to be sold in order to pay final debts or to cover the cost of monetary bequests, as a ‘stock’ of clothing functioned as a source of currency. 32 A thriving second-hand clothing trade also ensured a ready market, and the clothing of the deceased was often sold ‘en masse’. 33 However, many women left no such instruction, and it is therefore impossible to determine the intent behind a bequest. There was no single approach to bequeathing clothing, while it is extremely likely that many women made arrangements which were not outlined in wills.
Attempts have been made to understand the significance of bequests of clothing and other possessions for different groups within early modern society. Amy Erickson, for example, has suggested that the detailed bequests left by poor will-makers reveal the significance of moveable goods for those who owned little land or property. 34 Though poor testatrixes may have been especially likely to leave detailed bequests, no marked differences emerge between the wealthiest women in the sample and the poorest when it comes to bequeathing clothing. Of the 127 women who mentioned clothing in their wills, eighty-nine also had an inventory or declaration from which it was possible to broadly estimate wealth, though the shortcomings inherent in establishing net worth from an inventory have been clearly demonstrated. 35 Declarations that the deceased’s estate ‘did not amount to more than’ a given amount are even less certain, and tend to record higher estimates; three women were recorded as having personal estates which ‘did not amount to more than’ £1, 000, for instance, while the highest inventoried wealth in the sample was valued at £380 10s. 36 Nevertheless, the sample of wills reflects a range of women from across the social hierarchy, though women with estates worth less than £100 predominate. Thirty women were worth £20 or less, while nine were unusual in that they were valued at £5 or less but still had inventories or declarations drawn up at their death. Rosamond Goodall of Boston in Bramham was apparently the wealthiest woman, while Ann Lancaster, also from Bramham, had an inventoried wealth of £3 5s in 1721, making her the poorest; in her will, Lancaster left her daughter ‘all wearing apparel’, and Goodall similarly made general bequests of ‘Linen’ and ‘Wearing Apparel’. 37 Indeed, women from across the scale of wealth reflected in the sample bequeathed all their wearing apparel or linen rather than leaving specific bequests, while we also find a range using detailed description. Anne Coltart of York, whose inventory was valued at just £5 5s 9d, left her niece ‘my Callimanco Gown and my Sarcenett hudd’, for example. 38 Mary Crown of Kirkby Ireleth, worth only £9 8s, left a long list of clothing bequests, including ‘My worst Stampt linning Gown and worst Black Petticoat’, ‘my Best Stays’, and an ‘ould blue Petticoat’. 39 In comparison, Mabel Woodburn, also of Kirkby Ireleth, had an inventoried wealth of £91 and bequeathed her ‘best white apron’, ‘a black Gown’, and her ‘best Blue cloak’, amongst other things. 40
Miles Lambert has also suggested that single and childless women were more likely to leave ‘bewilderingly complicated lists of bequests’ and, although small in number, the sample does suggest that single women were more predisposed than widows to mention clothing. 41 Unmarried women make up around one-fifth of the 401 women who left wills, but nearly one-third of the 127 women whose wills mention clothing. Though this does not suggest a dramatic surge in the proportion of single women who bequeathed clothing, it may lend some weight to arguments that single women were more likely to do so. However, there is no clear link between unmarried women and detailed description of clothing. 42 Both single women and widows were more likely to leave general bequests of clothing than provide detailed description between 1696 and 1750, and, up until the 1722 will of ‘gentlewoman’ Elizabeth Browne who left her daughter ‘my Lutestring Coate and my best Stayes and my best Cloake and hood’, detailed description was largely confined to singling out an item or items of clothing. 43 This did change, however, in the second half of the century. As we will see in the third section of this chapter, between 1750 and 1800 there was a dramatic overall rise in both the frequency and level of detailed description in the wills. In these years, the majority of clothing bequests did contain some detailed description, and single women made up almost half of the women who left this type of bequest. 44 Nevertheless, between 1800 and 1830, when detailed description across the wills decreased dramatically, widows left the majority of detailed bequests. Though between 1750 and 1800 single women were likely to include detailed description of clothing in their bequests, this must therefore be considered in the context of an overall rise in description.