The general account book of John Clerk of Penicuik, 1663-1674 /
The household account book of John Clerk of Penicuik, a Montrose-born merchant who honed his skills in Paris and brought home to Scotland a small fortune which he used to purchase the barony of Penicuik in 1654, provides an opportunity to explore the multifaceted life of a seventeenth-century mercha...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[Scotland] : Woodbridge, Suffolk :
Scottish History Society ; The Boydell Press,
2021.
|
| Series: | Scottish History Society (Series) ;
6th ser., v. 16. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | The household account book of John Clerk of Penicuik, a Montrose-born merchant who honed his skills in Paris and brought home to Scotland a small fortune which he used to purchase the barony of Penicuik in 1654, provides an opportunity to explore the multifaceted life of a seventeenth-century merchant, moneylender, and improving landlord. This volume presents for the first time a full scholarly edition of the accounts. A prodigious bookkeeper, Clerk maintained incredibly detailed, and personally annotated, accounts which support the contemporary assessment that held him to be "a man of great sense and great application to busines"'. Uniquely, Clerk's tendency to add emotive statements or direct commentary to his detailed accounting of household expenditures sets these accounts apart from similar account books from this period. As this volume also shows, they reveal a businessman that did not suffer fools gladly and a devoted and loving husband and father who worked tirelessly to secure a future for his children, the estate, and his family name. Showcasing the household's expenditures, Clerk's accounts list a vast array of consumables and durables, his family's material support and the cost of educating his children, as well as disbursements to labourers, domestic servants, doctors, and various factors operating on behalf of Clerk and his family. Collectively, the material found in these records can contribute to broader inquiries into domestic consumption, the improvement of landed estates, gendered spending patterns, the employment of labour, household priorities, material culture, and identities and consumer behaviour in the last half of the seventeenth century.--Provided by publisher. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | 626 pages ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. |
| ISBN: | 9780906245460 090624546X |