Overview

The Letter-Book of Thomas Baret of Norwich, offers one of the most vivid surviving portraits of Norwich’s textile trade during the city’s final great period of prosperity. Spanning nearly two hundred pages of correspondence, the volume reveals the commercial networks, manufacturing challenges, and international ambitions of a merchant‑manufacturer working at the heart of England’s leading inland textile centre. Through Baret’s letters, the reader encounters the practical realities of producing and marketing “Norwich stuffs” the light, colourful worsted and mixed‑fibre fabrics that defined the city’s economic identity.

The introduction situates Baret within the broader economic landscape. In the later seventeenth century, Norwich remained England’s largest provincial city after London, its prosperity rooted in a textile industry shaped by long‑standing Flemish and Dutch influence. The “New Draperies” introduced by immigrant weavers in the sixteenth century had enabled Norwich to adapt to shifting fashions and survive export downturns that crippled other towns. By the 1660s, domestic demand for worsted, wool, and linen goods was at its height, and Baret’s entry into trade coincided with this moment of buoyancy.

Yet Norwich’s textile history is difficult to reconstruct. As an inland city, its trade left few official records, and the Weavers’ Company archives were destroyed in the eighteenth century. No garments made from Norwich stuffs survive, and textile names changed frequently. Baret’s letters therefore provide rare evidence for the variety, naming, and marketing of these fabrics. His correspondence shows him dealing in damasks, russells, tamines, cheyneys, callimancoes, crapes, druggets, and increasingly fashionable silk‑worsted blends demonstrating the continuity of Walloon influence long before the arrival of Huguenot refugees in 1685.

A major theme of the volume is the balance between domestic and overseas markets. Historians have often argued that the home market dominated Norwich’s trade in this period, but Baret’s letters complicate this view. His goods travelled to Amsterdam via Great Yarmouth, London, and Ostend, routes that frequently disguised exports as domestic shipments. His correspondence suggests that overseas demand for Norwich stuffs may have been greater than previously assumed, and that merchant‑manufacturers like Baret played a key role in sustaining these international connections.

The letters also illuminate manufacturing practice. Baret faced shortages of yarn, difficulties in achieving consistent colours, and workmen who struggled with technically demanding fabrics. Some stuffs took fourteen days to weave; others consumed large quantities of yarn. As a merchant‑manufacturer, Baret devoted much of his time to cultivating clients, sending patterns, and promoting English workmanship, leaving day‑to‑day supervision to others.

A turning point in Baret’s life appears within the period covered by the letter-book. In 1675 he won a substantial prize in a state lottery, a windfall that enabled him to withdraw from trade earlier than he otherwise could have. That same year he purchased Heggatt Hall and additional land in Horstead, marking his transition from merchant to landed gentleman. The letters thus capture the final phase of his commercial career, offering a uniquely detailed account of Norwich’s textile economy at a moment of both opportunity and change.

Biographical Note

Thomas Baret (1636–1711), was from a prominent Norwich civic family, worked as a mercer and merchant‑manufacturer exporting Norwich stuffs, chiefly to the Dutch Republic. A major lottery win in 1675 enabled him to purchase Heggatt Hall and retire from trade. Twice married but without surviving children, he died leaving a complex, and much‑contested will.

Archival sources

• Norfolk Record Office

Illustrations, Plates, Figures, Maps and Appendices

• Illustrations: 9
• Plates: 0
• Figures: 0
• Maps: 0
• Appendices: 0

Supported by

This publication was generously supported by:

Editors and contributors

• Editor: Siobhan Talbott
• Honorary Society Editor: Jean Agnew

Publication details

• Series: Norfolk Record Society, Volume LXXXV (85)
• Publisher: Norfolk Record Society
• Year: 2021
• Period: Early Modern
• Type of Volume: Thematic
• ISBN: 9780995773646
• Number of Pages: 232
• Format: Hardback
• Language: English

Join the Society

Members of the Norfolk Record Society receive a discount on all volumes, including new publications. Join the Society here.

Recommended citation

Talbott, S (ed.), The Letter-Book of
Thomas Baret of Norwich, Norfolk Record Society, Vol. 85 (2021).

Keywords

Thomas Baret, Norwich merchant, Norwich textile industry, Norwich stuffs manufacturing, Great Yarmouth export routes, Dutch Republic trade connections, Amsterdam textile markets, Seventeenth‑century Norfolk commerce, East Anglia worsted production, Heggatt Hall, Horstead

About the editor

Dr Siobhan Talbott is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at Keele University. She was awarded her PhD by the University of St Andrews in 2010, and subsequently held postdoctoral research fellowships at the Institute of Historical Research (University
of London) and the University of Manchester. Her monograph Conflict, Commerce and Franco-Scottish Relations 1560–1713 (2014) was awarded the 2016 Senior Hume Brown Prize and was Highly Commended in the 2015 Frank Watson Book Prize. She has published extensively, including other prize-winning work, on early-modern business, merchant networks, and trade.

Related Volumes

These volumes explore similar themes, periods, editor or record types:

The Letters of Philip Stannard, Norwich Textile Manufacturer, 1751-1763

The Great Tour of John Patteson, 1778-1779

Reviews

Reviews of this volume will be added to our Publication Reviews page when available.