Help with indentures please WAYLAND

[ValJJJ]

Please could you decipher part of this handwriting in a 1st March 1780 indenture?

'Daniel Wayland Son of John Wayland late of Frome in the County of Somerset [occupation or placename? something maker? edit: Cardmaker? The C is similarly sweeping to the C of County] deceased .....Spencer Burgess of Ratcliffe [something] in the county of Middlesex Ship Chandler and Tinplate Worker'

I'm also baffled as to why Spencer Burgess is a citizen and goldsmith of London when he is a ship chandler and tinplate worker but Daniel clearly becomes one himself and then his sons, and their sons, just by being his family.  So occupation nothing to do with it and it is purely a Freedom of the City status.  But there is a company of Tinplate Workers.

There are plenty of documents showing the Waylands in effect inheriting this status in Ancestry's Freedom of the City admissions section, including these indentures.  And they are incredibly useful too as they show relationships, date of birth, and where born, so I've been able to build up the male line.  But the results don't appear prominent when I do a general search on a name - going to the card catalogue for this database is much more successful.

[MollyC]

"Ratcliffe Cross".  This is a frequent combination of a long s (which looks like an f without a horizontal stroke) and a short s, as in Burgess.

A cardmaker supplied cards to the textile industry for "carding" fibres before spinning.  They apparently fixed wires to cards.  They were working alongside wiredrawers in the Yorkshire woollen districts.

[ValJJJ]

Thank you so much MollyC.  The word just looked like a muddle of letters.  I could see the capital C but the rest, nope.

[arthurk]

I'm also baffled as to why Spencer Burgess is a citizen and goldsmith of London when he is a ship chandler and tinplate worker...

There was quite often a mismatch between the trade someone was engaged in and the company they belonged to. I'm not an expert on this, but I suspect one factor was the ability to gain Freedom of the City by patrimony, so that you would join your father's company rather than one that seemed to cater for your own occupation. And since an apprentice would usually join his master's company, any mismatch there would be carried forward too.

[ValJJJ]

Thanks for that. I haven’t worked my way back to a Wayland who was actually a goldsmith. It may be too far back to show in online records but I haven’t looked yet.

John Wayland the cardmaker must have done well as so far I’ve found 4 sons apprenticed to various trades and it must have been expensive. I’m assuming the family of the apprentice paid for the privilege.