I am looking for any sources of information on silk mercers in Holywell Street, St Clement Danes. No certainty that there is any family connection, but ...
My 3g-grandfather was William Henley, born Woburn, Bedfordshire 1782. He married Ann White (youngest daughter of William White and Lettice Street of St Clement Danes) in Woburn in 1805. In 1803 she and Catherine Henley, William's cousin, were both housemaids at Woburn Abbey (from primary evidence of employment records in the Russell collection held by Bedfordshire archives). William and Ann had a son John in 1810 but he vanished from the records until he is recorded again in Brighton in 1836, marrying there in 1838 by which time he was a fully qualified tailor with a shop on St James's Street, Brighton. A letter written by John mentions his aunt Lettice White (his mother's eldest sister), who census records indicate came from St Clement Danes and was living in Brighton in 1841 and 1851. The link with St Clement Danes is clearly established. What is unclear is where the family - William, Ann, and their son John were living between 1810 and 1836, and what happened to John's parents - who did not attend his wedding.
In April 1810, William White died in Woburn (this may or may not be the same William White) and in 1810-11 Andrew Henley, William Henley's father, replaced William White as ratepayer at the Henley family's home 14 Leighton Street, Woburn.
What follows is largely supposition, pieced together from newspaper reports and gazetted bankuptcy notices.
In 1796 William White of Holywell Street, St Clement Danes, "mercer, dealer, and chapman" was bankrupt. This could have been Ann's father but we have no proof.
In 1818 Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide lists silk mercers in Holywell Street as including Brewman B.H. at No.14. On 31 July 1819 a partnership was dissolved, Barnet Hart Brewman and William Henley, silk-mercers of Holywell Street, and in February 1820 William Henley, late of Holywell Street, Strand, silk-mercer, dealer and chapman, was bankrupt.
There are a number of 'loose ends' and coincidences that I'm not going to mention here, as they are likely to be irrelevant and only confuse the issue.
What I would like to know is whether there are any sources of information on silk mercers of London and of Holywell Street in particular, that might help to confirm my speculation or rule it out. William's son John became a tailor, so any apprenticeship records in the 1820s could also be helpful!
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