The Kendal Debt Book 1841

The "Kendal Debt Book" is approximately 17” x 8.5” x 1.4” and was originally bound in half calf with marbled boards. It contains 382 pages plus end papers and although the marbling is missing from the front board and the corner pieces either missing or damaged, internally, the book is in good condition.

All the pages, including the inner surfaces of the cover and the end papers, have been written on and notes, including names and addresses appear to have been written, externally, on the surviving marbling and spine. On the spine can also be seen the words “Kendal” and "Debt Book" and the book has thus been given the name "The Kendal Debt Book". However, the neither the shopkeeper's name nor the location of his or her shop is currently known

The inside of the front board carries a “List of Tares on Sugars imported into Liverpool from British Possessions in the West Indies”, comprising three columns headed respectively Dem^a, Trinidad and [….]; Barbados; and All other sorts. The tares for amounts between 8 and 20 cwt are then given, in 1 cwt steps, below. A footnote to the table states “ On all descriptions of the above in barrels and Terices under 8 cwt, the cwt tare is 14lb per cwt and Raws are usually sold weighed. On E. I and Mauritius the customs tare is allowed. They are generally bought and sold at landing weights, with Drfts. The latter is 4lbs on arr 5 bags when under 10 cwt and 7lb when 10 cwt and above”.

Order/Debt Entries & Cash Accounts

The entries in the book date from 25^th November 1841 to January 1844 and take several forms i.e.:
1: Dated individual orders giving customers' names and addresses, the items ordered, prices (and sometimes unit prices) and the amount owed by the customer. A column on the LHS of the page is used to indicate whether the customer has paid.

2: Collective cash accounts listing the money received from individual customers, the gross amount collected and the net amount after deduction of expences. This type of account is usually given a locative heading e.g. “Swaledale Cash” and a date

Customer’s Orders/Debts
The accounts of the customers visited are grouped under area headings i.e. Ravenstonedale, Warcop, Swaledale, Wensley Dale, and Stainmore. The dates of the individual accounts for particular areas occur in a fixed sequence that is repeated (generally) every two months. In 1842 for example, the dates were as follows:

Ravenstonedale	5th January 1842.
Warcop	18th January 1842	24th March 1842
Swaledale	1st February 1842	5th April 1842
Wensley Dale	14th February 1842	23rd April 1842
Stainmore	17th March 1842	19th May 1842

Cash Accounts
These accounts were generally settled every two months, presumably, on delivery of the previous order and the collective cash accounts drawn up, as shown below:

Warcop	25^th Sept 1841, 25 Nov 1841, 18 January 1842, 24 March 1842, (made up about 1 June 1842) 1 June 1842. (account paid 21 July 1842)
Swaledale	12 Oct 1841, 7 Dec 1841, 1 Feb 1842 (account paid in 9 April1842) 5 April 1842 (made up 13 June 1842) 10 June 1842,
Wensley Dale	26 Oct 1841, 21 Dec 1841, 14 Feb 1842, (account paid in 23 April 1842) 23 June 1842 (paid 27 August 1842)
Ravenstonedale	2 Nov 1841, 5 January 1842. 3 May 1842,
Stainmore	16 Nov 1841, 11 Jun 1842, ? 17 Mar 1842, 19 May 1842,

What was ordered?

The items most frequently ordered were coffee and tea, generally conger tea but also green tea, coupon tea and on one occasion "Mexican" tea. Many orders also included tobacco (twist and shag) and snuff, currents and raisins. Some of the other items ordered were: sugar, treacle, cheese, eggs flour, meal, salt, pepper and mustard, annatto, nutmeg, cumin and rue , soap, starch, blue and soda, candles, linseed and on one occasion gunpowder. A very few orders included hardware or other non-food goods such as a shoes, a shoe brush, a broom head, mustard pot and snuffer.

Most of the orders are given under the customer's name the exceptions being the orders placed by the "Workhouse" and that placed by " Mrs at the Turnpike Gate" but which workhouse it was and who "Mrs" was is unknown.

Places Mentioned

The following list of places named in the Kendal Debt Book is not comprehensive and may require (spelling) correction.

Angram	Coverta /Covertree	Enterber	Hastley Fold	Lowthwaite	Ramsholm	S. R[]head	Thwaite
Artelgarth	Crackpot	Flake Bridge	Hartley Castle	Lundas	Rash /Raist	Stainmore	Tarn Riggs
Assfell	Crosby	Forelands	Killmire T[ ]	Mallerstang	Ravenstonedale	Staithby	Walden
Blear Tarn	Crosby Garrets	Gillbank	Keld (Swaledale)	Muker	Riddin House	Stennerskeugh	Warop
Borrathwaite	Cross Bank	Grainhome	Kirkby Stephen	Musgrave	Rookby	Stobars	Wath
Brough	Dike Head	Great Musgrave	Langrigg	Naithby	Row Rigg	Stonesdale	Weasdale
Brunskill Cross	Dowdale	Gunnerts	Low Mill	New Biggin	Sandford	Street Head	Wensleydale
Browhill Court	Duckingtree	Gunnerside	Lowden Gill	Orton	Sandwath	Swaledale	Whatton
Bruton	Dulas	Haggerside	Low Lane	Paddon	Sk[ ]ehead	Swinithwaite	Whiterow
Burton	Eaden Place	Hartley Gath	Lower Ormside	Peper Hole	Soulby	Thornalby	Winton
Cathole	East Stonesdale	Hart Lakes	Low Stennerscar	Raisbeck	Sowerby	Thorns	Worton

People Mentioned

So far no complete index has been prepared of the names mentioned in the book but a substantial proportion of those names are listed on the following images and in a recently prepared list: