The Sisterhood of Grocers

by Meryl Faiers, 9 June 2026

My most recent post (20 April 2026) offered a reconstruction of the life of Rebecca Heminges, the wife of a grocer (and actor - John Heminges). Now I'm looking at two of the women who operated as practising grocers within the Worshipful Company of Grocers towards the end of the sixteenth century. Living nearby, Rebecca Heminges would undoubtedly have known both of them.

The Wardens' accounts of the Worshipful Company of Grocers detail all the financial transactions for each year, from July to July, including everything to do with membership of the Company: brotherhood money (i.e. membership dues); apprentice entrance (the fee paid when a new apprentice was bound to his master); freeman's entrance (the fee paid when an apprentice completed his training and joined the Company); the sum known as a fine, paid on admission to the senior rank of liveryman. Like all livery companies, the Grocers’ Company was predominantly a masculine preserve, but buried deep in the accounts for the final three decades of the sixteenth century are the names of sixty-nine individual women who were operating as grocers in their own right. Although this is a tiny percentage (less than 1%) of the total membership across the period, it is nevertheless surprising to find so many women accepted within the Company.

Anne Collins

Apprenticeship of John Heminges (1578) in Wardens' Accounts of the Grocers' Company. Guildhall Library,  CLC/L/GH/D/001/MS11571/006 Photo: M. Faiers by kind permission of the Grocers' Company.

When John Heminges began his nine-year apprenticeship in 1578 he joined the household of his master, James Collins. James's wife, Anne, might well have been a mother figure to the fatherless eleven-year-old from Droitwich in Worcestershire. The family lived in the tiny parish of All Hallows, Honey Lane, just off Cheapside in the City of London. We know the names of those Collins children who survived their first few years from the later will of James Collins: in 1578 John was a two-year-old but Rachel’s birth date is unknown. Anne had already lost two babies by the time Heminges arrived and during his time with the family, she gave birth to James in February 1585. The household was completed by a more senior apprentice, James Bell, who went on to finish his training in July 1583.

The parish register for All Hallows, which records the births and deaths of the Collins children, also contains some leaves at the end detailing tax assessments of residents for some years, and allocation of parish offices for others. It's an unexpected bonus for research. These show James Collins progressing through parish roles from subsidy (tax) assessor in 1573 through the generally unpopular office of constable in 1578 to churchwarden in 1585 at the same time as he prospered financially. In the earlier lists he is assessed for one house but later years show he acquired a second house and took over a shop.

John Heminges's apprenticeship was due to be completed in 1587, but James Collins died in August 1585, eighteen months before the end of Heminges's nine-year term, leaving Anne with two young children plus baby James. Anne was about to become a grocer. In his will, her husband left forty shillings (£2), 'if my wife shall think good', to his current apprentice Heminges. This sum was what he would need to pay to enter the Grocers' Company once his training was completed so that, by this, Collins was signalling to Heminges that Anne would be taking over as his apprentice master/mistress rather than transferring him to a new master. James Collins was confident that Anne would fulfil what was required in supervising an apprenticeship. Heminges was one of the witnesses to the will so would have heard his future being laid out as the will was dictated. Now that she was operating her late husband's business, Anne was not only supervising his apprentice but also making wholesale purchases, requiring negotiation with the importers of spices and other commodities; weighing and packaging goods for the retail shop she was now running; receiving cash, granting and recording credit with her customers and neighbours; and keeping accounts using the new system of double entry bookkeeping to keep track of her finances - unless she trusted her eighteen-year-old apprentice to do that. John Heminges would go on to be the finance person for the King's Men so was probably competent at eighteen to keep the books, but perhaps it was the other way around and he improved his financial skills under Anne's tuition.

'Wyddowe Collyns' appears towards the end of the annual list of brotherhood money in 1585-86. Guildhall Library/The London Archives, CLC/L/GH/D/001/MS11571/007 Photo: M. Faiers, by kind permission of the Grocers' Company.

Anne first appears as 'Wyddowe Collyns' in the Company accounts for 1585-86, paying her annual 'brotherhood' subscription of two shillings. Her name is there again in 1586-87, the year in which John Heminges is also listed in the freemen’s entrances having completed his apprenticeship. He is recorded only as 'late apprentice to James Collins' - there is no reference to Anne. But there is a second entry featuring Anne in that year. On 6 March 1587 Gerard Sheere is apprenticed 'to Anne Collyns for viii years from the Annunciation of Our Lady next': she is taking on an apprentice in her own right, one of only eleven women across three decades to do so. Gerard Sheere was the cousin of her late husband and had been referred to two years earlier in James's will as 'my kinsman and servant', suggesting that he may already have been informally apprenticed in the Collins household. It appears that Anne was securing Gerard's future, just as James had secured Heminges's, as only four months later, she remarried - and remarriage meant that she could no longer be considered as a member of the Grocers' Company. Wives and widows of members of the Company had been entitled to attend the annual feast and to be regarded as of the 'Fraternity' (as it was known in earlier centuries) since 1348 but all rights were forfeited if they remarried outside the Company - and Anne's new husband was a goldsmith.                        

Anne Collins took on Gerard Sheere as her apprentice in 1587 (third entry down) . Guildhall Library/The London Archives, CLC/L/GH/D/001/MS11571/007. Photo: M. Faiers, by kind permission of the Grocers' Company.

On 30 July 1587 Anne Collins married George Langdale/Langdall, Citizen and Goldsmith, of the parish of St Faith's, at All Hallows, Honey Lane, and Langdale moved in with her. Like her first husband, Langdale also took on parish offices (constable in 1591) but isn't recorded in the parish later in the decade. Anne's apprentice Gerard Sheere presumably continued to live in the now Langdale household but there is no record of him completing his apprenticeship, nor of his death. Two Langdale children were born in the parish, Joseph (1590) and Sarah (1591) but the family then moved and Armell (sic) was born in 1596 in the parish of St Matthew, Friday Street and Elizabeth in 1597 in that of St Olave, Silver Street. Anne's surviving children now ranged in age from newborn Elizabeth to twenty-one-year-old John.

If Anne's first husband had been a successful merchant and exemplary citizen, as his will suggests, her second seems to have been a more colourful character. George Langdale had been freed as a goldsmith in 1567 and ten years later was appointed as a trumpeter to Queen Elizabeth. In 1583 he was granted the monopoly of making sackbuts (similar to the modern trombone) and trumpets; in this capacity perhaps he was useful to Anne's former apprentice, John Heminges, and the King's Men, in supplying musical instruments to individual actors and musicians. In 1599 he found himself imprisoned as a result of complaints to the Goldsmiths' Company about a dangerous furnace in his cellar on Goldsmiths Row (and possibly also for his refusal to give a straight answer to the question as to 'whether he will remove the nuisance'). He and Anne jointly figure in at least one legal case (1601) and George appears active in litigation of various sorts until 1610. In 1605 he took on Guy Langdale (a relative?) as an apprentice and the completion of Guy's training in 1616 marks the final time that George Langdale appears in any record; there is no confirmed record of Anne Collins Langdale after the 1601 lawsuit. Anne had married twice; given birth at least nine times; and raised three of those children on her own whilst supervising an apprenticeship and continuing to run her late husband's flourishing business. She was not unique in doing this.

Annabell Baye

Another woman hiding in plain sight in the Grocers' Company accounts is Annabell Baye. Unlike Anne Colllins, whose association with the Company is only during her relatively brief widowhood, Annabell Baye appears in the accounts across the 1580s and 1590s. She is first recorded in 1582-83 paying brotherhood money as 'Ux William Baye', i.e. as the wife (uxor) of William Baye, possibly reflecting William's incapacity during a final illness. The following year she is 'Mistress Bayes widow' and in succeeding years she is most usually simply 'Annabell Baye', which suggests that she is very well known within the Company.

Annabell and William Baye were probably both from Hampshire, possibly Alresford, where they may have married. Their first child, William, was born in 1565 in the City parish of St Margaret Moses but died in infancy. Agnes (1566), Elizabeth (1571), William (1573) and Suzan (1576, died 1577) were baptised at St Margaret Moses. This second William was also short-lived and a third was baptised at St Mary Colechurch in 1577. Annabell's final babies were Rowland, born in June 1581 and Margaret, born posthumously six months after the death of her father. I have been unable to find a birth date for either Marie, who married a grocer in 1589, or Joan, who is named in her brother's will; a daughter, Frances, was buried in 1580. Annabell had given birth to eleven children, only six of whom outlived her.

William Baye senior dictated his will on 24 July 1582, requesting to be buried in Alresford. Probate was granted to his executrix, Annabell, on 27 August that year. William senior left his lands in the Isle of Wight to five-year-old William, some small bequests, and everything else to Annabell. She now had six children, from sixteen-year-old Agnes down to one-year-old Rowland and was pregnant with her seventh when she had to take over the family business. Her first act was to take on a new apprentice to work alongside John Dubye, her husband's apprentice, who still had four years of his apprenticeship to run. Her own apprentice was Edward Brooke, bound on 20 August 1582 to 'Annabell Bey widow for viii years': the apprentice entrances always include the forename of the master and therefore of the mistress, Mary Wollye, Jane Kingston, Elizabeth Adlyn, etc., again implying a closer relationship with the company than those women who as widows simply paid their membership dues.

Annabell Baye took on Edward Brooke as her apprentice a month after her husband's death Guildhall Library/The London Archives, CLC/L/GH/D/001/MS11571/007. Photo: M. Faiers by kind permission of the Grocers' Company.

In addition to a household of children, apprentices and servants to run, Annabell's home was also substantial. Since 1571 she and William had lived in a property known as the White Hart, towards the eastern end of Cheapside; at William's death she took over the lease, paying £10 10s per annum rent. (One of her sons-in-law, George Holman, was still resident there in 1612.) The White Hart was an extensive property which had previously included a tavern, hence the name, plus shops, warehouses and cellars. It faced out on to Cheapside and north to the next lane. William had been amongst the wealthier residents of Cheap ward in the City; when James Collins was assessed with goods to the value of £3 in 1582, William Baye's assessment was £25.

Agas map of London showing Cheapside (running across the centre) with Honey Lane, where Anne Collins lived, as a spur to the north. Two possible locations of Annabell Baye's house, the White Hart, are highlighted in yellow.

Janelle Jenstad, Greg Newton, and Kim Mclean-Fiander (eds), Civitas Londinvm. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 6.6, http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/agas.htm.

Annbell Baye ran this substantial business for the next fifteen years. Like Anne Collins, she was now supervising her apprentice; dealing with merchants and wholesalers; handling the physical goods in the shop; and dealing with everything relating to finance. In July 1590 Edward Brooke completed his apprentceship and the following month Annabell took on his successor, William Townerowe. She appears never to have had more than one apprentice at a time, which may have been a restriction imposed upon her by the Company.

In the summer of 1590 Annabell Baye's apprentice Edward Brooke became a Freeman of the Grocers' Company (upper) and she took on his successor, William Townerowe (lower). Guildhall Library/The London Archives, CLC/L/GH/D/001/MS11571/007 Photos: M. Faiers, by kind permission of the Grocers' Company.

She is recorded paying her two shillings brotherhood money each year, with her final payment in the financial year ending July 1596. Eighteen months later, on 17 January 1598, Annabell Baye was buried in the Mercers' Chapel at St Mary Colechurch. Only a few weeks later, on 22 February, her daughter Elizabeth married a gentleman, William Gibson, and on 14 March William Townerowe finished his apprenticeship and became a freeman of the Grocers’ Company. Annabell's will bequeathed her valuable leases to her son Rowland, her elder son (the third) William either having died sometime between 1582 and 1597 or been excluded from her will as he had received his inheritance as child from his father. The will also confirms the names and marriages of her surviving children. Rowland died almost exactly a year later, still aged only seventeen and unmarried, yet describing himself in his own will as a Grocer. He certainly hadn't served an apprenticeship through the Company - he was too young - and doesn't appear to have been made a freeman by patrimony. The assumption therefore has to be that he was a grocer by practice, working alongside and learning from his mother: Annabell Baye, grocer.

Anne Collins and Annabell Baye represent two aspects of women's connections to the Grocers’ Company. Anne Collins was active within the Company for only a brief period as a widow, seemingly to fulfill her late husband's obligations to his apprentice, John Heminges, and when she took on Gerard Sheere in her own name, it was to provide security to her husband's young relative. Her remarriage so soon after both events suggests that she was doing everything possible to ensure the futures of these two young men knowing that she would shortly cease to have any position within the Grocers Company. Annabell Baye continued her membership of the Company for sixteen years, until her death - and even beyond, with the freeing of William Townerowe. Her name is found regularly each year in approximately the same place in the neat lists, forty to a column, eighty to a page, of the grocers paying their dues. Very few women were designated by their forenames within the Company - more usually they were included in the lists of payments as 'widow [     ]' - the use of 'Annabell' doesn't imply any lack of respect but instead suggests that her sex was irrelevant in the context of her business.

  Arms of the Worshipful Company of Grocers

Sources

Wardens’ Accounts of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, Guildhall Library/The London Archives CLC/L/GH/D/001/MS11571/006 - 008

Parish registers, The London Archives

All Hallows, Honey Lane, P69/ALH3/A/001/MS05022

  St Olave, Silver Street, P69/OLA3/A/001/MS06534

   St Mary Colechurch, P69/MRY8/A/001/MSO4438

St Margaret Moses, CLC/464/MS12003

Parish register, St Matthew, Friday Street, Ancestry.com. England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. (Original register destroyed in 1940.)

Register copies of wills, The National Archives

James Collins, PROB 11/69/7

William Baye, PROB 11/64/384

  Annable Baie, PROB 11/91/83

Rowland Baye, PROB 11/93/177

'1582 London Subsidy Roll: Cheap Ward', in Two Tudor Subsidy Rolls for the City of London, 1541 and 1582, ed. R. G. Lang (London, 1993)

D J Keene, Vanessa Harding, 'St. Mary Colechurch 105/11', in Historical Gazetteer of London Before the Great Fire Cheapside; Parishes of All Hallows Honey Lane, St Martin Pomary, St Mary Le Bow, St Mary Colechurch and St Pancras Soper Lane (London, 1987)

George Langdale:

The National Archives, REQ 2/235/21

Byrne, Maurice. “The Goldsmith-Trumpet-Makers of the British Isles.” The Galpin Society        Journal, vol. 19, 1966, pp. 71–83. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/841916;

as royal trumpeter: ‘Lists of the King’s Musicians, from the Audit Office Declared Accounts’, The  Musical Antiquary, vol. 2, 1911, pp. 114-118;

certificates of residence: The National Archives, E115/242/30 (to 1604);

monopoly to make trumpets: The National Archives, REQ 2/235/17