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Apothecaries were one of the key groups of practitioners involved in the processing and supply of medical drugs in London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However much of the medical contributions of women as wives, daughters and servants within the households of apothecaries remains unknown. Regulated by a guild structure which supported the continuation of family businesses by giving widows the right to keep an apothecary shop and take apprentices, traces of women’s involvement can be located in the archives of the City of London Livery Company, the Society of Apothecaries. Furthermore, the co-existence of domestic and productive spaces within the household combined with the proximity of the apothecary shop facilitated the participation of women in the family apothecary business. This preliminary study identifies widows recorded in the Society of Apothecaries’ quarterage books (which list payment of membership fees) from 1703–1743. Through uncovering fragments of women’s engagement with the institutional structure of medicine in London, this chapter aims to explore elements of women’s contributions to apothecarial practice and their roles in the custodianship and continuation of family businesses.

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“Mrs Clutton Apothecary at the Sign of the Unicorn Holbourn”: Tracing Women’s Roles in Medicine Through the Archives of the Society of Apothecaries of London, c. 1650-c.1750

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Anna Simmons

摘要

Apothecaries were one of the key groups of practitioners involved in the processing and supply of medical drugs in London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However much of the medical contributions of women as wives, daughters and servants within the households of apothecaries remains unknown. Regulated by a guild structure which supported the continuation of family businesses by giving widows the right to keep an apothecary shop and take apprentices, traces of women’s involvement can be located in the archives of the City of London Livery Company, the Society of Apothecaries. Furthermore, the co-existence of domestic and productive spaces within the household combined with the proximity of the apothecary shop facilitated the participation of women in the family apothecary business. This preliminary study identifies widows recorded in the Society of Apothecaries’ quarterage books (which list payment of membership fees) from 1703–1743. Through uncovering fragments of women’s engagement with the institutional structure of medicine in London, this chapter aims to explore elements of women’s contributions to apothecarial practice and their roles in the custodianship and continuation of family businesses.