18th Century Wallets

Last updated: Jan 5, 2024

Wallets can be sewn from heavyweight linen or hemp using a fairly simple pattern. In the 18th century, these sacks were used for carrying bundles of goods. A Pocket Dictionary (1758) defines a wallet as “A travelling bag, with the mouth or entrance in the middle, to carry goods in each end.”

For examples from the 13th-16th centuries, see the page on wallets and shoulder-sacks elsewhere on this website; this detail from The Thames at Richmond (early 17th century) shows a woman carrying a similar bag over her forearm.

• Monſ^r Vulture, 1737-1742 (may be more of a conventional sack)
• A beggar with a staff and wallet drawn by Paul Sandby in 1746 after an illustration in Abraham Blomaert’s drawing book
• London Cries: Man with a bundle, Old Clothes by Paul Sandby
• Mop sellers by Paul Sandby, 1759
• Raggs or old Cloaths from the Cries of Dublin, 1760
• The Female Bruisers by John Collet, 1768 (may be a conventional sack, though)
• L’homme à la besace by Françoise Duparc, 1778

On a related note, from the 1728 Royal Dictionary:

• A male street trader by Thomas Bewick, 1780 (may just be a conventional sack)
• Inhabitants of Västergötland by C.W. Swedman, c. 1780-1840
• An Engagement in Billingsgate Channel, between the Terrible and the Tiger, two First Rates, 1781
• A Mendicant, 1790
• Le Villageois by Louis-Marin Bonnet
• Cries of London: Buy a Trap, a Rat Trap by Thomas Rowlandson, 1799

The Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center has a pair of market wallets made by Lydia Schultz in 1841 – 1926.03.01 and 2006.14.01. Both are made from bleached plainwave linen with embroidery in red silk.

Wallets and their contents from the Proceedings of the Old Bailey

Wallets, Pillowcases and Bags: Accounts during and closely associated with the era of the American Revolution, 1775-1782 has a thorough collection of descriptions of what wallets were used to carry. Following are an assortment of additional descriptions from English court records.

• February 27, 1712: “They were a second time indicted for stealing 2 Geese, value 2 s. and one Gander, value 2 s. 6 d. the Goods of Dorothy Gibb, at the same time and place. Both the Prosecutors swore to the Loss of their Goods; and the Prisoners being stopt by St. Giles’s Watch, they were found upon’em in a Wallet. They had little to say, but that the Goods were dead when they found ’em.”
• February 4, 1722: “The Constable deposed, that when he was searched, they found a large Wallet about him, with a Tinder Box, Flint, Steel, Matches, a Gimblet, Knife and Pick-lock-key: all which were produced in Court. The prisoner in his defence said, he carried the Wallet to put Carrots in, which he was then sent to buy, but being pursued by the Bailiffs, he jumpt over the Wall to hide himself.”
• October 11, 1732: “What was in your Wallet when the Women took it away?” “I had a large Parcel of Stockings, I can’t remember how many Pair; but I can be positive to 7 Pair of fine Hose in particular, which stood me in 4 s. 6 d. a Pair prime cost.”
• May 7, 1742: “When we came to look in the Wallet for the forty Shillings, we were extreamly surprized and disappointed, to find nothing in them but a Piece of brown Bread, and a Piece of Cheese.”
• July 3, 1751: “He had got a wallet on his shoulder, I ask’d him what he had got in it, he said, victuals. Then Mr. Morgan call’d out of a window, and ask’d, what was the matter. He said, I had stop’d him. I said, I thought he had things about him that did not belong to him: then I took him back to the Bull and Gate, saying, if you are clear I will call for a pot of beer. When we came there he said, don’t make a noise, I have got three ducks in my wallet, and I am a poor man. Then I took him to the constable, and heard Mrs. Bury describe them before we took them out of the wallet.”
• May 26, 1757: “We opened the wallet, in which we found a pair of stone buttons, a cap and a shirt.”
• May 30, 1759: “The prisoner work’d in my house, for fifteen or sixteen months, for Mr Wilberham, he had a wallet hung up behind his loom. My husband in looking for a buckle that was missing, he came to me and said, he saw five bobbins in the wallet. I went to make this man’s bed, I felt in the wallet, and found it of a great weight, I took out one bobbin. On the next day, my son, the prisoner, and others, went out in the evening; then I bolted the street-door, and went and took down this wallet, and in a napkin were twenty bobbins of silk, some white, some orange, and some pale yellow. I compared the mark of the bobbins, with that mark of those that hung upon his work. After that, I let it pass on ’till the twenty-fifth of February, then my husband and I were alone; I put my hand in the wallet, and found two bobbins that came between the Monday and Thursday.”
• February 19, 1772: “There was about 300 l. worth of lace sent up in three wooden boxes … the boxes were in the wallet.”