An Education in Comfort: Indian Textiles and the Remaking of English Homes over the Long Eighteenth Century

In 1696, an anonymous English merchant ‘J.F.’ produced a small volume, The Merchant’s Warehouse Laid Open: Or, the Plain Dealing Linnen-Draper. He dedicated this book to Princess Ann of Denmark.1 The encomium he offered the princess speaks to J.F.’s political proclivities; he evidently supported the insurgent Protestant Whig dynasty now on England’s throne. Perhaps he was also one of the newly rich that had profited from Whig political connections, as commerce was of high concern to the new regime. J.F. was certainly a seasoned commercial man, well versed in the international traffic in textiles, both goods produced in Europe and those transported from Asia by English fleets. The East India Company specialised in the importation of Indian textiles to Europe after 1660 and J.F. clearly responded to the local retail changes that resulted from this project.2 The volume he wrote was slim but its ambitions were large and reflect the transformational processes under way in England’s markets and English homes, as more varieties and larger quantities of cloth were purchased and employed in studied ways. The transmission of quilts and quilt culture illustrate this material innovation. Indian quilts modelled a new form of comfort, being striking visual and sensual additions that demanded new skills in textile management, such as J.F. aimed to provide. Learning to consume successfully and attending to the new material culture of the home are the focuses of this chapter.