ABSTRACT
Changes in the structure, organization and location of retail facilities are stimulated by changes in population, per capita income and consumer mobility. Increasing economic and urban growth leads to the concentration of purchasing power, which favours the establishment and growth of permanent markets and craftsmen-retailers operating from fixed shops. Fairs had ceased to be major centres of exchange, and craft guilds had lost all power over the rapidly emerging class of shopkeepers. Urbanization also boosted the importance of itinerant traders, whose numbers increased significantly after 1830 and continued to rise throughout the rest of the century. The rural fringes, particularly south-west England, had by far the lowest proportions of itinerant traders, a situation further intensified by an absolute decline in the established country trade. The majority of rural hawkers and pedlers operated on a larger scale than their urban counterparts, and unlike urban hawkers they took out a licence.
