[Ads-l] DUDDERS and Run Goods

[Robin Hamilton]

In a previous message, I said:

    “DUDDER -- a person who goes into the country and pawns (possibly stolen) goods, or clothes, pretending they were made in London.”

Actually, I got this backwards.  Poulter has an extended discussion of Dudders elsewhere in the _Discoveries_, from which we can deduce that such people passed-off London-made handkerchiefs as if they were high-quality East India ware. As George correctly noted in his original post, “Goods made in London” implies inferior material.  Rather than being associated with clothes (“Duds”) generally, they seem to have dealt exclusively with handkerchiefs – or so both Moll King in 1747 and John Poulter in 1753 would have us understand.

The common element to all three figures that Poulter names – Lockers, Dudders, and Fencers – is that they pass-off as smuggled goods, things which were either stolen or inferior.  Tea was exceptionally highly taxed, and as a result would probably have been stolen in London and sold by the Fencer of Slops in the country.  The Dudders’ handkerchiefs were cheap goods passed off as quality material.

Robin Hamilton

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