Chairs to mend (Soho Square)

Image of a woman carrying a baby and materials for mending chairs in Soho Square. Published as part of a series of thirty-one prints after drawings by William Marshall Craig and engraved by Edward Edwards. See Summary at record 35.96.
Mending chairs was a family business or carried out in partnership; labour was divided between carrying the bundle of rush and collecting the faulty chairs, and the actual repair work that was carried out with the repairer seated on the pavement. Small repairs were charged between fourpence and one shilling, while covering a whole chair cost between eighteen pence and half a crown, depending on the quality of the rush and the required precision of workmanship. It was necessary to settle the price before commissioning the job to avoid overcharging (Itinerant Traders of London. Description of the Plates, representing the itinerant traders of London in their ordinary costume, with Notices of the remarkable places given in the background. London, 1804).