industrious behaviour, but in a poor and low condition, and so not able to support the charge of defending an indictment against him for baking for hire (he having once taken a halfpenny for baking a neighbour’s loaf) and has a great charge of children whom he has hitherto brought up to hard work and industrious labour, who otherwise might have been a charge to the parish, and will be forced to crave the relief of the parish, to defray the charge that may ensue upon this trouble given him by a presentment.”[477] Footnote 475: Atkinson, (J. C.), _Yorks. N. R. Q.S. Records_, Vol. I., p. 81. July 8, 1607. Footnote 476: _Hertford Co. Records_, Vol. I, p. 32, 1600. Footnote 477: _Hertford County Records_, Vol. I., p. 365, 1686. The line taken by the authorities was evidently intended to keep the trade of baking in a few hands. The object may have been partly to facilitate inspection and thereby check short measure and adulteration; whatever the motive the effect must certainly have tended to discourage women from developing the domestic art of baking into a trade. Consequently in this, as in other trades, the woman’s contribution to the industry generally took the form of a wife helping her husband, or a widow carrying on her late husband’s business. _Millers_:—It was probably only as the wife or widow of a miller that women took part in the business of milling. An entry in the Carlisle Records states “we amercye Archilles Armstronge for keeping his wief to play the Milner, contrary the orders of this cyttie.”[478] But it is not unusual to come across references to corn mills which were in the hands of women; a place in Yorkshire is described as being “near to Mistress Lovell’s Milne.”[479] “Margaret Page, of Hertingfordbury, widow,” was indicted for “erecting a mill house in the common way there,”[480] and at Stockton “One water corne milne ... is lett by lease unto Alice Armstrong for 3 lives.”[481] Footnote 478: Ferguson, _Carlisle_, p. 278. April 21, 1619. Footnote 479: J. C. Atkinson, _Yorks. N. R. Q.S. Records_, Vol. II., p. 8, 1612. Footnote 480: _Hertford County Records_, Vol. II., p. 25, 1698. Footnote 481: Brewster, _Stockton-on-Tees_, p. 42. Such instances are merely a further proof of the activity shown by married women in the family business whenever this was carried on within their reach.