Draper

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For other uses, see Draper (disambiguation).

Draper is the now largely obsolete term for a merchant in cloth or dry goods, though often used specifically for one who owns or works in a draper's shop or store. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. The drapers were an important trade guild.

A number of prominent people were at one time or another drapers:

• Margaret Bondfield
• John Lewis
• Anthony Munday
• H. G. Wells
• George Williams, founder of the YMCA
• Edward Whalley, regicide, cousin of Oliver Cromwell

In 1724 Jonathan Swift wrote, in the guise of a draper, The Drapier's Letters, a series of satirical essays.

[edit] See also

• Haberdasher
• Millinery
• Worshipful Company of Drapers