Daily AncestorMerchant tailor
A merchant tailor was a tailor who kept and sold the cloth for the suits and coats he made to measure in his own shop.
A merchant tailor kept and sold the materials for the garments he made, so he was both a shopkeeper and a craftsman. An ordinary tailor's shop of the period was run by a master with journeymen and apprentices under him, and a merchant tailor was usually such a master.
The title marks a business owner rather than a hired hand; London's old tailors' guild was itself called the Merchant Taylors.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1880 census
Chas. Lindner, 44, Merchant tailor, Prussia
Sources
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Daily Ancestor. "Merchant tailor." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/merchant-tailor. Last checked 2026-10-10.