Personal expense ledger of Elizabeth Motley Austen : Wilmington, near Dartford, Kent, 1772-1782.

The ledger is titled "MY OWN EXPENCE BOOK E. A. 1772" and lists everything the well-off late eighteenth-century young woman would need, including luxuries and necessities of dress, materials, the toilette. The expense book provides an insight into the nature of business conducted with surrounding tradespeople. Transactions include the purchase of such items as: buttons, hair dressing, bleeding, perfume (the accounts include many items which would mitigate stench), a print, an oratorio, a play, valerian, cap and ribbon, stockings, hats, a gown, shoes (a pair of "black and silver worked shies"), a "Tambour," smelling bottle, "white Tabbay stays," nosegay, scissors (spelled "sissars"), expenses for a month spent in Brighton, and a "half-mourning hat." Increasingly through the record the children, as they are born, are the objects of her spending - on shoes (frequently), hats, night shirts, "Franks washing at Se[ve]naoak[?]," hair dressing, "a bonnet for Eliza," "pocket hankies," and many other items. The increasing spending on children may account for the rise in Elizabeth Motley Austen's annual expenses from £68.0.51/2 in 1772 to £202.14.9 in 1782.