Edmond's house is described in The Town of Cropredy: "Due to the extensive alterations and the loss of part of the western end it cannot be positively stated that Tanner's was definitely a long house type, but it was still built as a smallholding and the business side of the property was taken from the barn end. If this had three bays then the mercer's shop was next to the entry and the middle bay made into the first recorded brewhouse for Cropredy, while the third bay vanished for an entrance into the yard. The property was built facing south and had more farm land belonging to it than Huxeleys or Eldersons. The plot was also taken off the same A manor demesne close.
Edmund arrived in 1584, the same year Elderson was married and ten years after the Huxeleys. Did he replace an earlier shop or was this a new business? Tanners brew house was a great advantage when the rest of the town were still using the hall, or the rarer kitchen chimney. Had they decided to brew for the smaller cottages for they had nine barrels in the buttery? One of his most important buildings was the kill [kiln] house where the barley could be malted. It would also be another means of increasing his revenues by malting barley for others." (The Town of Cropredy)

Edmond's career is also discussed in The Town of Cropredy: “It was a different kind of situation when your whole business ran on credit. Edmond Tanner who had the mercer’s shop only favoured short term credit. The vicar had to advance the money against his parish clerk’s next quarterly wage and also his curate Mr. Man of Mollington, to satisfy the mercer’s demands. The debts due by the Tanner’s “Shopp booke” in 1630 were slight compared to others “Due from severall persons for wares as appeth by the shoppbook” £1-8s-4d.”  (The Town of Cropredy 1570-1640)

"How far did the mercer's trade extend to? He bought on credit, but having to pay this off to purchase more he would not wish to extend too much to his own customers. This was confirmed by his lack of trade debts, showing he did indeed supply very little credit in his shop. He asked the vicar to pay off Mr Man's (a curate) debts and those incurred by Wam Reade the parish clerk. The Revd Thomas Holloway wrote:

"Item payde to edmond tanner for the debtes of mr man the vth of october to b[e] repayd uppo. his wages at saynt Thomas day xs."
"Item payd to wam Reade for his debts the 3 of october wch he must repay me at saynt Thomas day next _____________________vs."

The debts due in Tanners shop book in 1630 were slight compared to others. "Due from severall persons for wares as appeth by the shoppe book" £1-8s-4d. Edmund died with £23 of ready money in his purse which was not a high amount in the 1630's. It was natural for a testator who lay dangerously ill to call in his bonds to pay off the debts. Margaret King had a grocers shop, but she was not able to control the credit as carefully as Tanner had. When she died in 1683 there were £40-9s8d of desperate debts and £30 of good debts owing. This was again a period when there was an acute shortage of "good English money" and the landlord's letters complain bitterly of arrears.

The first shops often used window boards as counters. Bakers, butchers and shoemakers opened only on the days they were not selling their wares at Banbury market. Tanner had a shop door and an inside counter. Mercers were principally sellers of silk and textiles, but in Cropredy his customers may have only brought more serviceable materials. Possibly bolts of material which Watt's and Hunt's woollen looms could not supply. On his counter he sold spills, candles, starch, sopetar, pitch and all other mercery wares. The goods he had in stock were worth £9.

Many mercers began life as licenced pedlars or roundsmen. Pedlars needed to be strong young men able to carry a heavy pack. Many would purchase their stock in London and once an area had been developed they could afford a packhorse and perhaps later a second horse. Setting up house in a town and putting up a stall at the local market showed they were prospering. They took nonperishable goods out to their customers - pins, needles and thread being essential to the housewife. In the pack were trimmings of lace, leather laces, strong leather points, and various colourful garnishes. Clothes without buttons required tapes with points and these were essential items from the labourer to the vicar, especially when a gross of braid silk buttons were worth seven shillings at a mercers shop in Banbury belonging to John Vivers [MS.Will Pec.53/5/6: 1637]. Silk for the gentlemen and holland, cambrics and lawns for the women to sew. Ribbons for the girls, gloves, stomachers and girding for the men. Jewellery in the form of bracelets and brooches. A few if they were also chapmen would add the cheaper bibles and chapbooks. The last being too low in value to be found in the inventories. Had Edmund Tanner started out as a pedlar to earn his shop? Even though he sold tapes there was still a pedlar visiting Cropredy, because Thomas Holloway mentions both Edmund and a pedlar. It is not always clear from whom Thomas made the purchase. Did the pedlar sell wholesale to Tanner, or had Tanner to go and collect goods himself? If Tanner no longer went out to customers did he employ someone like James Ladd to work as his pedlar?"  (The Town of Cropredy)

Edward was an educated man: "Edward Tanner had received some education. He was called out to help with at least three wills, fourteen inventories and asked six times to be an overseer including once for Suttons and twice for the Robins. His first wife had no surviving children and she died after a long marriage of thirty-one years. How had they coped with this lack of children? Isabell was a Lamprey some of whom were also mercers...Edmond was in his fifties when he decided after only three months as a widower to marry Constance Tustin in November 1615. At last he was able to have children for six arrive over the next twelve years. Three daughters and two sons survived, but the Tanners like the Huxeleys and Eldersons do not remain in the town registers into the next century. Edmund Tanner left £5 to each of his five children. He had no freehold land and had apparently not entered any survivors onto the copyhold. His goods were shared amongst them. Constance would have the seven years left of the lease. These legacies were to be paid over to the overseers if his widow remarried. He expected the two boys to be bound apprentices. They could inherit at twenty-one, but the girls at eighteen or marriage. The girls had the eighteen napkins to share and all five had two pairs of sheets and a coverlet or blanket; the eldest boy having a pair of yellow blankets. The feather bed went to Edmond, and the other two beds (mattresses) to two daughters. Having then run out of mattresses, John had one coffer and the malt mill and Hannah two pewter platters and a porringer. This left the greatest brass pot and another pot to the boys, and the greatest brass kettle and two others to the girls. "My great chest" must go to the eldest daughter. As executrix the wife had the rest which included the main bedstead. John Clarson, clerk, and Edmund’s brother-in-law John Goodwyn both of Horley, were appointed as overseers. They had been married for fifteen years and Edmond must have been around seventy when he died. His youngest girl was buried two years later. Constance remained a widow for four years and then married Nehemiah Gardner who was only twenty-nine years old. Their marriage lasted for two years then Constance died leaving the children aged eleven, fourteen, sixteen, and twenty. Nehemiah lived on and married again, a marriage which lasted for thirty years and produced Samuel in 1645." (The Town of Cropredy)

Edmond died and was buried 6 September 1630 in Cropredy.




He left a will dated 7 August 1630: