MERCER (OCCUPATION)

The term 'Mercer' for a kind of trader is now largely obsolete. Mercers were formerly merchants or traders who dealt in cloth, typically fine cloth that was not produced locally. However inventories of mercers in small towns suggest that many were shopkeepers who dealt in various other dry commodities, not only cloth.
Related occupations include draper and cloth merchant, while clothier historically referred to someone who manufactured cloth, often under the domestic system.