Elizabeth Kirkeby was a 15th-century English goldsmith and merchant.[1][2]

She was born in London to an artisan family and married John Kirkeby, a goldsmith who died in 1482.

With his death, Elizabeth took over her late husband's business and managed it as her own. She manufactured and sold gold pieces, and subsequently expanded to open a mercantile shop and a shipping firm.[1] She never remarried, which in the law of the time would have meant becoming a minor and giving up her business to her new spouse. She employed many assistants, especially to act as her business agents in her transactions on the European Continent.

She was one of the wealthiest women in London when she died.

References

  1. 1 2 Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah, eds. (2006). "Kirkeby, Elizabeth (fl. 1482)". Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages.
  2. ↑ McSheffrey, Shannon (2013-04-23). Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-0397-4.
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