harpoon shot from a gun, patented a spinning machine whereby
carded wool or cotton was joined together to make a long and
narrow mass. One end of this mass was drawn in between a pair of
rotating rollers, of which one surface was smooth and the other
rough, indented, or covered with leather, cloth, shagg, hair,
brushes, or points of metal. From here, the mass went between
another set of rollers, which were moving faster than the first
pair. This stretched the mass and drew it into any degree of
fineness of thread by adjusting the speed of the second pair of
rollers. Then the thread went by a flier, which twisted it. After
this the thread was wound off onto spindles or bobbins, whose
rotation was regulated by the faster pair of rollers. Or the mass
could be drawn by rotating spindles directly from one pair of
rollers. This machine was worked by two donkeys and was tended by
ten female workers. Because of bankruptcy in 1742, the invention
was sold to Edward Cave, the editor of "Gentleman's Magazine". He
set up a workshop with five machines, each fitted with fifty
spindles and worked by water wheels. Carding was done by
cylindrical carding machines invented by Lewis Paul.
In 1764, the plant was bought by carpenter and weaver James
Hargreaves. His work with it resulted in his invention of the very
successful spinning jenny, which was patented about 1770. He
conceived the idea by watching a spinning wheel that had been
knocked over lying on its side and still revolving for a few
seconds, while the thread, held between two fingers, seemed to go
on spinning itself. The machine consisted of a rectangular frame
on four legs. At one end was a row of vertical spindles. Across
the frame were two parallel wooden rails, lying close together,
which were mounted on a sort of carriage and slid backwards and
forwards as desired. The cotton, which had been previously carded,
stretched, and twisted passed between the two rails and then was
wound on spindles. With one hand the spinner worked the carriage
backwards and forwards, and with the other he turned the handle
which worked the spindles. In this way, the thread was drawn and
twisted at the same time. No longer did it take ten spinners to
keep one weaver busy. But manufacturers refused to pay him
royalties for his invention. He was offered 3,000 pounds for his
rights in the jenny, but refused it. The courts held that the
model of his jenny had been used in industry before it was
patented and any rights he may have had were declared to have
lapsed. Nevertheless, he made over 4,000 pounds. The spinning
jenny was used in many homes.
Richard Arkwright, came from a poor family and was taught to read
by an uncle. He became a barber and made wigs. Although he was not
a craftsman of any sort, he patented in 1769 a spinning frame
worked by water power and erected the first practical cotton mill
factory. It produced a much stronger thread than could have been
made with a spinning wheel. With capital from two rich hosiers, he
set up a workshop next to a swift and powerful river running down
a narrow gorge. Then he turned his attention to weaving this
thread. In 1773, he set up weaving workshops making pure cotton
calicoes which were as good as Indian calicoes. But there was a
statute of 1721, that no one may wear or use printed, painted,
stained or dyed calicoes e.g. in apparel, bed, chair, cushion,
window curtain, furniture, except those dyed all in blue, or
forfeit 20 pounds by a seller, 5 pounds by a wearer, and 20 pounds
by other users. This prohibition was to provide wool working jobs
to the poor, who had been increasing excessively because of lack
of work. A clarification was made in 1735 that the statute did not
include printed or painted cloth made of an all linen warp (for
strength) and a cotton weft (for fineness) manufactured in Great
Britain because such was a branch of the ancient fustian
manufacture. There was also a statute of 1720, that any one who
willfully and maliciously assaults a person in the public streets
or highways with an intent to tear, spoil, cut, burn, or deface
the garments or clothes of such person and carries this out is
guilty of felony and may be transported for seven years. This was
the way the wool weavers had expressed their opposition to
imported printed cottons and calicoes. The prohibition against the
manufacture and wearing and using of pure cotton fabrics came to
an end in 1774 on arguments of Arkwright made to Parliament that
his pure cottons would bleach, print, wash and wear better than
fustians. This was the first all cotton cloth made in England.
In 1775, Arkwright added machines to do work prefatory to
spinning. Raw cotton was first fed by a sloping hose to a feeder
that was perpetually revolving. From here it went a carding
machine of three rollers of different diameters covered with bent
metal teeth. The first, with teeth bent in the direction of its
revolution, caught up the cotton fibers. The second, revolving in
the same direction but much faster, carded the fibers into the
requisite fineness by contact with the third, whose teeth and
motion were in the opposite direction. Next, a crank and comb
detached the carded cotton so that it came off as a continuous
ribbon. Then the ribbon went into a revolving cone, which twisted
it on itself. Eventually Arkwright became rich from his creation
of the modern factory, which was widely imitated. He established
discipline in his mills and he made his presence felt everywhere
there, watching his men and obtaining from them the steadiest and
most careful work. He provided housing and services to attract
workers.
After cotton, the inventions of the spinning jenny and the water-
powered frame were applied to wool. Silk and cotton manufacture
led the way in using new machinery because they were recently
imported industries so not bound down by tradition and legal
restraint. Yarn production so improved that weavers became very
prosperous. Cards with metal teeth were challenging the use of
wood and horn cards with thistles in carding wool. Merchants who
traveled all over the world and saw new selling opportunities and
therefore kept encouraging the manufacturers to increase their
production and improve their methods. Factory owners united to
present suggestions to Parliament.
Manufacturing broke loose from traditional confines in several
ways. To avoid the monopolistic confines of chartered towns, many
entrepreneurs set up new industries in Birmingham or Manchester,
which grew enormously. Manchester had no municipal corporation and
was still under the jurisdiction of a manor court. It sent no
representative to the House of Commons. All over the country the
Justices of the Peace had largely ceased regulating wages,
especially in the newer industries such as cotton, where
apprenticeship was optional. Apprenticeship lapsed in many
industries, excepting the older crafts. Several legal decisions
had declared seven years practice of a trade as good as an
apprenticeship.
Apprentices still lived in their masters' houses and were still
treated as family members. The regulations of the Cutlers' Company
remained in force as its masters used their great manual skill to
make cutlery in their own homes with the help of their children
and apprentices. Trades in some towns which had guild regulations
that had the force of law hung on to their customs with
difficulty.
Although there were few large factories in the country under
effective management of a capitalist, trade unionism was beginning
as two distinct classes of men were being formed in factories. The
factory owner was so high above his workmen that he found himself
on the same level as other capitalists, the banker, who gave him
credit, and the merchant, who gave him customers. Journeymen in
factories could no longer aspire to become masters of their trade
and no longer socialized with their employers. Hard and fast rules
replaced the freedom of the small workshops. Each worker had his
allotted place and his strictly defined and invariable duty.
Everyone had to work, steadily and without stopping, under the
vigilant eye of a foreman who secured obedience by means of fines,
physical means, or dismissals. Work started, meals were eaten, and
work stopped at fixed hours, signaled by the ringing of a bell.
Factory hours were typically fourteen hours or more. Organized
resistance, as usual, began not with those most ill-treated, but
with those men who had some bargaining power through their skills.
Wool-combers, who worked next to a charcoal stove where they
heated the teeth of the comb, were the most skilled of the cloth
industry were hard to replace. Since they were nomadic, they
quickly organized nation-wide. They agreed that if any employer
hired a comber not in their organization, none of them would work
for him. They also would beat up and destroy the comb-pot of the
outsider. In 1720 and 1749, the Tiverton wool-combers objected to
the import of combed wool from Ireland by burning Irish wool in
clothiers' stores and attacking several houses. They had strike
funds and went on strike in 1749. Their bloody brawls caused the
military to intervene. Then many of them left town in a body,
harming the local industry. The earnings of wool-combers was high,
reaching from 10s. to 12s. a week in 1770, the highest rate of a
weaver.
In 1716, the Colchester weavers accused their employers of taking
on too many apprentices. When the weavers organized and sought to
regulate the weaving trade, a statute was passed in 1725 making
their combinations void. Strike offenses such as house-breaking
and destruction of goods or personal threats had penalties of
transportation for seven years. Still in 1728, the Gloucester
weavers protested against men being employed who had not served
their apprenticeship.
When the journeymen tailors in and around London organized, a
statute made their agreements entering into combinations to
advance their wages to unreasonable prices and to lessen their
usual hours of work illegal and void, because this has encouraged
idleness and increased the number of poor. Tailors' wages are not
to exceed 2s. per day and their hours of work are to be 6 a.m. to 8
p.m. for the next three months, and 1s.8d. per day for the rest of
the year. A master tailor paying more shall forfeit 5 pounds. A
journeyman receiving more shall be sent to the House of Correction
for 2 months. Justices of the Peace may still alter these wages
and hours depending on local scarcity or plenty. Despite this
statute, the journeymen tailors complained to Parliament of their
low wages and lack of work; their masters called them to work only
about half the year. There was much seasonal fluctuation in their
trade as there was in all trades. The slack period for the tailors
was the winter, when the people of fashion retired to their
country estates. After their complaint, their wages then rose from
1s.10d. per day in 1720, to 1s.8d.- 2s. in 1721, to 2s.- 2s.6d. in
1751, to 2s.2d.- 2s.6d. in 1763, to up to 2s.71/2 d. in 1767, and
to 3s. in 1775. Foremen were excluded from wage control. When they
complained of their long hours, which were two hours longer than
the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. of most handicraft trades, their hours were
reduced in 1767 by one hour to 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and their pay was
set at 6d. per hour for overtime work at night during periods of
general mourning, e.g. court mourning. Their work hours were
lowered to from 6 a.m to 6 p.m. in 1768.
The stocking frame-knitters guild, which had been chartered in
1663, went on strike to protest the use of workhouse children as
an abuse of apprenticeship which lowered their wages. They broke
many of their frames, which belonged to their employers, to limit
their number.
In 1749, combinations to advance wages, decrease hours of work, or
regulate prices were declared void for journeymen dyers,
journeyman hot pressers, all wool workers, brickmakers and
tilemakers, journeymen servants, workmen, laborers, felt and hat
makers, and silk, linen, cotton, iron, leather, and fur workers in
and around London. The penalty was prison or hard labor at a House
of Correction for three months without bail. In 1756, Justices of
the Peace were to determine the rates of wages of wool workers
according to numbers of yards. But this was repealed the next year
to prevent combinations of workers. Wage agreements between
clothiers and weavers were declared binding. Clothiers not paying
wages within two days of delivery of work shall forfeit 40s.
In 1763 the silk weavers in east London drew up a scale of wages,
and upon its being rejected, 2000 of them broke their tools,
destroyed the materials, and left their workshops. A battalion of
guards had to take possession of the area. In 1765, the silk
weavers marched on Westminster to stop the import of French silks.
In 1768, the weavers rebelled against a 4d. per yard reduction in
their wages, filling the streets in riotous crowds and pillaging
houses. After the garrison of the Tower came, the workmen resisted
with cudgels and cutlasses, resulting in deaths and woundings. The
throwsters [those who pulled the silk fibers from the cocoons of
the silk worms and twisted them together to make a thread] and the
handkerchief weavers also became discontent. A battle between
soldiers and silk weavers at their meeting place resulted in
several men on both sides being killed. In 1773, wages and prices
for the work of journeymen silk weavers in and around London are
to be regulated by the Mayor and Justices of the Peace. Foremen
were excluded. No silk weaver may have more than two apprentices
or forfeit 20 pounds. Journeymen weavers entering into
combinations shall forfeit 40s. This statute satisfied the
weavers, but they formed a union to ensure that it was carried
out.
In 1750, 1761, and 1765, there were strikes which stopped the work
of the coal industry and harbor at Newcastle for weeks. In 1763,
the keelmen formed a combination to force their employers to use
the official measure fixed by statute for the measurement of loads
of coals.
The book "Consideration upon the East-India Trade" dating from
1701 advocated free foreign trade. It argued that the import of
goods from India not only benefited the consumer but also the
nation, because it was a waste of labor to use it in producing
goods which could be bought cheap abroad. This labor could be
better put to use in new industries, at easily learned plain work.
Also the low cost of imported goods would motivate the invention
of machines in the nation which would be even more efficient in
manufacturing these goods. But English manufacturers were still
suspicious of free trade.
Making beer and distilling gin from barley were widespread. The
pastimes of gambling and drinking were popular with all classes.
In the trades, this was promoted by the uncertainties of life and
work and a general sense of instability. Many London tradesmen
started their day with a breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, the
traditional breakfast of countrymen. Gambling and dissipation
reduced some London men with good businesses to destitution, the
work house, or street begging. Drunken gentlemen played pranks
such as imitating a woman in distress or throwing a person in a
horse trough. Some innkeepers had "straw houses" where customers
who were so drunk they were unable to walk home could sleep in
fresh straw. A person could get drunk for a few pence. Gambling
with cards was a popular pastime after dinner. Cricket matches
were played by all classes instead of just by humbler people;
there were county cricket matches. Gentlemen often took their
coachmen with them to public events such as cricket matches.
Tennis was a sport of the wealthy classes. Billiards, chess, and
games with cards or dice were played, especially in alehouses.
There was horse racing on any open ground to which people brought
their horses to race. Jockeys tried to unseat each other. Hunting
of rabbits and then foxes replaced deer hunting. Bird and duck
hunting was usually with flint lock guns instead of hawks, as the
hedges provided cover from hawks. There was fishing with line,
hook, and bait. Watching the hanging of felons, about 35 a year in
London, was popular, as was going to Bedlam to watch for a fee the
insane being flogged. People went to the Tower to try to get a
glance at a famous prisoner looking through a window or taking a
walk along the battlements. Besides the grand pleasure gardens for
gentry, there were lesser pleasure gardens in London for working
families, which offered fresh air, tea, beer, swimming, fishing,
courting, bowling, and cheap entertainment. Running, vaulting, and
leaping were still popular in the countryside. Fairs had
amusements such as fire swallowers, ventriloquists, puppet shows,
acrobats, jugglers, animal performances, pantomimes, boxing,
dwarfs, and albinos, but less trading. In 1769 was the first
circus. Circuses included feats of horsemanship and clowns. There
was also eating and drinking competitions, foot races, football,
archery, some wrestling, and some bowling on greens or alleys. In
winter there was ice skating with blades and sliding. The right of
public access to St. James Park became entrenched by the 1700s.
There was sailing, rowing, swimming, and hopscotch. George III
made sea-bathing popular and it was supposed to be good for one's
health. There was steeple chasing as of 1752. Horse-racing was
given rules. On Sunday, there was no singing, music playing,
dancing, or games, but the Bible was read aloud, prayers were
said, and hymns were sung. Sabbath-breakers were fined by
magistrates. Men often spent Sunday in a tavern.
In general, commodity prices were stable. But when harvests were
poor, such as in 1709 when there was famine, and between 1765 and
1775, bread prices rose. The price of wheat in London, which since
1710 had been between 25s. and 45s., rose to 66s. in 1773. Then
the poor engaged in food riots. These riots were often accompanied
by burning; looting of grain mills, shops, and markets; and mob
violence. The English economy was so dependent on foreign trade,
which had trebled since the 1710s, that the slightest disturbance
in the maritime trade threatened the English with starvation. In
many localities the men in need of parochial relief were sent
around from one farm to another for employment, part of their
wages being paid from the poor rates. The poor often went from
parish to parish seeking poor relief. Settled people tended to
fear wandering people. Parishes sought to keep down their poor
rates by devices such as removing mothers in labor lest the infant
be born in the parish. So a statute was passed that a child born
to a wandering woman may not have the place of birth as his
settlement, but takes the same settlement as his mother. Some
farmers hired laborers for only fifty one weeks and some
apprentices were bound by means other than indenture so that they
could not establish settlement in that parish. Laborers who came
to work in industries were refused settlement and sent back to
their original parishes whenever they seemed likely to become
dependent on the rates. Statutes then provided that a parish must
give settlement to apprentices bound for forty days there, not
only by indenture, but by deed, writings, or contracts not
indented. In 1722, parishes were authorized to purchase houses in
which to lodge or employ the poor and to contract with any person
for the lodging, keeping, maintaining, and employing of the poor.
These persons could take the benefit of the work, labor, and
service of these poor, which would be used for the relief of other
poor. The poor refusing such lodging could not then get relief.
Many of the poor starved to death. The propertied classes turned a
blind eye to the predicament of the poor, opining that they were
idle or could save more and did not need higher earnings.
Charitable organizations gave to the poor and set up all day
Sunday schools to set wayward children on a moral path. The Sunday
schools could accommodate children who worked during the week.
Punishment of children by parents or others could be by whipping
or even sitting in stocks. About half of the people were dependent
on poor relief or charities.
Desertion by a man of his family was a common offense. Parishes
providing upkeep for the family sent men to find the errant
husbands. The parish would ask unmarried mothers who was the
father of their child and then force him to marry her or pay for
the upkeep of the child. He often made a bargain with the parish
to release him of his obligation for a sum of money paid to the
parish. But many young parish children died of neglect, and later,
parishes were required to list children under four to aid in
accounting for them. Divorces were still few and expensive, but
increasing in number; there were more 60 in this period. It was
easier for a man to get a divorce for one act of adultery by his
wife, than for a wife to get one for habitual unfaithfulness.
Vagrants and other offenders could be committed to Houses of
Correction as well as to county gaols, because of the expense of
the latter.
Crime was exacerbated by orgies of liquor drinking by the common
people, especially between 1730 and 1750, the sale of which did
not have to be licensed as did ale. In 1736, it was required that
retailers of brandy, rum, and other distilled spirituous liquors
be licensed and to pay 50 pounds a year for their license, because
excessive use had been detrimental to health, rendering persons
unfit for useful labor and business, debauching their morals, and
inciting them to vices. Only persons keeping public victualling
houses, inns, coffee houses, alehouses or brandy shops who
exercised no other trade were allowed to obtain a license. This
excluded employers who had sold liquors to their journeymen,
workmen, servants, and laborers at exorbitant prices. Street
vendors who sold liquors had to forfeit 10 pounds. A duty of 20s.
per gallon was imposed on the retailers. There were riots in
London against this statute and its new duties. There had been a
tremendous growth in liquor drinking, which did not stop but went
underground after this statute. In 1753, a penalty of 10 pounds or
hard labor for two months was made for selling spirituous liquors
without a license. Also licenses were restricted to people who
were certified by four reputable and substantial householders to
be of good fame and sober life and conversation. Sellers had to
maintain good order in their premises or forfeit 10 pounds. About
1754 only innkeepers, victuallers, and vendors paying rent of at
least 200 shillings could sell gin at retail. The punishment for
the second offense was whipping and imprisonment. That for the
third offense was transportation. About 1754 only innkeepers,
victuallers, and vendors paying rent of at least 200 shillings
could sell gin at retail. The punishment for the second offense
was whipping and imprisonment. That for the third offense was
transportation. In 1751, additional duties were placed on
spiritual liquors to discourage immoderate drinking going on by
people of the meanest and lowest sort to the detriment of the
health and morals of the common people. In 1761, these duties were
again raised. In 1768, officers were authorized to seize all
horses, cattle, and carriages used to transport foreign spirituous
liquors for which duties had been evaded. In 1773, the penalty for
selling without a license was raised to 50 pounds, which could not
be mitigated below 5 pounds. Half the forfeiture was to go to the
suer.
The informer system for enforcing laws had its drawbacks.
Informers were not trained and were sometimes retaliated against
for informing. Sometimes this meant being tortured to death.
Sometimes there were schemes in which a leader of thieves, would
take a profit in the stolen goods by posing as a good citizen who
tracked down and returned them to the owners for a fee. Also he
might inform on his companions to get the reward for informing or
to punish a troublesome one. Sometimes the owner of goods was
involved in a fake robbery. An effort in 1749 to turn the whole
haphazard system of informers, into a specialized organization for
the detection and apprehension of criminals had caused a mob to
form and make threats; Englishmen associated a police force with
French tyranny. Nevertheless, about 1750, Sir John Fielding, a Bow
Street magistrate, and his half-brother picked men to police the
street under the direct control of the Bow Street magistrates.
This first police district made an impact on the increasing
violence of the times. In 1753, a proposal before Parliament to
have a national census was also defeated by public fear of liberty
being curtailed by having to make account of the number and
circumstances of one's family and giving out information that
could be used by enemies both in the realm and abroad.