TEXTILES.
(A) _Introductory._ Historical importance in women’s economic
development—Predominance of women’s labour—Significance in
development of Industrialism—Low wages.
(B) _Woollen Trade._ Historical importance—Proportions of men
and women employed—Early experiments in factory system
abandoned—Declining employment of women in management and
control—Women Weavers—Burling—Spinning—Organization of spinning
industry—Women who bought wool and sold yarn made more profit
than those who worked for wages—Methods of spinning—Class of
women who span for wages—Rates of wages—Disputes between
spinsters and employers—Demoralisation of seasons of
depression—Association of men and women in trade disputes.
(C) _Linen._ Chiefly a domestic industry—Introduction of
Capitalism—Increased demand caused by printing
linens—Attempt to establish a company—Part taken by
women—weaving—bleaching—spinning—Wages below subsistence
level—Encouragement of spinning by local authorities to
lessen poor relief—Firmin.
(D) _Silk._ _Gold and Silver._ Silk formerly a monopoly of
gentlewomen—In seventeenth century virtually one of the pauper
trades. Gold and Silver furnished employment to the poorest
class of women—Factory system already in use.
(E) _Conclusion._
FROM the general economic standpoint, the textile industries rank second
in importance to agriculture during the seventeenth century, but in the
history of women’s economic development they hold a position which is
quite unique. If the food supply of the country depended largely on the
work of women in agriculture, their labour was absolutely indispensable
to the textile industries, for in all ages and in all countries spinning
has been a monopoly of women. This monopoly is so nearly universal that
we may suspect some physiological inability on the part of men to spin a
fine even thread at the requisite speed, and spinning forms the greater
part of the labour in the production of hand-made textile fabrics.
It requires some effort of the imagination in this mechanical age to
realize the incessant industry which the duty of clothing her own family
imposed on every woman, to say nothing of the yarn required for the
famous Woollen Trade. The service rendered by women in spinning for the
community was compared by contemporaries to the service rendered by the
men who ploughed. “Like men that would lay no hand to the plough, and
women that would set no hand to the wheele, deserving the censure of
wise Solomon, Hee that would not labour should not eat.”[180]
Footnote 180:
_Declaration of the Estate of Clothing_, p. 2, 1613.
Textile industries fall into three groups: Woollen, Linen, and
Miscellaneous, comprising silk, etc. Cotton is seldom mentioned although
imported at this time in small quantities for mixture with linen.
The predominance of women’s labour in the textile trades makes their
history specially significant in tracing the evolution of women’s
industrial position under the influences of capitalism; for the woollen
trade was one of the first fields in which capitalistic organization
achieved conspicuous success.
The importance of the woollen trade as a source of revenue to the Crown
drew to it so much attention that many details have been preserved
concerning its development; showing with a greater distinctness than in
other and more obscure trades, the steps by which Capitalistic
Organization ousted Family Industry and the Domestic Arts. It is surely
not altogether accidental that Industrialism developed so remarkably in
two trades where the labour of women predominated—in the woollen trade
which in the seventeenth century was already organized on capitalistic
lines, and, one hundred years later, in the cotton trade.
Some characteristic features of modern Industrialism were absent from
the woollen trade in the seventeenth century. The work of men and women
alike was carried on chiefly at home, and thus the employment of married
women and children was unimpeded; nor are there any signs of industrial
jealousy between men and women, who on the contrary, stand by each other
during this period in all trade disputes. Nevertheless, the position of
the woman wage-earner in the textile trades was extraordinarily bad, and
this in spite of the fact that the demand for her labour appears nearly
always to have exceeded the supply. The evidence contained in the
following chapter shows that the wages paid to women in the seventeenth
century for spinning linen were insufficient, and those paid for
spinning wool, barely sufficient, for their individual maintenance, and
yet out of them women were expected to support, or partly support, their
children.
Possibly the persistence of such low wages throughout the country was
due in a measure to the convenience of spinning as a tertiary occupation
for married women. She who was employed by day in the intervals of
household duties with her husband’s business or her dairy and garden,
could spin through the long winter evenings when the light was too bad
for other work. The mechanical character of the movements, and the small
demand they make on eye or thought, renders spinning wonderfully adapted
to women whose serious attention is engrossed by the care or training of
their children. A comparison of spinster’s wages with those of
agricultural labourers, which were also below subsistence level, will
show however that such an explanation does not altogether meet the case.
The fact is that far from underselling the spinsters[181] who were
wholly dependent on wages for their living, it seems probable that the
women who only span for sale after the needs of their own households had
been supplied, received the highest rates of pay, just as the
husbandman, who only worked occasionally for wages, was paid better than
the labourer who worked for them all the year round, and whose family
depended exclusively on him. Disorganization and lack of bargaining
power, coupled with traditions founded upon an earlier social
organization, were responsible for the low wages of the spinsters. The
agricultural labourer was crippled in his individual efforts for a
decent wage because society persisted in regarding him as a household
servant. The spinster was handicapped because in a society which began
to assert the individual’s right to freedom, she had from her infancy
been trained to subjection.
Footnote 181:
Spinster in the seventeenth century is used in its technical sense and
refers equally to women who are married, unmarried or widows.
It must however be remembered that though a large part of the ensuing
chapter is concerned with spinsters and their wages, much, perhaps most,
of the thread spun never came into the market, but was produced for
domestic consumption. Thus we find all three forms of industrial
organisation existing simultaneously in these trades—Domestic Industry,
Family Industry, and Capitalistic Industry.
Domestic Industry lingered especially in the Linen Trade until machinery
made the spinning wheel obsolete, and Family Industry was still
extensively practised in the seventeenth century; but Capitalistic
Industry, already established in the Woollen Trade, was making rapid
inroads on the other branches of the Textile Trades.
Although Capitalism undermined the position of considerable economic
independence enjoyed by married women and widows in the tradesman and
farming classes, possibly its introduction may have improved the
position of unmarried women, and others who were already dependent on
wages; but such improvements belong to a later date. Their only
indication in the seventeenth century is the clearly proved fact that
wages for spinning were higher in the more thoroughly capitalistic
woollen trade, than in the linen trade. Further evidence is a suggestion
by Defoe that wages for spinning in the woollen trade were doubled, or
even trebled, in the first decade of the eighteenth century, but no sign
of this advance can be detected in our period.
B. _Woollen Trade._
The interest of the Government and of all those who studied financial
and economic questions, was focussed upon the Woollen Trade, owing to
the fact that it formed one of the chief sources of revenue for the
Crown. At the close of the seventeenth century woollen goods formed a
third of the English exports.[182]
Footnote 182:
Davenant (Inspector-General of Exports and Imports). _An account of
the trade between Greate Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Africa, Newfoundland etc., with the importations and
exportations of all Commodities, particularly of the Woollen
Manufactures, delivered in his reports made to the Commissioners for
Publick Accounts._ 1715, p. 71. Our general exports for the year 1699
are valued at £6,788,166, 17s. 6¼d. Whereof the Woollen Manufacture
for the same year are valued at £2,932,292, 17s. 6½d.
Historically the Woollen Trade has a further importance, due to the part
which it played in the development of capitalism. The manufacture of
woollen materials had existed in the remote past as a family industry,
and even in the twentieth century this method still survives in the
remoter parts of the British Isles; but the manufacture of cloth for
Foreign trade was from its beginning organized on Capitalistic lines,
and the copious records which have been preserved of its development,
illustrate the history of Capitalism itself.
It was estimated that about one million men, women and children were
exclusively employed in the clothing trade,—“all have their dependence
solely and wholly upon the said _Manufacture_, without intermixing
themselves in the labours of _Hedging_, _Ditching_, _Quicksetting_, and
others the works belonging to Husbandry.”[183]
Footnote 183:
_Proverb Crossed_, p. 8, 1677. See also _Case of the Woollen
Manufacturers of Great Britain_ which states that they are “the
subsistance of more than a Million of Poor of both sexes, who are
employed therein.”
In 1612 eight thousand persons, men, women and children were said to be
employed in the clothing trade in Tiverton alone.[184] While giving
933,966 hands as the number properly employed in woollen manufacture,
another writer says that women and children (girls and boys) were
employed in the proportion of about eight to one man.[185]
Footnote 184:
Dunsford. _Hist. Tiverton_, p. 408.
Footnote 185:
_Short Essay upon Trade_, p. 18, 1741.
Such figures must be taken with reserve, for the proportions of men and
women employed varied according to the quality of the stuff woven, and
pamphleteers of the seventeenth century handled figures with little
regard to scientific accuracy.[186] But the uncertainty only refers to
the exact proportion; there can be no doubt that the Woollen Trade
depended chiefly upon women and children for its labour supply.
Footnote 186:
The following estimates were made by different writers: out of 1187
persons supposed to be employed for one week in making up 1200 lbs.
weight of wool, 900 are given as spinners. (_Weavers True Case_, p.
42, 1714.)
One pack of short wool finds employment for 63 persons for one week,
viz: 28 men and boys: 35 women and girls who are only expected to do
the carding and spinning.
A similar pack made into stockings would provide work for 82 men and
102 spinners and if made up for the Spanish trade, a pack of wool
would employ 52 men and 250 women.
(Haynes (John) _Great Britain’s Glory_, p. 6, p. 8. 1715.)
For the student of social organization it is noteworthy that in the two
textile trades through which capitalism made in England its most
striking advances—the woollen trade, and in later years, the cotton
trade, the labour of women predominated,—a fact which suggests obscure
actions and reactions between capitalism and the economic position of
women, worthy of more careful investigation than they have as yet
received.
The woollen trade passed through a period of rapid progress and
development in the sixteenth century. It was then that the Clothiers of
Wiltshire and Somerset acquired wealth and fame, building as a memorial
for posterity the Tudor houses and churches which still adorn these
counties. Leland, writing of a typical clothier and his successful
enterprises and ambitions, describes at Malmesbury, Wiltshire “a litle
chirch joining to the South side of the _Transeptum_ of thabby chirch,
... Wevers hath now lomes in this litle chirch, but it stondith ... the
hole logginges of thabbay be now longging to one Stumpe, an exceding
riche clothiar that boute them of the king. This Stumpes sunne hath
maried Sir Edward Baynton’s doughter. This Stumpe was the chef causer
and contributer to have thabbay chirch made a paroch chirch. At this
present tyme every corner of the vaste houses of office that belongid to
thabbay be fulle of lumbes to weve clooth yn, and this Stumpe entendith
to make a stret or 2 for clothier in the bak vacant ground of the abbay
that is withyn the toune waulles.”[187]
Footnote 187:
Leland (John), _Itinerary_, 1535-1543; Part II, pp. 131-2.
There must have been a marked tendency at this time to bring the
wage-earners of the woollen industry under factory control, for a
description which is given of John Winchcombe’s household says that
“Within one room being large and long
There stood two hundred Looms full strong,
Two hundred men the truth is so
Wrought in these looms all in a row,
By evry one a pretty boy
Sate making quills with mickle joy.
And in another place hard by,
An hundred women merrily,
Were carding hard with joyful cheer
Who singing sate with voices clear.
And in a chamber close beside,
Two hundred maidens did abide,
In petticoats of Stammell red,
And milk-white kerchers on their head.”[188]
Footnote 188:
Lipson, _Econ. Hist. of England_, p. 420.
These experiments were discontinued, partly because they were
discountenanced by the Government, which considered the factory
system rendered the wage-earners too dependent on the clothiers; and
also because the collection of large numbers of workpeople under one
roof provided them with the opportunity for combination and
insubordination.[189] Moreover the factory system was not really
advantageous to the manufacturer before the introduction of power,
because he could pay lower wages to the women who worked at home
than to those who left their families in order to work on his
premises. Thus the practice was dropped. In 1603 the Wiltshire
Quarter Sessions published regulations to the effect that “Noe
Clotheman shall keepe above one lombe in his house, neither any
weaver that hath a ploughland shall keepe more than one lombe in his
house. Noe person or persons shall keepe any lombe or lombs goeinge
in any other house or houses beside their owne, or mayntayne any to
doe the same.”[190]
Footnote 189:
See _Weavers’ Act_, 1555.
Footnote 190:
_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 75, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._,
1603.
Few references occur to the wives of successful clothiers or
wool-merchants who were actively interested in their husband’s business,
though no doubt their help was often enlisted in the smaller or more
struggling concerns. Thus the names of three widows are given in a list
of eleven persons who were using handicrafts at Maidstone. “The better
sorte of these we take to bee but of meane ability and most of them
poore but by theire trade the poore both of the towne and country
adjoyning are ymploied to spynnyng.”[191]
Footnote 191:
_S.P.D._, cxxix, 45, Ap. 10, 1622, _Return of the Mayor_.
A pamphlet published in 1692 describes how in former days “the Clothier
that made the cloth, sold it to the merchant, and heard the faults of
his own cloth; and forc’d sometimes not only to promise amendment
himself, but to go home and tell _Joan_, to have the Wool better pick’d,
and the Yarn better spun.”[192]
Footnote 192:
_Clothier’s Complaint, etc._, p. 7, 1692.
A certain Rachel Thiery applied for a monopoly in Southampton for the
pressing of serges, and having heard that the suit had been referred by
the Queen to Sir J. Cæsar, the Mayor and Aldermen wrote, July 2, 1599,
to let him know how inconvenient the granting of the suit would be to
the town of Southampton.
I. Those strangers who have presses already would be ruined.
II. Many of their men servants (English and strangers) bred up to the
trade would be idle.
III. “The woeman verie poore and beggarlie, altogether unable to
performe it in workmanshipp or otherwise.... Againe she is verie idle, a
prattling gossipp, unfitt to undertake a matter of so great a charge,
her husband a poore man being departed from her and comorant in Rochell
these 11 yeres at least. She is verie untrustie and approoved to have
engaged mens clothes which in times past have been putt to her for
pressinge. Verie insufficient to answer of herself men’s goodes and
unable to procure anie good Caution to render the owners there goodes
againe, havinge not so much as a howse to putt her head in, insomuch as
(marvellinge under what coullour she doth seeke to attaine to a matter
of such weight) we ... should hold them worsse than madd that would
hazzard or comitt there goodes into her handes. And to conclude she is
generallie held amongest us an unfitt woeman to dwell in a well governed
Commonwealth.”[193]
Footnote 193:
Lansdowne, 161, fo. 127, 2nd July, 1599.
An incident showing the wife as virtual manager of her husband’s
business is described in a letter from Thomas Cocks of Crowle to Sir
Robert Berkely, Kt., in 1633. He writes complaining of a certain
Careless who obtained a licence to sell ale “because he was a surgeon
and had many patients come to him for help, and found it a great
inconvenience for them to go to remote places for their diet and drink,
and in that respect obtained a licence with a limitation to sell ale to
none but his patients ... but now of late especially he far exceeds his
bounds.... A poor fellow who professed himself an extraordinary carder
and spinner ... was of late set a work by my wife to card and spin
coarse wool for blankets and when he had gotten some money for his work
to Careless he goes.” Having got drunk there and coming back in the
early hours of the morning he made such a noise in the churchyard “being
near my chamber I woke my wife who called up all my men to go into the
churchyard and see what the matter was.”[194]
Footnote 194:
Bund (J. W. W.), _Worcestershire Records_, Vol. I., p. 530.
That Mrs. Cocks should engage and direct her husband’s workpeople would
not be surprising to seventeenth century minds, for women did so
naturally in family industry; but when capitalized, business tended to
drift away beyond the wife’s sphere, and thus even then it was unusual
to find women connected with the clothing trade, except as wage-earners.
Of the processes involved in making cloth, weaving was generally done by
men, while the spinning, which was equally essential to its production,
was exclusively done by women and children.
In earlier days weaving had certainly been to some extent a woman’s
trade. “Webster” which is the feminine form of the old term “Webber” is
used in old documents, and in these women are also specifically named as
following this trade; thus on the Suffolk Poll-Tax Roll are entered the
names of
“John Wros, shepherd.
Agneta his wife, webster.
Margery, his daughter, webster.
Thomas his servant and
Beatrice his servant.”
It appears also that there were women among the weavers who came from
abroad to establish the cloth making in England, for a Statute in 1271
provides that “all workers of woollen cloths, male and female, as well
of Flanders as of other lands, may safely come into our realm there to
make cloths ... upon the understanding that those who shall so come and
make such cloths, shall be quit of toll and tallage, and of payment of
other customs for their work until the end of five years.”[195]
Footnote 195:
Riley, _Chronicles of London_, p. 142.
Later however, women were excluded from cloth weaving on the ground that
their strength was insufficient to work the wide and heavy looms in use;
thus orders were issued for Norwich Worsted Weavers in 1511 forbidding
women and maids to weave worsteds because “thei bee nott of sufficient
powre to werke the said worsteddes as thei owte to be wrought.”[196]
Footnote 196:
Tingye, _Norwich Records_, Vol. II., p. 378.
Complaint was made in Bristol in 1461 that weavers “puttyn, occupien,
and hiren ther wyfes, doughters, and maidens, some to weve in ther owne
lombes and some to hire them to wirche with othour persons of the said
crafte by the which many and divers of the king’s liege people, likely
men to do the king service in his wars and in defence of this his land,
and sufficiently learned in the said craft, goeth vagrant and
unoccupied, and may not have their labour to their living.”[197]
Footnote 197:
_Little Red Book of Bristol_, Vol. II., p. 127.
At Kingston upon-Hull, the weavers Composition in 1490, ordained that
“ther shall no woman worke in any warke concernyng this occupacon wtin
the towne of Hull, uppon payn of xls. to be devyded in forme by fore
reherced.”[198]
Footnote 198:
Lambert, _2000 years of Gild Life_, p. 6.
A prohibition of this character could not resist the force of public
opinion which upheld the woman’s claim to continue in her husband’s
trade. Widow’s rights are sustained in the Weaver’s Ordinances
formulated by 25 Charles II. which declare that “it shall be lawfull for
the Widow of any Weaver (who at the time of his death was a free
Burgesse of the said Town, and a free Brother of the said Company) to
use and occupy the said trade by herselfe, her Apprentices and Servants,
so long as shee continues a Widow and observeth such Orders as are or
shalbe made to be used amongst the Company of Weavers within this Town
of Kingston-upon-Hull.”[199]
Footnote 199:
Lambert, 2000 _Years of Gild Life_, p. 210.
Even when virtually excluded from the weaving of “cloaths” women
continued to be habitually employed in the weaving of other materials. A
petition was presented on their behalf against an invention which
threatened a number with unemployment: “Also wee most humbly desire your
worship that you would have in remembrance that same develishe invention
which was invented by strangers and brought into this land by them,
which hath beene the utter overthrowe of many poore people which
heretofore have lived very well by their handy laboure which nowe are
forced to goe a begginge and wilbe the utter Destruccion of the trade of
weaving if some speedy course be not taken therein. Wee meane those
looms with 12, 15, 20, 18, 20, 24, shuttles which make tape, ribbon,
stript garteringe and the like, which heretofore was made by poore aged
woemen and children, but none nowe to be seene.”[200]
Footnote 200:
_S.P.D._, cxxi, 155, 1621.
The Rules of the Society of Weavers of the “Stuffs called Kiddirminster
Stuffes” required that care should be taken to have apprentices “bound
according to ye Lawes of ye Realme ... for which they shall be allowed
2s. 6d. and not above, to be payd by him or her that shall procure the
same Apprentice to be bound as aforesayd.”[201]
Footnote 201:
Burton, J. R., _Hist. of Kidderminster_, p. 175, _Borough Ordinances_,
1650.
John Grove was bound about the year 1655 to “the said George and Mary to
bee taught and instructed in the trade of a serge-weaver,” and a
lamentable account is given of the inordinate manner in which the said
Mary did beat him.[202]
Footnote 202:
_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III., pp. 268-9. 1655.
It is impossible from the scanty information available to arrive at a
final conclusion concerning the position of women weavers. Clearly an
attempt had been made to exclude them from the more highly skilled
branches of the trade, but it is also evident that this had not been
successful in depriving widows of their rights in this respect. Nor does
the absence of information concerning women weavers prove that they were
rarely employed in such work. The division of work between women and men
was a question which aroused little interest at this time and therefore
references to the part taken by women are accidental. They may have been
extensively engaged in weaving for they are mentioned as still numerous
among the handloom weavers of the nineteenth century.[203] Another
process in the manufacture of cloth which gave employment to women was
“Burling.” The minister and Mayor of Westbury presented a petition to
the Wiltshire Quarter Sessions in 1657 on behalf of certain poor people
who had obtained their living by the “Burling of broad medley clothes,”
three of whose daughters had now been indicted by certain persons
desirous to appropriate the said employment to themselves; they show
“that the said employment of Burling hath not been known to be practised
among us as any prentice trade, neither hath any been apprentice to it
as to such, but clothiers have ever putt theyr clothes to Burling to any
who would undertake the same, as they doe theyr woolles to spinning.
Also that the said imployment of Burling is a common good to this poore
town and parish, conducing to the reliefe of many poore families therein
and the setting of many poore children on work. And if the said
imployment of Burling should be appropriated by any particular persons
to themselves it would redound much to the hurt of clothing, and to the
undoing of many poore families there whoe have theyre cheife
mainteynance therefrom.”[204]
Footnote 203:
_Report of the Commissioners on the condition of the Handloom
Weavers_, 1841. x p. 323, _Mr. Chapman’s report_.
“The young weaver just out of his apprenticeship is perhaps as well
able to earn as he will be at any future period setting aside the
domestic comforts incidental to the married state, his pecuniary
condition is in the first instance improved by uniting himself with a
woman capable of earning perhaps nearly as much as himself, and
performing for him various offices involving an actual pecuniary
saving. A married man with an income, the result of the earnings of
himself and wife of 20s. will enjoy more substantial comfort in every
way than he alone would enjoy with an income of 15s. a week. This
alone is an inducement to early marriage. In obedience to this primary
inducement the weaver almost invariably marries soon after he is out
of his apprenticeship. But the improvement of comfort which marriage
brings is of short duration;.... About the tenth year the labour of
the eldest child becomes available.... Many men have depended on their
wives & their children to support themselves by their own earnings,
independent of his wages. The wives and children consequently took to
the loom, or sought work in the factories; and now that there is
little or no work in the district, the evil is felt, and the husband
is obliged to maintain them out of his wages.”
Footnote 204:
_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 135, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._,
1657.
It was not however the uncertain part they played in the processes of
weaving, burling or carding, which constituted the importance of the
woollen trade in regard to women’s industrial position. Their employment
in these directions was insignificant compared with the unceasing and
never satisfied demand which the production of yarn made upon their
labour. It is impossible to give any estimate of the quantity of wool
spun for domestic purposes. That this was considerable is shown by a
recommendation from the Commission appointed to enquire into the decay
of the Cloth Trade in 1622, who advise “that huswyves may not make cloth
to sell agayne, but for the provision of themselves and their famylie
that the clothiers and Drapers be not dis-coraged.”[205]
Footnote 205:
_Report of Commission of Decay of Clothing Trade_, 1622, Stowe, 554,
fo. 48b.
The housewife span both wool and flax for domestic use, but this aspect
of her industry will be considered more fully in connection with the
linen trade, attention here being concentrated on the condition of the
spinsters in the woollen trade. Their organization varied widely in
different parts of the country. Sometimes the spinster bought the wool,
span it, and then sold the yarn, thus securing all the profit of the
transaction for herself. In other cases she was supplied with the wool
by the clothier, or a “market spinner” and only received piece wages for
her labour. The system in vogue was partly decided by the custom of the
locality, but there was everywhere a tendency to substitute the latter
for the former method.
Statute I. Edward VI. chap. 6 recites that “the greatest and almost the
whole number of the poor inhabitants of the county of Norfolk and the
city of Norwich be, and have been heretofore for a great time maintained
and gotten their living, by spinning of the wool growing in the said
county of Norfolk, upon the rock [distaff] into yarn, and by all the
said time have used to have their access to common markets within the
said county and city, to buy their wools, there to be spun as is
aforesaid, of certain persons called retailers of the said wool by eight
penny worth and twelve penny worth at one time, or thereabouts, and
selling the same again in yarn, and have not used to buy, ne can buy the
said wools of the breeders of the said wools by such small parcels, as
well as for that the said breeders of the said wools will not sell their
said wools by such small parcels, as also for that the most part of the
said poor persons dwell far off from the said breeders of the said
wools.”[206]
Footnote 206:
James (John) _Hist. of Worsted_, p. 98.
During a scarcity of wool the Corporation at Norwich compelled the
butchers to offer their wool fells exclusively to the spinsters during
the morning hours until the next sheep-shearing season, so that the
tawers and others might not be able to outbid them.[207]
Footnote 207:
Tingye, _Norwich_, Vol II. xcvii, 1532.
It is suggested that nearly half the yarn used in the great clothing
counties at the beginning of the seventeenth century was produced in
this way: “Yarn is weekly broughte into the market by a great number of
poor people that will not spin to the clothier for small wages, but have
stock enough to set themselves on work, and do weekly buy their wool in
the market by very small parcels according to their use, and weekly
return it in yarn and make good profit, having the benefit both of their
labour and of their merchandize and live exceeding well.... So many that
it is supposed that more than half the cloth of Wilts., Gloucester and
Somersetshire is made by means of these yarnmakers and poor clothiers
that depend wholly on the wool chapman which serves them weekly for
wools either for money or credit.”[208]
Footnote 208:
_S.P.D._ lxxx., 13., Jan. 1615. _General Conditions of Wool and Cloth
Trade._
Apparently this custom by which the spinsters retained in their own
hands the merchandize of their goods still prevailed in some counties at
the beginning of the following century, for it is said in a pamphlet
which was published in 1741 “that poor People, chiefly Day Labourers,
... whilst they are employed abroad themselves, get forty or fifty
Pounds of Wool at a Time, to employ their Wives and Children at home in
Carding and Spinning, of which when they have 10 or 20 pounds ready for
the Clothier, they go to Market with it and there sell it, and so return
home as fast as they can ... the common way the poor women in
_Hampshire_, _Wiltshire_, and _Dorsetshire_, and I believe in other
counties, have of getting to Market (especially in the Winter-time) is,
by the Help of some Farmers’ Waggons, which carry them and their yarn;
and as soon as the Farmers have set down their corn in the Market, and
baited their Horses, they return home.... During the Time the waggons
stop, the poor Women carry their Yarn to the Clothiers for whom they
work; then they get the few Things they want, and return to the Inn to
be carried home again.... Many of them ten or twelve miles ... there
will be in Market time 3 or 400 poor People (chiefly Women) who will
sell their Goods in about an Hour.”[209]
Footnote 209:
_Remarks upon Mr. Webber’s scheme_, pp. 21-2, 1741.
According to this writer other women worked for the “rich clothier” who
“makes his whole year’s provision of wool beforehand ... in the winter
time has it spun by his own spinsters ... at the lowest rate for wages,”
or they worked for the “market spinner” or middleman who supplied them
with wool mixed in the right proportions and sold their yarn to the
clothiers. In either case the return for their labour was less than that
secured by the spinsters who had sufficient capital to buy their wool
and sell the yarn in the dearest market. When the Staplers tried to
secure a monopoly for selling wool, the Growers of wool, or Chapmen
petitioned in self-defence explaining “that the clothier’s poor are all
servants working for small wages that doth but keepe them alive, whereas
the number of people required to work up the same amount of wool in the
new Drapery is much larger. Moreover, all sorts of these people are
masters in their trade and work for themselves, they buy and sell their
materials that they work upon, so that by their merchandize and honest
labour they live very well. These are served of their wools weekly by
the wool-buyer.”[210]
Footnote 210:
_S.P.D._, lxxx., 15-16, Jan, 1615.
Opinion was divided as to whether the spinster found it more
advantageous to work direct for the Clothier or for the Market Spinner.
A proposal in 1693 to put down the middle-man, was advised against by
the Justices of Assize for Wiltshire, on the ground that it was “likely
to cause great reduction of wages and employment to the spinners and the
poor, and a loss to the growers of wool, and no advantage in the quality
of the yarn.”
The Justices say in their report: “We finde the markett spinner who
setts many spinners on worke spinnes not the falce yarn, but the poorer
sorte of people (who spinne theyr wool in theyr owne howses) for if the
markett spinners who spinne greate quantitys and sell it in the markett
should make bad yarne, they should thereby disable themselves to
maynetayne theyre creditt and livelyhood. And that the more spinners
there are, the more cloth will be made and the better vent for Woolls
(which is the staple commodity of the kingdome) and more poor will be
set on worke. The markett spinners (as is conceived) are as well to be
regulated by the lawe, for any falcity in mixing of theyr woolles as the
Clothier is, who is a great markett spinner himselfe and doth both make
and sell as falce yarne as any market spinner.... We finde the markett
spinner gives better wages than the Clothier, not for that reason the
Clothier gives for the falcity of the yarne, but rather in that the
markett spinners vent much of their yarne to those that make the dyed
and dressed clothes who give greater prizes than the white men do.”[211]
Footnote 211:
_S.P.D._, ccxliii., 23, July 23, 1633.
The fine yarn used by the Clothiers required considerable skill in
spinning, and the demand for it was so great in years of expansion that
large sums of money were paid to persons able to teach the mysteries of
the craft in a new district. Thus the Earl of Salisbury made an
agreement in 1608 with Walter Morrell that he should instruct fifty
persons of the parish of Hatfield, chosen by the Earl of Salisbury, in
the art of clothing, weaving, etc. He will provide work for all these
persons to avoid idleness and for the teaching of skill and knowledge in
clothing will pay for the work at the current rates, except those who
are apprentices. The Earl of Salisbury on his part will allow Walter
Morrell a house rent free and will pay him £100 per annum “for
instructing the fifty persons, to be employed in:—the buying of wool,
sorting it, picking it, dying it, combing it, both white and mingle
colour worsted, weaving and warping and quilling both worsted of all
sorts, dressing both woollen and stuffes, spinning woollen (wofe and
warpe), spinning all sortes of Kersey both high wheel and low wheel,
knitting both woollen and worsted.”[212]
Footnote 212:
_S.P.D._, xxxviii., 72, 73, Dec., 1608.
A similar agreement is recorded in 1661-2 between the Bailiffs and
Burgesses of Aldeburgh and “Edmund Buxton of Stowmarket, for his coming
to set up his trade of spinning wool in the town and to employ the poor
therein, paying him £50—for 5 years and £12—for expense of removing,
with a house rent free and the freedom of the town.”[213]
Footnote 213:
_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. IV., p. 311.
The finest thread was produced on the distaff, but this was a slow
process, and for commoner work spinning wheels were in habitual use—
“There are, to speed their labor, who prefer
“Wheels double spol’d, which yield to either hand
“A sev’ral line; and many, yet adhere
“To th’ ancient distaff, at the bosom fix’d,
“Casting the whirling spindle as they walk.”[214]
Footnote 214:
Dyer John., _The Fleece_, 1757.
The demands made on spinning by this ever expanding trade were supplied
from three sources: (1) the wives of farmers and other well to do
people, (b) the wives of husbandmen and (c) women who depended wholly on
spinning for their living, and who are therefore called here spinsters.
The first care of the farmers’ wives was to provide woollen stuffs for
the use of their families, but a certain proportion of their yarn found
its way to the market. The clothiers at Salisbury who made the better
grades of cloth were said to “buy their yarn of the finer kinds that
come to the market at from 17d the lb. to 2s. 4d, made all of the finer
sortes of our owne Welshire wool, and is spun by farmers’ wives and
other of the better sorte of people within their owne houses, of whose
names wee keep due Register and do write down with what cardes they
promise us their several bundles of yarne are carded, and do find such
people just in what they tell us, or can otherwise controule them when
wee see the proofe of our cloth in the mill, ... and also some very few
farmers’ wives who maie peradventure spinne sometimes a little of those
sortes in their own houses and sell the same in the markett and is verie
current without mixture of false wooll grease, etc.”[215]
Footnote 215:
_S.P.D._, cclxvii., 17, May 2, 1634. Certificate from Anthony Wither,
Commissioner of reformation of clothing.
Probably a larger supply of yarn came from the families of husbandmen
where wife and children devoted themselves to spinning through the long
winter evenings. Children became proficient in the art at an early age,
and could often spin a good thread when seven or eight years old. This
subsidiary employment was not sufficient to supply the demand for yarn,
and in the clothing counties numbers of women were withdrawn from
agricultural occupations to depend wholly upon their earnings as
spinsters.
The demand made by the woollen trade on the labour of children is shown
by a report from the Justices of the Peace of the Boulton Division of
the Hundred of Salford, ... “for apprentices there hath beene few found
since our last certificate by reason of the greate tradeing of fustians
and woollen cloth within the said division, by reason whereof the
inhabitants have continuall employment for their children in spinning
and other necessary labour about the same.”[216]
Footnote 216:
_S.P.D._, ccclxiv., 122, July, 1637.
Those who gave out the wool and collected the yarn were called market
spinners, but the qualifying term “market” is sometimes omitted, and
when men are referred to as spinners it may be assumed that they are
organising the work of the spinsters, and not engaged themselves in the
process of spinning.[217] Though the demand for yarn generally exceeded
the supply, wages for spinning remained low throughout the seventeenth
century. A writer in the first half of the eighteenth century who urges
the establishment of a nursery of spinners on the estate of an Irish
landlord admits that their labour is “of all labour on wools the most
sparingly paid for.”[218]
Footnote 217:
_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III., p. 56, 1648. _Complaint ... by ...
Thos Chambers, Randall Carde, Dorothy Palmer, Stephen Hodges and Wm.
Hurman, persons ymployed by Henry Denmeade servant to Mr. Thos. Cooke,
Clothier for the spinning of certen wool and convertinge it into yarne
and twistinge it thereof for the benefitt of the said Mr. Cooke that
theire wages for the same spinninge and twistinge had been deteyned
from them by the said Mr. Cooke ... it is ordered that the said Mr. C.
doe forthwith pay to the said Thos. Chambers the some of ffowerteene
shillings to the said Randall Carde the some of nyne shillings and
fower pence, to the said Dorothy Palmer the some of eighteen shillings
and one penny to the said Stephen Hodges the some of nyne shillings
and four pence and to the said Wm. Hurman the some of nyne shillings._
Footnote 218:
_Scheme to prevent the running of Irish wools to France_, p. 19.
Wages for spinning are mentioned in only three of the extant Quarter
Sessions’ Assessments, and it is not specified whether the material is
wool or flax:
1654. Devon. 6d. per week with meat and drink, or 1s. 4d. without them.
1688. Bucks. Spinners shall not have by the day more than 4d. without
meat and drink.
1714. Devon. 1s. per week with meat and drink, 2s. 6d. without them.
These rates are confirmed by entries in account books,[219] but it was
more usual to pay by the piece. Though it is always more difficult to
discover the possible earnings per day of women who are working by a
piece rate in their own homes, it so happens that several of the writers
who discuss labour questions in the woollen trade specially state that
their estimates of the wages of spinners are based on full time. John
Haynes quoted figures in 1715 which work out at nearly 1s. 6d. per week
for the spinners of wool into stuffs for the Spanish Trade, and about
2s. 11d. for stockings,[220] another pamphlet gives 24s. as the wages of
9 spinsters for a week,[221] while in 1763 the author of the “Golden
Fleece” quotes 2s. 3d. a week for Spanish wools.[222] Another pamphlet
says that the wages in the fine woollen trade “being chiefly women and
children, may amount, one with another to £6 per annum.”[223] A petition
from the weavers, undated, but evidently presented during a season of
bad trade, declares that “there are not less than a Million of poor
unhappy objects, _women and children only_, who ... are employed in
Spinning Yarn for the Woollen Manufacturers; Thousands of these have now
no work at all, and all of them have suffered an Abatement of Wages; so
that now a Poor Woman, perhaps a Mother of many Children, must work very
hard to gain Three Pence or Three Pence Farthing per Day.”[224]
Footnote 219:
(_Howard Household Book_, p. 63, 1613.) “Widow Grame for spinning ij
stone and 5ˡ of wooll vjs. To the wench that brought it iijid. To
Ellen for winding yarn iij weekes xviijid.”
(Fell, Sarah; _Household Accounts_, Nov. 28, 1677, p. 439.) “Pd. Agnes
Holme of Hawxhead foʳ spininge woole here 7 weeks 02.04.”
Footnote 220:
Haynes, _Great Britain’s Glory_, pp. 8, 9.
Footnote 221:
_Weavers’ True Case_, p. 43, 1719.
Footnote 222:
James, John, _Hist. of the Worsted Manufacture_, p. 239.
Footnote 223:
_Further considerations for encouraging the Woollen Manufactures._
Footnote 224:
_Second Humble Address from the Poor Weavers._
Though these wages provided no margin for the support of children, or
other dependants, it was possible for a woman who could spin the better
quality yarns to maintain herself in independence.
John Evelyn describes “a maiden of primitive life, the daughter of a
poore labouring man, who had sustain’d her parents (some time since
dead) by her labour, and has for many years refus’d marriage, or to
receive any assistance from the parish, besides yᵉ little hermitage my
lady gives her rent free: she lives on fourepence a day, which she gets
by spinning; says she abounds and can give almes to others, living in
greate humility and content, without any apparent affectation or
singularity; she is continualy working, praying, or reading, gives a
good account of her knowledge in religion, visites the sick; is not in
the least given to talke; very modest, of a simple not unseemly
behaviour, of a comely countenance, clad very plaine, but cleane and
tight. In sum she appeares a saint of an extraordinary sort, in so
religious a life as is seldom met with in villages now-a-daies.”[225]
Footnote 225:
Evelyn (John) _Diary_, Vol. III., p. 7, 1685.
It is probable that the wages for spinning were advanced soon after this
date, for Defoe writes in 1728 that “the rate for spinning, weaving and
all other Manufactory-work, I mean in Wool, is so risen, that the Poor
all over _England_ can now earn or gain near twice as much in a Day, and
in some Places, more than twice as much as they could get for the same
work two or three Years ago ... the poor women now get 12d. to 15d. a
Day for spinning, the men more in proportion, and are full of
work.”[226] “The Wenches ... wont go to service at 12d. or 18d. a week
while they can get 7s. to 8s. a Week at spinning; the Men won’t drudge
at the Plow and Cart &c., and perhaps get £6 a year ... when they can
sit still and dry within Doors, and get 9s. or 10s. a Week at
Wool-combing or at Carding.”[227] “Would the poor Maid-Servants who
choose rather to spin, while they can gain 9s. per Week by their Labour
than go to Service at 12d. a week to the Farmers Houses as before; I say
would they sit close to their work, live near and close, as labouring
and poor People ought to do, and by their Frugality lay up six or seven
shillings per Week, none could object or blame them for their
Choice.”[228] Defoe’s statement as to the high rate of wages for
spinning is supported by an account of the workhouse at Colchester where
the children’s “Work is Carding & Spinning Wool for the Baymakers; some
of them will earn 6d. or 7d. a Day.”[229] But there is no sign of these
higher wages in the seventeenth century.
Footnote 226:
Defoe, _Behaviour_, p. 83.
Footnote 227:
Defoe, _Behaviour_, pp. 84-5.
Footnote 228:
_Ibid._ p. 88.
Footnote 229:
_Acc. of several Workhouses_, p. 59, 1725.
Continual recriminations took place between clothiers and spinsters, who
accused one another of dishonesty in their dealings. A petition of the
Worsted Weavers of Norwich and Norfolk, and the Bayes and Sayes makers
of Essex and Suffolk, to the Council proposes: “That no spinster shall
winde or reele theire yarne upon shorter reeles (nor fewer thriddes)
than have bene accustomed, nor ymbessell away their masters’ goodes to
be punished by the next Justices of the Peace.”[230]
Footnote 230:
_S.P.D._, civ. 97, 1618. _Petition for regulation._
And again in 1622 the Justices of the Peace of Essex inform the Council:
“Moreover wee understand that the clothiers who put forthe their woolle
to spinne doe much complaine of the spinsters that they use great deceit
by reason they doe wynde their yarne into knottes upon shorter reeles
and fewer threedes by a fifth part than hath beene accustomed. The which
reeles ought to be two yardes about and the knottes to containe
fowerscore threedes apeece.”[231]
On the other hand in Wiltshire the weavers, spinners and others
complained that they “are not able by their diligent labours to gett
their livinges, by reason that the Clothiers at their will have made
their workes extreme hard, and abated wages what they please. And some
of them make such their workfolkes to doe their houshold businesses, to
trudge in their errands, spoole their chains, twist their list, doe
every command without giving them bread, drinke or money for many days
labours.”[232]
Footnote 231:
_S.P.D._, cxxx., 65, May 13, 1662.
Footnote 232:
_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 94, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._,
1623.
Report was made to the Council in 1631-2 that the reele-staffe in the
Eastern Counties “was enlarged by a fift or sixt part longer than have
bene accustomed and the poores wages never the more encreased.”
Whereupon the magistrates in Cambridge agreed “that all spinsters shall
have for the spinning and reeling of six duble knots on the duble reele
or 12 on the single reele, a penny, which is more by 2d. in the shilling
than they have had, and all labourers and other artificers have the like
increase. Essex and Suffolk are ready to make the same increase provided
that the same reel and rate of increase is used in all other counties
where the trade of clothing and yarn-making is made, otherwise one
county will undersell another to the ruin of the clothiers and the poor
dependent on them. Therefore the Council order that a proportional
increase of wages is paid according to the increase of the reel and the
officers employed for keeping a constant reel to give their accounts to
the Justices of the Assize.”[233]
Footnote 233:
_Council Register_, 2nd March, 1631-2.
Other complaints were made of clothiers who forced their workpeople to
take goods instead of money in payment of wages. At Southampton in 1666
thirty-two clothiers, beginning with Joseph Delamot, Alderman, were
presented for forcing their spinners “to take goods for their work
whereby the poor were much wronged, being contrary to the statute, for
all which they were amerced severally.” The records however do not state
that the fine was exacted.[234]
Footnote 234:
Davies (J. S.) _Southampton_, p. 272.
Low as were the spinster’s wages even in seasons of prosperity, they, in
common with the better-paid weavers endured the seasons of depression,
which were characteristic of the woollen industry. The English community
was as helpless before a period of trade depression as before a season
of drought or flood. Employment ceased, the masters who had no sale for
their goods, gave out no material to their workers, and men and women
alike, who were without land as a resource in this time of need, were
faced with starvation and despair.[235] The utmost social demoralisation
ensued, and family life with all its valuable traditions was in many
cases destroyed.
Footnote 235:
A report to the council from the High Sheriff of Somerset says: “Yet I
thincke it my duty to acquaynt your Lordshipps that there are such a
multytude of poore cottages builte upon the highwaies and odd corners
in every countrie parishe within this countye, and soe stufte with
poore people that in many of those parishes there are three or fower
hundred poore of men and women and children that did gett most of
their lyvinge by spinnyng, carding and such imployments aboute wooll
and cloath. And the deadness of that trade and want of money is such
that they are for the most parte without worke, and knowe not how to
live. This _is_ a great grievance amongst us and tendeth much to
mutinye.”
(_S.P.D._, cxxx., 73, May 14, 1622, High Sheriff of Somersetshire to
the Council.)
Complaints from the clothing counties state “That the Poor’s Rates are
doubled, and in some Places trebbled by the Multitude of Poor Perishing
and Starving Women and Children being come to the Parishes, while their
Husbands and Fathers _not able to bear the cries which they could not
relieve_, are fled into _France_ ... to seek their Bread.”[236]
Footnote 236:
_Second Humble Address from the poor Weavers._
These conditions caused grave anxiety to the Government who attempted to
force the clothiers to provide for their workpeople.[237]
Footnote 237:
The Council ordered the Justices of the Peace for the counties of
Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Gloucester, Worcester, Oxford, Kent
and Suffolk, to summon clothiers and “deale effectually with them for
the employment of such weavers, spinners and other persons, as are now
out of work.... We may not indure that the cloathiers ... should att
their pleasure, and without giving knowledge thereof unto this Boarde,
dismisse their workefolkes, who being many in number and most of them
of the poorer sort are in such cases likely by their clamour to
disturb the quiet and government of those partes wherein they live.”
(_C.R._, 9th Feb., 1621-2.)
Locke reported to Carleton, Feb. 16th, 1622: “In the cloathing counties
there have bin lately some poore people (such chieflie as gott their
living by working to Clothiers) that have gathered themselves together
by Fourty or Fifty in a company and gone to the houses of those they
thought fittest to relieve them for meate and money which hath bin given
more of feare than charitie. And they have taken meate openly in the
markett without paying for it. The Lords have written letters to ten
Counties where cloathing is most used, that the Clothier shall not put
off his workemen without acquainting the Councill, signifying that order
is taken for the buying off their cloathes, and that the wooll grower
shall afford them his wooll better cheape but yet the cloathiers still
complaine that they can not sell their cloath in Blackwell
Hall....”[238]
Footnote 238:
_S.P.D._, cxxvii., 102, Feb. 16, 1622.
The Justices of Assize for Gloucester reported March 13, 1622, that they
have interviewed the Clothiers who have been forced to put down looms
through the want of sale for their cloth. The Clothiers maintain that
this is due to the regulations and practices of the Company of Merchant
Adventurers. They say that they, the Clothiers, have been working at a
loss since the deadness of trade about a year ago, “their stocks and
credits are out in cloth lying upon their hands unsold, and that albeit
they have bought their woolles at very moderate prices, being such as do
very much impoverish the grower, yet they cannot sell the cloth made
thereof but to their intolerable losses, and are enforced to pawne
theire clothes to keepe theire people in work, which they are not able
to indure ... that there are at the least 1500 loomes within the County
of Gloucester and in ... the Citie and that xxs. in money and sixteene
working persons and upwards doe but weekly mainteyne one loome, which
doe require 1500li. in money, by the weeke to mainteyne in that trade
24000 working people besides all others that are releeved thereby, and
so the wages of a labouring person is little above xiid. the week being
much too little.”[239]
Footnote 239:
_S.P.D._, cxxviii, 49, March 13, 1622.
In June of the same year the Justices of Gloucester wrote to the
Council: “The distress of those depending on the Cloth trade grows worse
and worse. Our County is thereby and through want of money and means in
these late tymes growne poore, and unable to releeve the infynite nomber
of poore people residinge within the same (drawne hither by meanes of
clothing) ... therefore very many of them doe wander, begg and steale
and are in case to starve as their faces (to our great greefes) doe
manifest.... The peace is in danger of being broken.”[240]
Footnote 240:
_S.P.D._, cxxxi., 4, June 1, 1622.
The distress was not limited to the rural districts; the records of the
Borough of Reading describe efforts made there for its alleviation. “At
this daye the complainte of the poore Spynners and Carders was agayne
heard etc. The Overseers and Clothiers apoynted to provide and assigne
them worke apeared and shewed their dilligence therein, yett the
complaint for lacke of worke increaseth; for a remedye is agreed to be
thus, viz: every Clothier according to his proportion of ... shall
weekly assigne and put to spynning in the towne his ordinarye and course
wooffe wooll, and shall not send it unto the country and if sufficient
be in the towne to doe it.”[241] At another time it is recorded that “In
regard of the great clamour of divers poore people lackinge worke and
employment in spynninge and cardinge in this Towne, yt was this daye
thought fitt to convent all the undertakers of the stocke given by Mr.
Kendricke, and uppon their appearaunce it was ordered, and by themselves
agreed, that every undertaker, for every 300li. shall put a woowf a
weeke to spyninge within the Towne, as Mr. Mayour shall apoynt, and to
such spynners as Mr. Mayour shall send to them[242]....”
Footnote 241:
Guilding, _Reading_, Vol. II., p. 159, 1623.
Footnote 242:
_Ibid._, Vol. III., p. 7, Mar. 3, 1629-30.
In these times of distress and in all disputes concerning wages and the
exactions of the employers, men and women stood together, supporting
each other in their efforts for the improvement of their lot. Thus the
Justices of the Peace of Devonshire reported that “complaints were made
by the most parte of the clothiers weavers, spinsters and fullers
between Plymouth and Teignmouth,”[243] and the Council is informed that
at the last Quarter Sessions in Wilts, many “weavers, spinners, and
fullers for themselves and for manie hundreds more ... complained of
distress by increasing want of work.... Clothiers giving up their trade,
etc.”[244]
Footnote 243:
_S.P.D._, xcvii., 85, May 25, 1618. J.P.s of Devonshire to Council.
Footnote 244:
_Ibid._, cxv., 20, May 11, 1620. J.P.s of Wiltshire to Council.
Sometimes the petitions, though presented on behalf of spinners as well
as weavers, were actually signed only by men. This was the case with the
Weavers, Fullers and Spinners of Leonard Stanley and King Stanley in
Gloucestershire, who petitioned on behalf of themselves and others, 800
at the least, young and old, of the said parishes, “Whereas your poore
petitioners have heretofore bene well wrought and imployed in our sayd
occupations belonging to the trade of clothing whereby we were able in
some poore measure and at a very lowe rate to maintaine ourselves and
families soe as hitherto they have not suffered any extreme want. But
now soe it is that we are likely for the time to come never to be
imployed againe in our callinges and to have our trades become noe
trades, whereunto we have bene trained up and served as apprentices
according to the lawe, and wherein we have always spent our whole time
and are now unfitt for ... other occupations, neither can we be received
into worke by any clothiers in the whole countrey.”[245]
Footnote 245:
_S.P.D._, ccxliv., 1, Aug. 1, 1633.
At other times women took the lead in demanding the redress of
grievances from which all were suffering. When the case of the
say-makers abating the wages of the spinsters, weavers and combers of
Sudbury was examined by the Justices, the Saymakers alleged that all
others did the same, but that they were content to give the wages paid
by them if these were extended by proclamation or otherwise throughout
the kingdom. “But if the order is not general it will be their undoing
...” Whereupon the Justices ordered the Saymakers to pay spinsters “for
every seaven knottes one penny, the reel whereon the yarne is reeled to
be a yard in length—no longer,” and to pay weavers “12d. a lb. for
weaving thereof for white sayes under 5 lbs. weight.”[246]
Footnote 246:
_S.P.D._, clxxxix., 40, Ap. 27, 1631. J.P.s of Essex to Council.
Shortly afterwards the Council received a petition from the Mayor asking
to be heard by the Council or Commissioners to answer the complaint made
against them. “by Silvia Harber widow set on worke by Richard Skinnir of
Sudbury gent ... for abridging and wronging of the spinsters and weavers
of the said borough in their wages and for some other wrongs supposed to
bee done to the said Silvia Harber,” followed by an affidavit stating
“Wee whose names are hereunder written doe testifye as followeth with
our severell handes to our testification.
“1. That one Silvia Harber of our Towne of Sudbury comonly called Luce
Harbor did say that shee had never undertaken to peticion the Lordes of
the Counsell in the Behalfe of the Spinsters of Sudbury aforesaid but by
the inducement of Richard Skinner gentleman of the Towne aforesaid who
sent for her twoe or three times before shee would goe unto him for that
purpose, and when shee came to him hee sent her to London and bare her
charges. Witness, Daniel Biat Clement Shelley.
“2. That having conference with Richard Skinner aforesaid Gentleman, hee
did confesse that hee would never have made any stir of complaint
against the saymakers in behalf of weavers and spinsters, but that one
Thomas Woodes of the towne abovesaid had given him Distaystfull wordes.”
Witness, Vincent Cocke.[247]
Footnote 247:
_S.P.D._, cxcvii., 72, July, 1631. Affidavit about Saymakers in County
of Suffolk.
No organisation appears to have been formed by the wage-earners in the
woollen Trade. Their demonstrations against employers were as yet local
and sporadic. The very nature of their industry and the requirements of
its capitalistic organisation would have rendered abortive on their part
the attempt to raise wages by restricting the numbers of persons
admitted into the trade; but the co-operation in trade disputes between
the men and women engaged in this industry, forms a marked contrast to
the conditions which were now beginning to prevail in the apprentice
trades and which will be described later. Though without immediate
result in the woollen trade, it may be assumed that it was this habit of
standing shoulder to shoulder, regardless of sex-jealousy, which ensured
that when Industrialism attained a further development in the closely
allied cotton trade, the union which was then called into being embraced
men and women on almost equal terms.
The broad outline of the position of women in the woollen trade as it
was established in the seventeenth century shows them taking little, if
any, part in the management of the large and profitable undertakings of
Clothiers and Wool-merchants. Their industrial position was that of
wage-earners, and though the demand for their labour generally exceeded
the supply, yet the wages they received were barely sufficient for their
individual maintenance, regardless of the fact that in most cases they
were wholly or partly supporting children or other dependants.
The higher rates of pay for spinning appear to have been secured by the
women who did not depend wholly upon it for their living, but could buy
wool, spin it at their leisure, and sell the yarn in the dearest market;
while those who worked all the year round for clothiers or middlemen,
were often beaten down in their wages and were subject to exactions and
oppression.
C. _Linen._
While the woollen trade had for centuries been developing under the
direction of capitalism, it was only in the seventeenth century that
this influence begins to show itself in the production of linen.
Following the example of the clothiers, attempts were then made to
manufacture linen on a large scale. For example, Celia Fiennes describes
Malton as a “pretty large town built of Stone but poor; ... there was
one Mr. Paumes that marry’d a relation of mine, Lord Ewers’ Coeheiress
who is landlady of almost all yᵉ town. She has a pretty house in the
place. There is the ruins of a very great house whᶜʰ belonged to yᵉ
family but they not agreeing about it Caused yᵉ defaceing of it. She now
makes use of yᵉ roomes off yᵉ out-buildings and gate house for weaving
and Linning Cloth, haveing set up a manuffactory for Linnen whᶜʰ does
Employ many poor people.”[248]
Footnote 248:
Fiennes (Celia) p. 74. _Through England on a Side-saddle._
In spite of such innovations the production of linen retained for the
most part its character as one of the crafts “yet left of that innocent
old world.” The housewife, assisted by servants and children span flax
and hemp for household linen, underclothes, children’s frocks and other
purposes, and then took her thread to the local weaver who wove it to
her order. Thus Richard Stapley, Gent., enters in his Diary: “A weaver
fetched 11 pounds of flaxen yarn to make a bedticke; and he brought me
ten yds of ticking for yᵉ bed, 3 yds and ¾ of narrow ticking for yᵉ
bolster & for yᵉ weaving of which I paid him 10s. and ye flax cost 8d.
per pound. My mother spun it for me, and I had it made into a bed by
John Dennit, a tailor, of Twineham for 8d. on Wednesday, July 18th, and
it was filled on Saturday, August 4th by Jonas Humphrey of Twineham for
6d.” The weaver brought it home July 6th.[249] Similarly Sarah Fell
enters in her Household book: “Nov. 18th, 1675, by mᵒ. pᵈ. Geo. ffell
weaver foʳ workeinge 32: ells of hempe tow cloth of Mothrs. at ld½ ell.
000.04.00.”[250]
Footnote 249:
_Suss. Arch. Coll._, Vol. II., p. 121. _Extracts from the Diary of
Richard Stapley, Gent._, 1682-1724.
Footnote 250:
Fell (Sarah) _Household Accts._, p. 233.
By the industry and foresight of its female members the ordinary
household was supplied with all its necessary linen without any need for
entering the market, the expenses of middlemen and salesmen being so
avoided. Nevertheless, it is evident that a considerable sale for linen
had always existed, for the linen drapers were an important corporation
in many towns. This sale was increased through an invention made about
the middle of the century: By printing patterns on linen a material was
produced which closely imitated the costly muslins, or calicoes as they
were then called, imported from India; but at so reasonable a price that
they were within the reach of a servant’s purse. Servants were therefore
able to go out in dresses scarcely distinguishable from their
mistresses’, and the sale of woollen and silk goods was seriously
affected. The woollen trade became alarmed; riots took place; weavers
assaulted women who were wearing printed linens in the streets, and
finally, Parliament, always tender to the woollen trade, which furnished
so large a part of the national revenue, prohibited their use
altogether. The linen printers recognising that “the Reason why the
_English_ Manufacture of linnen is not so much taken notice of as the
_Scotch_ or _Irish_, is this, the _English_ is mostly consumed in the
Country, ... whereas the _Scotch_ and _Irish_ must come by sea and make
a Figure at our custom’s house,”[251] urged in their defence that “the
linens printed are chiefly the Growth and Manufacture of _North Britain_
pay 3d. per Yard to the Crown, ... and Employ so many Thousands of
_British_ poor, as will undoubtedly entitle them to the Care of a
British Parliament.”[252]
Footnote 251:
_Case of British and Irish Manufacture of Linnen._
Footnote 252:
_Case of the Linen Drapers._
But even this argument was unavailing against the political influence of
the woollen trade. The spirit of the time favouring the spread of
capitalistic enterprise from the woollen trade into other fields of
action, an attempt was now made to form a Linen Company. Pamphlets
written for and against this project furnish many details of the
conditions then prevailing in the manufacture of linen. “How,” it was
said, will the establishment of a Linnen Company “affect the Kingdom in
the two Pillars that support it, that of the Rents of Land and the
imploying our Ships and Men at Sea, which are thought the Walls of the
Nation. For the Rents of Land they must certainly fall, for that one
Acre of Flax will imploy as many Hands the year round, as the Wooll of
Sheep that graze twenty Acres of Ground. The Linnen Manufactory imploys
few men, the Woollen most, Weaving, Combing, Dressing, Shearing, Dying,
etc. These Eat and Drink more than Women and Children; and so as the
Land that the Sheep graze on raiseth the Rent, so will the Arable and
Pasture that bears Corn, and breeds Cattle for their Subsistence. Then
for the Employment of our Shipping, it will never be pretended that we
can arrive to Exportation of Linnen; there are others and too many
before us in that.... That Projectors and Courtiers should be inspired
with New Lights, and out of love to the Nation, create new Methods in
Trades, that none before found out; and by inclosing Commons the Liberty
of Trade into Shares, in the first place for themselves, and then for
such others as will pay for both, is, I must confess, to me, a Mystery I
desire to be a Stranger unto.... The very Name of a Company and
Joint-Stock in Trade, is a spell to drive away, and keep out of that
place where they reside, all men of Industry.... The great motive to
Labour and Incouragement of Trade, is an equal Freedom, and that none
may be secluded from the delightful Walks of Liberty ... a Subjection in
Manufactories where a People are obliged to one Master, tho’ they have
the full Value of their Labour, is not pleasing, they think themselves
in perpetual Servitude, and so it is observed in _Ireland_, where the
_Irish_ made a Trade of Linnen Yarn, no Man could ingage them, but they
would go to the Market and be better satisfied with a less price, than
to be obliged to one master.... There was much more Reason for a Company
and Joint-stock to set up the Woollen Manufactory, in that ignorant Age,
than there is for this of the Linnen Manufactory; that of the Woollen
was a new Art not known in this Kingdom, it required a great Stock to
manage, there was required Foreign as well as Native Commodities to
carry it on ... and when the Manufactory was made, there must be Skill
and Interest abroad to introduce the Commodity where others had the
Trade before them; but there is nothing of all this in the Linnen
Manufactory; Nature seems to design it for the weaker Sex. The best of
Linnen for Service is called House Wife’s Cloth, here then is no need of
the Broad Seal, or Joint-Stock to establish the Methods for the good
Wife’s weeding her Flax-garden, or how soon her Maid shall sit to her
Wheel after washing her Dishes; the good Woman is Lady of the Soil, and
holds a Court within herself, throws the Seed into the Ground, and works
it till she brings it there again, I mean her Web to the bleaching
Ground.... To appropriate this which the poorest Family may by Labour
arrive unto, that is, finish and bring to Market a Piece of Cloth, to me
seems an infallible Expedient to discourage universal Industry.... The
Linnen Manufactory above any Trade I know, if (which I must confess I
doubt) it be for the Good of the Nation, requires more Charity than
Grandeur to carry it on, the poor Spinner comes as often to her Master
for Charity to a sick Child, or a Plaister for a Sore, as for Wages; and
this she cannot have of a Company, but rather less for her labour, when
they have beat all private Undertakers out. These poor Spinners can now
come to their Master’s Doors at a good time, and eat of their good tho’
poor master’s Chear; they can reason with him, if any mistake, or
hardship be put upon them, and this poor People love to do, and not be
at the Dispose of Servants, as they must be where their Access can only
be by Doorkeepers, Clerks, etc., to the Governors of the Company.”[253]
Footnote 253:
Linnen and Woollen Manufactory, p. 4-8, 1691.
On the other side it was urged that “All the Arguments that can be
offer’d for Encouraging the woollen manufacture in _England_ conclude as
strongly in proportion for Encouraging the linnen manufacture in
_Scotland_. ’Tis the ancient Staple Commodity there, as the Woollen is
here.”[254]
Footnote 254:
_True case of the Scots Linen Manufacture._
The part taken by women in the production of linen resembled their share
in woollen manufactures. Some were weavers; thus Oliver Heywood says
that his brother-in-law, who afterwards traded in fustians, was brought
up in Halifax with Elizabeth Roberts, a linen weaver.[255] Entries in
the Foulis Account Book show that they were sometimes employed in
bleaching but spinning was the only process which depended exclusively
on their labour.
Footnote 255:
Heywood (Rev. Oliver) _Autobiography_, Vol. I., p. 36.
The rates of pay for spinning flax and hemp were even lower than those
for spinning wool. Fitzherbert expressly says that in his time no woman
could get her living by spinning linen.[256] The market price was of
little moment to well-to-do women who span thread for their family’s use
and who valued the product of their labour by its utility and not by its
return in money value; but the women who depended on spinning for their
living were virtually paupers, as is shown by the terms in which
reference is made to them:—“shee beeinge very poore, gettinge her
livinge by spinninge and in the nature of a widowe, her husband beeinge
in the service of His Majesty.”[257]
Footnote 256:
Ante, p. 48.
Footnote 257:
_S.P.D._, cccclvii., 3., June 13, 1640.
Yet the demand for yarn and thread was so great that if spinners had
been paid a living wage there would have been scarcely any need for poor
relief.
The relation between low wages and pauperism was hardly even suspected
at this time, and though the spinsters’ maximum wages were settled at
Quarter Sessions, no effort was made to raise them to a subsistence
level. Instead of attempting to do so Parish Authorities accepted
pauperism as “the act of God,” and concentrated their attention on the
task of reducing rates as far as possible by forcing the pauper women
and children, who had become impotent or vicious through neglect and
under-feeding, to spin the thread needed by the community. Schemes for
this purpose were started all over the country; a few examples will show
their general scope. At Nottingham it was arranged for Robert Hassard to
“Receave pore children to the number of viij. or more, ... and to haue
the benefitt of theire workes and labours for the first Moneth, and the
towne to allowe him towards their dyett, for everie one xijid. a Weeke,
and theire parents to fynde them lodginge; and Robert Hassard to be
carefull to teache and instructe them speedyly in the spyninge and
workinge heare, to be fitt to make heare-cloth, and allsoe in cardinge
and spyninge of hards to make candle weeke, and hee to geue them
correccion, when need ys, and the greate wheeles to be called in, and to
be delivered for the vse of these ymployments.”[258]
Footnote 258:
_Ibid._, pp. 259-60, 1649.
A few years later in the scheme “for setting the poore on worke” the
following rates of pay were established:—
6d. per pound for cardinge and spinning finest wool.
5d. per pound for ye second sort.
4d. ob. (＝ _obolus_, ½d.) for ye third sorte.
1d. per Ley [skein] for ye onely spinninge all sortes of linen, the
reele beeing 4 yards.
ob. per pound for cardinge candleweake.
1d. per pound for pulling midling [coarser part] out of it.
1d. per pound for spininge candleweake.[259]
Footnote 259:
_Nottingham Records_, Vol. V., pp. 174-5, 1636.
Orders for the Workhouse at Westminster in 1560, read that “old Women or
middle-Aged that might work, and went a Gooding, should be Hatchilers of
the Flax; and one Matron over them. That common Hedges, and such like
lusty naughty Packs, should be set to spinning; and one according to be
set over them. Children that were above Six and not twelve Years of Age
should be sent to winde Quills to the Weavers.”[260]
Footnote 260:
Stow, _London_, Book VI., p. 60.
At a later date in London “Besides the relieving and educating of poor
friendless harborless children in Learning and in Arts, many hundreds of
poor Families are imployed and relieved by the said Corporation in the
Manufactory of Spinning and Weaving: and whosoever doth repair either to
the Wardrobe near Black-friars, or to Heiden-house in the Minories, may
have materials of Flax, Hemp, or Towe to spin at their own houses ...
leaving so much money as the said materials cost, until it be brought
again in Yarn; at which time they shall receive money for their work ...
every one is paid according to the fineness or coarseness of the Yarn
they spin ... so that none are necessitated to live idly that are
desirous or willing to work. And it is to be wished and desired, that
the Magistrates of this city would assist this Corporation ... in
supressing of Vagrants and common Beggars ... that so abound to the
hindrance of the Charity of many pious people towards this good
work.”[261]
Footnote 261:
_Poor Out-cast Children’s Song and Cry._
The Cowden overseers carried out a scheme of work for the poor from 1600
to 1627, buying flax and having it spun and woven into canvas. The work
generally paid for itself; only one year is a loss of 7s. 8d. entered,
and during the first seventeen years the amount expended yearly in cash
and relief did not exceed £6 11s. rising then in 1620 to £28 5s. 10d.,
after which it fell again. The scheme was finally abandoned in 1627, the
relief immediately rising to £43 7s. 6d.[262]
Footnote 262:
_Suss. Arch. Coll._, Vol. xx., pp. 99-100, _Acct. Book of Cowdon_.
Richard Dunning describes how in Devon “for Employing Women, ... We
agreed with one Person, who usually Employed several _Spinsters_, ... he
was to employ in _Spinning_, _Carding_, etc., all such Women as by
direction of the Overseers should apply to him for Work, to pay them
such Wages as they should deserve.”[263]
Footnote 263:
Dunning, _Plain and Easie Method_, p. 8, 1686.
“Mary Harrison, daughter of Henry Harrison, was comited to the hospitall
at Reading to be taught to spyn and earne her livinge.”[264] Similarly
at Dorchester “Sarah Handcock of this Borough having this day been
complayned of for her disorderly carriage and scolding in the work house
... ... among the spinsters, is now ordered to come no more to the work
house to work there, but is to work elsewhere and follow her work, or to
be further delt withall according to the lawe.”[265]
Footnote 264:
Guilding, _Reading_, Vol. II., p. 294.
Footnote 265:
Mayo (C.H.) _Municipal Records of Dorchester_, p. 667, 1635.
At Dorchester a school was maintained for some years in which poor
children were taught spinning: “This day John Tarrenton ... is agreed
withall to vndertake charge and to be master of the Hospitall to employ
halfe the children at present at burlinge,[266] and afterwards the
others as they are willing and able, To have the howse and Tenne per
annum: wages for the presente, and yf all the Children come into
burlinge, and ther be no need of the women that doe now teach them to
spinne, then the Towne to consyder of Tarrington to giue him either part
or all, that is ix pownd, the women now hath....”[267]
Footnote 266:
To burl, “to dress cloth as fullers do.”
Footnote 267:
Mayo (C. H.), _Municipal Records of Dorchester_, p. 515, 1638.
Another entry, February 3rd, 1644-5, records that “Mr. Speering doth
agree to provide spinning work for such poore persons that shall spin
with those turnes as are now there [in the hospital house] ... and to
pay the poore for their spinning after the vsual rates for the worke
they doe.”[268]
Footnote 268:
_Ibid._ p. 521.
In 1649 it is entered “This day Thos. Clench was here, and demanded 10
_li._ per ann. more than the stocke of the Hospital, which is 150 _li._
lent him for the furnishing of the house with worke for spinners, and
for the overlooking to the children ... the spinners shall have all the
yeare 3½d. a _li._ for yearne ... and that there be as many children
kept aworke as the roomes will hold ... wee shall take into
consideracion the setting of the poore on worke in spinning of worsted,
and knitting of stockins, and also of setting vp a trade of making
sackcloth.”[269]
Footnote 269:
_Ibid._ pp. 517-8.
Schemes for teaching spinning were welcomed with enthusiasm by the
economists of the period, because in many districts the poor rates had
risen to an alarming height. They believed that if only the poor would
work all would be well. One writer urged “That if the Poor of the Place
do not know how to spin, or to do the Manufacture of that Place, that
then there be Dames hired at the Parish-Charge to teach them; and Men
may learn to spin as well as Women, and Earn as much money at it as they
can at many other employments.”[270] Another writer calculated that if
so employed “ixcl children whᶜʰ daielie was ydle may earne one wᵗ
another vjid. a weke whᶜʰ a mownte in the yere to jMiijcxxxvˡⁱ. Also
that jciiijxx women ... ar hable to earne at lest some xijid., some
xxd., and some ijs. vjid. a weeke.”[271]
Footnote 270:
_Trade of England_, p. 10, 1681.
Footnote 271:
Tingey, _Norwich_, Vol. II., p. 355.
This zest for teaching spinning was partly due to the fact that the
clothiers were represented on the local authorities, and often the
extending of their business was hampered by the shortage of spinsters.
But the flaw in all these arrangements was the fact that spinning
remained in most cases a grant in aid, and could not, owing to the low
wages paid, maintain a family, scarcely even an individual, on the level
of independence.
Children could not live on 6d. a week, or grown women on 1s. or 1s. 8d.
a week. And so the women, when they depended wholly upon spinning flax
for their living, became paupers, suffering the degradation and loss of
power by malnutrition which that condition implies.
In a few cases this unsatisfactory aspect of spinning was perceived by
those who were charged with relieving the poor. Thus, when a workhouse
was opened in Bristol in 1654, the spinning scheme was soon abandoned as
unprofitable.[272] Later, when girls were again taught spinning, the
managers of the school “soon found that the great cause of begging did
proceed from the low wages for Labour; for after about eight months time
our children could not get half so much as we expended in their
provisions. The manufacturers ... were always complaining the Yarn was
spun couarse, but would not advance above eightpence per pound for
spinning, and we must either take this or have no work.” Finally the
Governor took pains therefore to teach them to produce a finer yarn at
2s. to 3s. 6d. per pound. This paid better, and would have been more
profitable still if the girls as they grew older had not been sent to
service or put into the kitchen.[273]
Footnote 272:
Latimer, _Annals of Bristol_, p. 249.
Footnote 273:
Cary, (John) _Proceedings of Corporation of Bristol_, p. 13, 1700.
Thomas Firmin, after a prolonged effort to help the poor in London, came
to a similar conclusion. He explains that “the Poor of this Parish, tho’
many, are yet not so many as in some others; yet, even here there are
many poor people, who receive Flax to spin, tho’ they are not all
Pensioners to the Parish, nor, I hope, ever will be, it being my design
to prevent that as much as may be; ... there are above 500 more out of
other Parishes in and about the City of _London_; some of which do
constantly follow this Employment, and others only when they have no
better; As, suppose a poor Woman that goes three dayes a Week to Wash or
Scoure abroad, or one that is employed in Nurse-keeping three or four
Months in a Year, or a poor Market-woman, who attends three or four
Mornings in a Week with her Basket, and all the rest of the time these
folks have little or nothing to do; but by means of this spinning are
not only kept within doors ... but made much more happy and
chearful.”[274]
Footnote 274:
Firmin, _Some Proposals_, p. 19, 1678.
Firmin began his benevolent work in an optimistic spirit, “had you seen,
as I have done many a time, with what joy and satisfaction, many Poor
People have brought home their Work, and received their money for it,
you would think no Charity in the World like unto it. Do not imagine
that all the Poor People in _England_, are like unto those Vagrants you
find up and down in the Streets. No, there are many Thousands whose
necessities are very great, and yet do what they can by their Honest
Labour to help themselves; and many times they would do more than they
do but for want of Employment. Several that I have now working to me do
spin, some fifteen, some sixteen, hours in four and twenty, and had much
rather do it than be idle.”[275]
Footnote 275:
Firmin, Thomas, _Life_, pp. 31-32, 1698.
The work developed until “He employed in this manufacture some times
1600, some times 1700 Spinners, besides Dressers of flax, Weavers and
others. Because he found that his Poor must work sixteen hours in the
day to earn sixpence, and thought their necessities and labour were not
sufficiently supplied or recompensed by these earnings; therefore he was
wont to distribute Charity among them ... without which Charity some of
them had perished for want, when either they or their children fell
ill.... Whoever of the Spinners brought in two pound of Yarn might take
away with ’em a Peck of Coals. Because they soiled themselves by
carrying away Coals in their Aprons or Skirts ... he gave ’em canvass
bags. By the assistance and order of his Friends he gave to Men, Women
and Children 3,000 Shirts and Shifts in two years.”[276]
Footnote 276:
_Ibid._ pp. 31-2, 1698.
“In above £4000, laid out the last Year, reckning House-rent, Servants
wages, Loss by Learners, with the interest of the Money, there was not
above £200 lost, one chief reason of which was the kindness of several
Persons, who took off good quantities ... at the price they cost me to
spin and weave ... and ... the East India Co., gave encouragement to
make their bags.” But the loss increased as time went on.... “In 1690
his design of employing the poor to spin flax was taken up by the
Patentees of the Linen Manufacture, who made the Poor and others, whom
they employed, to work cheaper; yet that was not sufficient to encourage
them to continue the manufacture.... The poor spinners, being thus
deserted, Mr. _Firmin_ returned to ’em again; and managed that trade as
he was wont; But so, that he made it bear almost its own Charges. But
that their smaller Wages might be comfortable to them he was more
Charitable to ’em, and begged for ’em of almost all Persons of Rank with
whom he had intimacy, or so much as Friendship. He would also carry his
Cloth to divers, with whom he scarce had any acquaintance, telling ’em
_it was the Poor’s cloth, which in conscience they ought to buy at the
Price it could be afforded_.”[277] ... Finally, “he was persuaded by
some, to make trial of the _Woollen Manufacture_; because at this, the
Poor might make better wages, than at Linen-work. But the price of wool
advancing very much, and the _London_-Spinsters being almost wholly
unskilful at Drawing a Woollen-Thread, after a considerable loss ... and
29 months trial he gave off the project.”[278]
Footnote 277:
Firmin (Thomas) _Life_, pp. 33-6.
Footnote 278:
_Ibid._ pp. 39-40.
Firmin’s experiment, corroborating as it does the results of other
efforts at poor relief, shows that at this time women could not maintain
themselves by the wages of flax spinning; still less could they, when
widows, provide for their children by this means.
But though the spinster, when working for wages received so small a
return for her labour, it must not be forgotten that flax spinning was
chiefly a domestic art, in which the whole value of the woman’s labour
was secured to her family, unaffected by the rate of wages. Therefore
the value of women’s labour in spinning flax must not be judged only
according to the wages which they received, but was more truly
represented by the quantity of linen which they produced for household
use.
D. _Silk, and Gold and Silver._
The history of the Silk Trade differs widely from that of either the
Woollen or Linen Trades. The conditions of its manufacture during the
fifteenth century are described with great clearness in a petition
presented to Henry VI. by the silk weavers in 1455, which “Sheweth unto
youre grete wisdoms, and also prayen and besechen the Silkewymmen and
Throwestres of the Craftes and occupation of Silkewerk within the Citee
of London, which be and have been Craftes of wymmen within the same
Citee of tyme that noo mynde renneth unto the contrarie. That where it
is pleasyng to God that all his Creatures be set in vertueux occupation
and labour accordyng to their degrees, and convenient for thoo places
where their abode is, to the nourishing of virtue and eschewyng of vices
and ydelness. And where upon the same Craftes, before this tyme, many a
wurshipfull woman within the seid Citee have lyved full hounourably, and
therwith many good Housholdes kept, and many Gentilwymmen and other in
grete noumbre like as there nowe be moo than a M., have been drawen
under theym in lernyng the same Craftes and occupation full vertueusly,
unto the plesaunce of God, whereby afterward they have growe to grete
wurship, and never any thing of Silke brought into yis lande concerning
the same Craftes and occupation in eny wise wrought, but in rawe Silk
allone unwrought”; but now wrought goods are introduced and it is
impossible any longer to obtain rawe material except of the worst
quality ... “the sufferaunce whereof, hath caused and is like to cause,
grete ydelness amongs yonge Gentilwymmen and oyer apprentices of the
same Craftes within ye said Citee, and also leying doun of many good and
notable Housholdes of them that have occupied the same Craftes, which be
convenient, worshipfull and accordyng for Gentilwymmen, and oyer wymmen
of wurship, aswele within ye same Citee as all oyer places within this
Reaume.” The petitioners assumed that “Every wele disposed persone of
this land, by reason and naturall favour, wold rather that wymmen of
their nation born and owen blode hadde the occupation thereof, than
strange people of oyer landes.”[279]
Footnote 279:
_Rolls of Parliament_, V., 325. _A Petition of Silk Weavers_, 34 Henry
VI., c. 55.
The petition received due attention, Statute 33, Henry VI enacting that
“Whereas it is shewed to our Sovereign Lord the King in his said
parliament, by the grevous complaint of the silk women and spinners of
the mystery and occupation of silk-working, within the city of London,
how that divers Lombards and other strangers, imagining to destroy the
said mystery, and all such virtuous occupations of women in the said
Realm, to enrich themselves ... have brought ... such silk so made,
wrought, twined, ribbands, and chains falsely and deceitfully wrought,
all manner girdels and other things concerning the said mystery and
occupation, in no manner wise bringing any good silk unwrought, as they
were wont.” Therefore the importation of “any merchandise ... touching
or concerning the mystery of silk women, (girdels which come from Genoa
only excepted,)” is forbidden.[280]
Footnote 280:
_Statutes_, II., p. 374, 33 Henry VI., c. 5.
This statute was re-enacted in succeeding reigns with the further
explanation that “as well men as women” gained their living by this
trade.
Few incidents reveal more clearly than do these petitions the gulf
separating the conception of women’s sphere in life which prevailed in
mediæval London, from that which governed society in the first decade of
the twentieth century. The contrast is so great that it becomes
difficult to adjust one’s vision to the implications which the former
contains. Other incidents can be quoted of the independence, enterprise,
and capacity manifested by the prosperous women of the merchant class in
London during the Middle Ages. Thus Rose de Burford, the wife of a
wealthy London merchant, engaged in trading transactions on a large
scale both before and after her husband’s death. She lent money to the
Bishop in 1318, and received 100 Marks for a cope embroidered with
coral. She petitioned for the repayment of a loan made by her husband
for the Scottish wars, finally proposing that this should be allowed her
off the customs which she would be liable to pay on account of wool
about to be shipped from the Port of London.[281]
Footnote 281:
By kind permission of Miss Eileen Power.
It is, however, a long cry from the days of Rose de Burford to the
seventeenth century, when “gentilwymmen and other wymmen of worship” no
longer made an honourable living by the silk trade; which trade, in
spite of protecting statutes, had become the refuge of paupers. To
obviate the difficulties of an exclusive reliance on foreign supplies
for the raw material of the silk trade, James I. ordered the planting of
10,000 mulberry trees so that “multitudes of persons of both sexes and
all ages, such as in regard of impotence are unfitted for other labour,
may bee set on worke, comforted and releved.”[282]
Footnote 282:
_S.P.D._, xxvi., 6. Jan. 1607.
The unsatisfactory state of the trade is shown in a petition from the
merchants, silk men, and others trading for silk, asking for a charter
of incorporation because “the trade of silke is now become great whereby
... customes are increased and many thousands of poore men, women and
children sett on worke and mayntayned. And forasmuch as the first
beginning of this trade did take its being from women then called
silkwomen who brought upp men servants, that since have become free of
all or moste of the severall guilds and corporacions of London, whose
ordinances beeing for other particular trades, meet not with, nor have
power to reprove such abuses and deceipts as either have or are likely
still to growe upon the silk trade.”[283]
Footnote 283:
_S.P.D._, clxxv., 102, Nov. 25, 1630.
A petition from the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Company of
Silk Throwers, shows that by this “Trade between Forty and Fifty
thousand poor Men, Women and Children, are constantly Imployed and
Relieved, in and about the City of _London_ ... divers unskilful
Persons, who never were bred as Apprentices to the said Trade of
_Silk-throwing_, have of _Late years_ intruded into the said Trade, and
have Set up the same; and dwelling in Places beyond the Bounds and
Circuit of the Petitioners Search by their Charter, do use Divers
Deceits in the _Throwing_ and _Working_ of the Manufacture of Silk, to
the great Wrong and Injury of the Commonwealth, and the great
Discouragement of the Artists of the said Trade.”[284]
Footnote 284:
_Humble Petition of the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Company
of Silk Throwers._
An act of Charles II. provided that men, women and children, if native
subjects, though not apprentices, might be employed to turn the mill,
tie threads, and double and wind silk, “as formerly.”[285]
Footnote 285:
Statutes 13 and 14, Charles II., c. 15.
“There are here and there,” it was said, “a Silk Weaver or two (of late
years) crept into some cities and Market Towns in _England_, who do
employ such people that were never bound to the Trade ... in all other
Trades that do employ the poor, they cannot effect their business
without employing such as were never apprentice to the Trade ... the
Clothier must employ the Spinner and Stock-carder, that peradventure
were never apprentices to any trade, else they could never accomplish
their end. And it is the same in making of Buttons and Bone-lace, and
the like. But it is not so in this Trade; for they that have been
apprentices to the Silk-weaving Trade, are able to make more commodities
than can be easily disposed of ... because there hath not been for a
long time any other but this, to place forth poor men’s Children, and
Parish Boyes unto; by which means the poor of this Trade have been very
numerous.”[286]
Footnote 286:
_Trade of England_, p. 18.
During this period all the references to silk-spinning confirm the
impression that it had become a pauper trade. A pamphlet calling for the
imposition of a duty on the importation of wrought silks explains that
“The Throwsters, by reason of this extraordinary Importation of raw
Silk, will employ several hundred persons more than they did before, as
Winders, Doublers, and others belonging to the throwing Trade, who for
the greatest part are poor Seamen and Soldier’s wives, which by this
Increase of Work will find a comfortable Subsistence for themselves and
Families, and thereby take off a Burthen that now lies upon several
Parishes, which are at a great charge for their Support.”[287] The
“comfortable subsistence” of these poor seamen’s wives amounted to no
more than 1s. 6d. or 1s. 8d. per week.[288]
Footnote 287:
_Answer to a Paper of Reflections, on the Project for laying a Duty on
English Wrought Silks._
Footnote 288:
_Case of the Manufacturers of Gilt and Silver Wire_, 1714.
There seems here no clue to explain the transition from a monopoly of
gentlewomen conducting a profitable business on the lines of Family
Industry to a disorganised Capitalistic Trade, resting on the basis of
women’s sweated labour. The earlier monopoly was, however, probably
favoured by the expensive nature of the materials used, and the
necessity for keeping in touch with the merchants who imported them,
while social customs secured an equitable distribution of the profits.
With the destruction of these social customs and traditions, competition
asserted its sway unchecked, till it appeared as though there might even
be a relation between the costliness of the material and the
wretchedness of the women employed in its manufacture; for the women who
span gold and silver thread were in the same stage of misery.
Formerly women had been mistresses in this class of business as well as
in the Silk Trade, but a Proclamation of June 11th, 1622, forbade the
exercise of the craft by all except members of the Company of Gold Wire
Drawers.
Under this proclamation the Silver thread of one Anne Twiseltor was
confiscated by Thomas Stockwood, a constable, who entered her house and
found her and others spinning gold and silver thread. “The said Anne
being since married to one John Bagshawe hath arrested Stockwood for the
said silver upon an action of £10, on the Saboth day going from Church,
and still prosecuteth the suite against him in Guild Hall with much
clamor.”[289] Bagshawe and his wife maintained that the silver was
sterling, and therefore not contrary to the Proclamation. Stockwood
refused to return it unless he might have some of it. Therefore they
commenced the suit against him.
Footnote 289:
_C.R._, June 16, 1624.
Probably few, if any, women became members of the Company of Gold Wire
Drawers, and henceforward they were employed only as spinners. Their
poverty is shown by the frequency with which they are mentioned as
inmates of tenement houses, which through overcrowding became dangerous
to the public health. It was reported to the Council for example, that
Katherine Barnaby “entertayns in her house in Great Wood Streate, divers
women kinde silver spinners.”[290]
Footnote 290:
_S.P.D._, ccclix., Returns to Council ... of houses, etc., 1637.
These poor women worked in the spinning sheds of their masters, and thus
the factory system prevailed already in this branch of the textile
industry; the costliness of the fabrics produced forbade any great
expansion of the trade, and therefore the Masters were not obliged to
seek for labour outside the pauper class.
The Curate, Churchwardens, Overseers and Vestrymen of the parish of St.
Giles, Cripplegate, drew up the following statement: “There are in the
said Parish, eighty five sheds for the spinning Gilt and Silver Thread,
in which are 255 pair of wheels.”
The Masters with their Families amount unto 581
These imploy poor Parish-Boys and Girls to the 1275
number of
There are 118 master Wire-Drawers, who with their 826
wives, Children and Apprentices, make
Master weavers of Gold and Silver Lace and Fringes 106
Their Wives, Children, Apprentices and Journey Men 2120
amount unto
Silver and Gold Bone-Lace makers, and Silver and 1000
Gold Button makers with their Families
Windsters, Flatters of Gold and Silver and Engine 300
Spinners with their Families
────
Total 6208
They continue: “The Poor’s Rate of the Parish amounts to near Four
Thousand Pounds per annum.... The Parish ... at this present are
indebted One Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Pounds. Persons are daily
removing out of the Parish, by Reason of this heavy Burthen, empty
Houses increasing. If a Duty be laid on the manufacture of Gold and
Silver wyres the Poor must necessarily be increased.”[291]
Footnote 291:
_Case of the Parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate._
Such a statement is in itself proof that Gold and Silver Thread making
ranked among the pauper trades in which the wages paid must needs be
supplemented out of the poor rates.
E. CONCLUSION.
IT has been shown that in textile industries all spinning was done
exclusively by women and children, while they were also engaged to some
extent in other processes, such as weaving, burling, bleaching, fulling,
etc. The fact that the nation depended entirely upon women for the
thread from which its clothing and household linen was made must be
remembered in estimating their economic position. Even if no other work
had fallen to their share, they can hardly have been regarded as mere
dependants on their husbands when the clothing for the whole family was
spun by their hands; but it has been explained in the previous chapter
that in many cases the mother, in addition to spinning, provided a large
proportion of the food consumed by her family. If the father earned
enough money to pay the rent and a few other necessary expenses, the
mother could and did, feed and clothe herself and her children by her
own labours when she possessed enough capital to confine herself wholly
to domestic industry. The value of a woman’s productive capacity to her
family was, however, greatly reduced when, through poverty, she was
obliged to work for wages, because then, far from being able to feed and
clothe her family, her wages were barely adequate to feed herself.
This fact indicates the weakness of women’s position in the labour
market, into which they were being forced in increasing numbers by the
capitalistic organisation of industry. In consequence of this weakness,
a large proportion of the produce of a woman’s labour was diverted from
her family to the profit of the capitalist or the consumer; except in
the most skilled branches of the woollen industry, spinning was a pauper
trade, a “sweated industry,” which did not provide its workers with the
means for keeping themselves and their families in a state of
efficiency, but left them to some extent dependent on other sources for
their maintenance.
Comparing the various branches of textile industry together, an
interesting light is thrown upon the reactions between capitalistic
organisation of labour and women’s economic position.
Upper-class women had lost their unique position in the silk trade, and
the wives of wealthy clothiers and wool-merchants appear to have seldom
taken an active interest in business matters. Thus it was only as
wage-earners that women were extensively employed in the textile trades.
Their wages were lowest in the luxury trades i.e., silk, silver and
gold, and in the linen trade. The former were now wholly capitalistic,
but the demand for luxuries being limited and capable of little
expansion, the labour available in the pauper classes was sufficient to
satisfy it. The situation was different in the linen and allied trades,
where the demand for thread, either of flax or hemp, appears generally
to have been in excess of the supply. Although the larger part of the
linen manufactured in England was still produced under the conditions of
domestic industry, the demand for thread for trade purposes was steady
enough to suggest to Parish Authorities the value of spinning as a means
of reducing the poor rates. It did not occur to them, however, that if
the wages paid for spinning were higher the poor would have been as
eager to learn spinning as to gain apprenticeship in the skilled trades,
and thus the problem of an adequate supply of yarn might have been
solved at one stroke with the problem of poverty itself; no attempt was
made to raise the wages, and the production of thread for trade purposes
continued to be subsidised out of the poor rates. The consequent
pauperisation of large numbers of women was a greater disaster than even
the burthen of the poor rates. Instead of the independence and
self-reliance which might have been secured through adequate wages,
mothers were not only humiliated and degraded, but their physical
efficiency and that of their children was lowered owing to the
inadequacy of the grudging assistance given by the Churchwardens and
Overseers.
The woollen trade, in which capitalistic organisation had attained its
largest development, presents a more favourable aspect as regards
women’s wages. Already in the seventeenth century a spinster could earn
sufficient money to maintain her individual self. In spite of periodic
seasons of depression, the woollen trade was rapidly expanding; often
the scope of the clothiers was limited by the quantity of yarn
available, and so perforce they must seek for labour outside the pauper
class. Possibly a rise was already taking place in the spinsters’ wages
at the close of the century, and it is interesting to note that during
this period the highest wages were earned, not by the women whose need
for them was greatest, that is to say the women who had children
depending exclusively on their wages, but rather by the well-to-do women
who could afford to buy the wool for their spinning, and hold the yarn
over till an advantageous opportunity arose for selling it.
Spinning did not present itself to such women as a means of filling up
vacant hours which they would otherwise have spent in idleness, but as
an alternative to some other profitable occupation, so numerous were the
opportunities offered to women for productive industry within the
precincts of the home. Therefore to induce women of independent position
to work for him, the Clothier was obliged to offer higher wages than
would have been accepted by those whose children were suffering from
hunger.
Somewhat apart from economics and the rate of wages, is the influence
which the developments of the woollen trade exercised on women’s social
position, through the disintegration of the social organisation known as
the village community. The English village had formed a social unit
almost self-contained, embracing considerable varieties of wealth,
culture and occupation, and finding self-expression in a public opinion
which provided adequate sanction for its customs, and determined all the
details of manners and morals. In the formation of this public opinion
women took an active part.
The seasons of depression in the Woollen Trade brought to such
communities in the “Clothing Counties” a desolation which could only be
rivalled by Pestilence or Famine. Work came to a standstill, and
wholesale migrations followed. Many fathers left their starving
families, in search of work elsewhere and were never heard of again. The
traditions of family life and the customs which ruled the affairs of the
village were lost, never to be again restored, and with them
disappeared, to a great extent, the recognised importance of women in
the life of the community.
The social problems introduced by the wages system in its early days are
described in a contemporary pamphlet. It must be remembered that the
term “the poor” as used at this time signified the pauper class,
hard-working, industrious families who were independent of charity or
assistance from the poor rates being all included among the “common
people.” “I cannot acknowledge,” the writer says, “that a Manufacture
maketh fewer poor, but rather the contrary. For tho’ it sets the poor on
work where it finds them, yet it draws still more to the place; and
their Masters allow wages so mean, that they are only preserved from
starving whilst they can work; when Age, Sickness, or Death comes,
themselves, their wives or their children are most commonly left upon
the Parish; which is the reason why those Towns (as in the _Weald of
Kent_) whence the clothing is departed, have fewer poor than they had
before.”[292]
Footnote 292:
_Reasons for a Limited Exportation of Wooll_, 1677.
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