common field land. It produced 9 pounds of sheep fleece compared to 3
1/2 pounds for common field land. Overall, soils were improved by being
treated with clay, chalk, or lime. Artificial pasture was extended and
there was increased use of clover, sainfoin, and rye-grass. Grain
productivity was four times that of 1200. A fatted ox was 800 pounds
compared to the former 400 pounds which it weighed from the 1300s to the
1600s. The fleece of sheep increased fourfold.
By statute of 1756, persons having rights of common in certain land
may, by the major part in number and in value of each's tenement,
enclose such land for planting and growth of timber or underwood.
Every village had a smith, carpenter, and miller. The larger villages
also had a potter, a turner, a malster, a weaver, a tanner, and perhaps
a mercer or grocer middleman. Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts,
and wagons. Ploughs had one, two, or no wheels. Poor farming families
took up extra work in the villages such as making gloves, knitting
stockings, or spinning yarn. Craftsmen still helped farmers at harvest
time.
Much of the rural population was now dispersed over the countryside
instead of being concentrated in villages because so many small holders
had sold out due to enclosures of farm land, especially of common land
and waste land. The rural working class lived in two room cottages, with
low ceilings, small windows, and an earth floor. Patience was required
for those willing to wait for an existing cottage in a village to be
vacated. Most laborers did not marry unless and until they found a
cottage. Ancient custom that a person could build a home for himself on
waste land if he did it in one night was ceasing to be respected.
Farmers usually preferred employing day-laborers than keeping servants.
There were many migrant workers, mainly from Ireland, for the busy
summer haymaking and harvesting.
The children of laborers and of small farmers had little schooling
because they were needed for work. They scared the birds, weeded the
fields, picked the stones, tended the poultry, set beans, combed the
wool, and collected the rushes and dipped them in the tallow.
Farm people relied on well water or rain water collected in lead
cisterns. A farmhouse fireplace had pots hung from iron rods. Saucepans
sat on iron stands, which were stored above the mantel when not in use.
Spits were rotated by pulleys powered by the upward current of hot air
or by a mechanical device. Bacon was smoked in the chimney accessible by
a staircase or upper floor.
There still existed customary freeholders, who owned their land subject
to certain customary obligations to the lord of a manor.
The people displaced by enclosure became laborers dependent on wages or
paupers. Their discontent was expressed in this poem:
"They hang the man and flog the woman That steals a goose from
off the common But leave the greater criminal loose That steals
the common from the goose."
Eventually there was some relief given to the poor workers. By statute
of 1773, wastes, commons, and fields having several owners with
different interests might by three-quarters vote in number and in value
of the occupiers cultivate such for up to six years. However, cottagers
and those with certain sheep walks, or cattle pasture, could not be
excluded from their rights of common. By statute of 1776, the
Elizabethan statute restricting locations where cottages could be
erected and their inhabitants was repealed because the industrious poor
were under great difficulties to procure habitations.
Land could be rented out at ten times the original value. Land was
typically rented out for 7, 14, or 21 years. Great fortunes were made by
large landowners who built grand country estates. The manufacturers and
merchants made much money, but agriculture was still the basis of the
national wealth. As the population grew, the number of people in the
manufacturing classes was almost that of the agriculturalists, but they
had at least twice the income of the agriculturalists.
The greatest industry after agriculture was cloth. Most of this
activity took places in the homes, but families could earn more if each
family member was willing to exchange the informality of domestic work
for the long hours and harsh discipline of the factory or workshop. More
wool was made into cloth in the country. Dyed and finished wool cloth
and less raw wool and unfinished broadcloth, was exported. Bleaching was
done by protracted washing and open-air drying in "bleach fields". There
were great advances in the technology of making cloth.
Thomas Lombe, the son of a weaver, became a mercer and merchant in
London. He went to Italy to discover their secret in manufacturing silk
so inexpensively. He not only found his way in to see their silk
machines, but made some drawings and sent them to England hidden in
pieces of silk. He got a patent in 1718 and he and his brother set up a
mill using water power to twist together the silk fibers from the
cocoons into thread in 1719. His factory was five hundred feet long and
about five stories high. One water wheel worked the vast number of parts
on the machines. The machines inside were very tall, cylindrical in
shape, and rotated on vertical axes. Several rows of bobbins, set on the
circumference, received the threads, and by a rapid rotary movement gave
them the necessary twist. At the top the thrown silk was automatically
wound on a winder, all ready to be made into hanks [coils] for sale. The
workman's chief task was to reknot the threads whenever they broke. Each
man was in charge of sixty threads. There were three hundred workmen.
Lombe made a fortune of 120,000 pounds and was knighted and made an
alderman of London. After his patent expired in 1732, his mill became
the prototype for later cotton and wool spinning mills in the later
1700s. There were many woolen manufacture towns. Clothiers might employ
up to three thousand workers. At these, the spinning was done by
unskilled labor, especially women and children in villages and towns.
Weaving, wool combing, and carding were skilled occupations.
In 1733, clockmaker and weaver John Kay invented a flying shuttle for
weaving. It was fitted with small wheels and set in a kind of wooden
groove. On either side there were two wooden hammers hung on horizontal
rods to give the shuttle and to and fro action. The two hammers were
bound together by two strings attached to a single handle, so that with
one hand the shuttle could be driven either way. With a sharp tap by the
weaver, first one and then the other hammer moved on its rod. It hit the
shuttle, which slid along its groove. At the end of each rod there was a
spring to stop the hammer and replace it in position. The flying shuttle
doubled the weavers' output. Now the broadest cloth could be woven by
one man instead of two. This shuttle was used in a machine for cotton.
But the manufacturers who used the flying shuttle combined together and
refused to pay royalties to Kay, who was ruined by legal expenses. Now
the price of thread rose because of increased demand for it. The
weavers, who had to pay the spinners, then found it hard to make a
living. But the process of spinning was soon to catch up.
In 1738, John Wyatt, a ship's carpenter who also invented the harpoon
shot from a gun, patented a spinning machine whereby carded wool or
cotton was joined together to make a long and narrow mass. One end of
this mass was drawn in between a pair of rotating rollers, of which one
surface was smooth and the other rough, indented, or covered with
leather, cloth, shagg, hair, brushes, or points of metal. From here, the
mass went between another set of rollers, which were moving faster than
the first pair. This stretched the mass and drew it into any degree of
fineness of thread by adjusting the speed of the second pair of rollers.
Then the thread went by a flier, which twisted it. After this the thread
was wound off onto spindles or bobbins, whose rotation was regulated by
the faster pair of rollers. Or the mass could be drawn by rotating
spindles directly from one pair of rollers. This machine was worked by
two donkeys and was tended by ten female workers. Because of bankruptcy
in 1742, the invention was sold to Edward Cave, the editor of
"Gentleman's Magazine". He set up a workshop with five machines, each
fitted with fifty spindles and worked by water wheels. Carding was done
by cylindrical carding machines invented by Lewis Paul.
In 1764, the plant was bought by carpenter and weaver James Hargreaves.
He was watching his wife spin when the spinning wheel tipped over onto
its side. It continued to revolve, while the thread, held between two
fingers, seemed to be spinning itself, even though the spindle was in a
vertical instead of a horizontal position. It occurred to him that a
large number of vertical spindles arranged side by side could be turned
by the same wheel and that, therefore, many threads could be spun at
once. He named his machine the "the Jenny" after his wife. This
"spinning Jenny" could spin a hundred threads at a time. He patented it
about 1770. The machine consisted of a rectangular frame on four legs.
At one end was a row of vertical spindles. Across the frame were two
parallel wooden rails, lying close together, which were mounted on a
sort of carriage and slid backwards and forwards as desired. The cotton,
which had been previously carded, stretched, and twisted passed between
the two rails and then was wound on spindles. With one hand the spinner
worked the carriage backwards and forwards, and with the other he turned
the handle which worked the spindles. In this way, the thread was drawn
and twisted at the same time. The jenny did the work of about 30
spinning wheels. No longer did it take ten spinners to keep one weaver
busy. But manufacturers refused to pay him royalties for his invention.
He was offered 3,000 pounds for his rights in the jenny, but refused it.
The courts held that the model of his jenny had been used in industry
before it was patented and any rights he may have had were declared to
have lapsed. Nevertheless, he made over 4,000 pounds. The spinning jenny
was used in many homes.
Richard Arkwright came from a poor family and was taught to read by an
uncle. He became a barber and made wigs. He taught himself crafts
necessary to invent and patent in 1769 a spinning frame worked by a
water wheel, which he called a" water frame". He strengthened cotton
thread by adding rollers to the spinning process which were able to
strengthen the cotton thread and make it of even thickness so that it
could be used instead of costly linen as the warp. With capital from two
rich hosiers, he set up a workshop next to a swift and powerful river
running down a narrow gorge. Then he turned his attention to weaving
this thread with multiple spinning wheels in the first practical cotton
mill factory. In 1773, he set up weaving workshops making pure cotton
calicoes which were as good as Indian calicoes. This was the first
all-cotton cloth made in England. He had confronted and solved the
problem of a statute of 1721 which proscribed wearing or using printed,
painted, stained or dyed calicoes e.g. in apparel, bed, chair, cushion,
window curtain, and furniture, except those dyed all in blue, or else
forfeit 20 pounds by a seller, 5 pounds by a wearer, and 20 pounds by
other users. The purpose was to provide wool-working jobs to the poor,
whose numbers had been increasing excessively because of lack of work.
Arkwright argued that the statute should not include printed or painted
cloth made in Great Britain in its ancient tradition of fustians with an
all linen warp for strength and a cotton weft for fineness. This statute
was so "clarified" in 1735. When wool-weavers had expressed their
opposition to imported printed cottons and calicoes by tearing them off
people, a statute of 1720 provided that any one who willfully and
maliciously assaulted a person in the public streets or highways with an
intent to tear, spoil, cut, burn, or deface the garments or clothes of
such person and carried this out was guilty of felony punishable by
transportation for seven years. The prohibition against the manufacture
and wearing and using of pure cotton fabrics came to an end in 1774 on
arguments of Arkwright made to Parliament that his pure cottons would
bleach, print, wash and wear better than fustians.
In 1775, Arkwright added machines to do work prefatory to spinning. Raw
cotton was first fed by a sloping hose to a feeder that was perpetually
revolving. From here it went a carding machine of three rollers of
different diameters covered with bent metal teeth. The first, with teeth
bent in the direction of its revolution, caught up the cotton fibers.
The second, revolving in the same direction but much faster, carded the
fibers into the requisite fineness by contact with the third, whose
teeth and motion were in the opposite direction. Next, a crank and comb
detached the carded cotton so that it came off as a continuous ribbon.
Then the ribbon went into a revolving cone, which twisted it on itself.
Eventually Arkwright became rich from his creation of the modern
factory, which was widely copied. He established discipline in his mills
and he made his presence felt everywhere there, watching his men and
obtaining from them the steadiest and most careful work. He provided
housing and services to attract workers.
After cotton, the inventions of the spinning jenny and the water-
powered frame were applied to wool. Silk and cotton manufacture led the
way in using new machinery because they were recently imported
industries so not bound down by tradition and legal restraint. Yarn
production so improved that weavers became very prosperous. Cards with
metal teeth challenged the use of wood and horn cards with thistles on
them in carding wool. Merchants who traveled all over the world and saw
new selling opportunities, and therefore kept encouraging the
manufacturers to increase their production and improve their methods.
Factory owners united to present suggestions to Parliament.
Manufacturing broke loose from traditional confines in several ways. To
avoid the monopolistic confines of chartered towns, many entrepreneurs
set up new industries in Birmingham or Manchester, which grew
enormously. Manchester had no municipal corporation and was still under
the jurisdiction of a manor court. It sent no representative to the
House of Commons. All over the country the Justices of the Peace had
largely ceased regulating wages, especially in the newer industries such
as cotton, where apprenticeship was optional. Apprenticeship lapsed in
many industries, excepting the older crafts. Several legal decisions had
declared seven years practice of a trade as good as an apprenticeship.
Apprentices still lived in their masters' houses and were still treated
as family members. The regulations of the Cutlers' Company remained in
force as its masters used their great manual skill to make cutlery in
their own homes with the help of their children and apprentices. Trades
in some towns which had guild regulations that had the force of law hung
on to their customs with difficulty.
Although there were few large factories in the country under effective
management of a capitalist, trade unionism was beginning as two distinct
classes of men were being formed in factories. The factory owner was so
high above his workmen that he found himself on the same level as other
capitalists, the banker, who gave him credit, and the merchant, who gave
him customers. Journeymen in factories could no longer aspire to become
masters of their trade and no longer socialized with their employers.
Hard and fast rules replaced the freedom of the small workshops. Each
worker had his allotted place and his strictly defined and invariable
duty. Everyone had to work, steadily and without stopping, under the
vigilant eye of a foreman who secured obedience by means of fines,
physical means, or dismissals. Work started, meals were eaten, and work
stopped at fixed hours, signaled by the ringing of a bell. Factory hours
were typically fourteen hours or more. Organized resistance, as usual,
began not with those most ill-treated, but with those men who had some
bargaining power through their skills.
Wool-combers, who worked next to a charcoal stove where they heated the
teeth of the comb, were the most skilled of the cloth industry were hard
to replace. Since they were nomadic, they quickly organized nation-wide.
They agreed that if any employer hired a comber not in their
organization, none of them would work for him. They also would beat up
and destroy the comb-pot of the outsider. In 1720 and 1749, the Tiverton
wool-combers objected to the import of combed wool from Ireland by
burning Irish wool in clothiers' stores and attacking several houses.
They had strike funds and went on strike in 1749. Their bloody brawls
caused the military to intervene. Then many of them left town in a body,
harming the local industry. The earnings of wool-combers was high,
reaching from 10s. to 12s. a week in 1770, the highest rate of a weaver.
In 1716, the Colchester weavers accused their employers of taking on
too many apprentices. When the weavers organized and sought to regulate
the weaving trade, a statute was passed in 1725 making their
combinations void. Strike offenses such as housebreaking and destruction
of goods or personal threats had penalties of transportation for seven
years. Still in 1728, the Gloucester weavers protested against men being
employed who had not served their apprenticeship.
When the journeymen tailors in and around London organized a union, a
statute made their agreements entering into combinations to advance
their wages to unreasonable prices and to lessen their usual hours of
work, illegal and void, because this had encouraged idleness and
increased the number of poor. Tailors' wages were not to exceed 2s. per
day and their hours of work were to be 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the next
three months, and 1s.8d. per day for the rest of the year. A master
tailor paying more would forfeit 5 pounds. A journeyman receiving more
was sent to the House of Correction for 2 months. Justices of the Peace
could still alter these wages and hours depending on local scarcity or
plenty. Despite this statute, the journeymen tailors complained to
Parliament of their low wages and lack of work due to their masters
calling them to work only about half the year. There was much seasonal
fluctuation in their trade as there was in all trades. The slack period
for the tailors was the winter, when the people of fashion retired to
their country estates. After their complaint, their wages then rose from
1s.10d. per day in 1720, to 1s.8d.- 2s. in 1721, to 2s.- 2s.6d. in 1751,
to 2s.2d.- 2s.6d. in 1763, to up to 2s.7 1/2 d. in 1767, and to 3s. in
1775. Foremen were excluded from wage control. When they complained of
their long hours, which were two hours longer than the 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
of most handicraft trades, their hours were reduced in 1767 by one hour
to 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and their pay was set at 6d. per hour for overtime
work at night during periods of general mourning, e.g. mourning for a
deceased courtier. Their work hours were lowered another hour to 6 a.m.
to 6 p.m. in 1768.
The stocking frame-knitters guild, which had been chartered in 1663,
went on strike to protest the use of workhouse children as an abuse of
apprenticeship which lowered their wages. They broke many of their
frames, which belonged to their employers, to limit their number.
In 1749, combinations to advance wages, decrease hours of work, or
regulate prices were declared void for journeymen dyers, journeyman hot
pressers, all wool workers, brickmakers and tilemakers, journeymen
servants, workmen, laborers, felt and hat makers, and silk, linen,
cotton, iron, leather, and fur workers in and around London. The penalty
was prison or hard labor at a House of Correction for three months
without bail. In 1756, Justices of the Peace were to determine the rates
of wages of wool workers according to numbers of yards. But this was
repealed the next year to prevent combinations of workers. Wage
agreements between clothiers and weavers were declared binding.
Clothiers not paying wages within two days of delivery of work forfeited
40s.
In 1763 the silk weavers in east London drew up a scale of wages, and
upon its being rejected, 2000 of them broke their tools, destroyed the
materials, and left their workshops. A battalion of guards had to take
possession of the area. In 1765, the silk weavers marched on Westminster
to stop the import of French silks. In 1768, the weavers rebelled
against a 4d. per yard reduction in their wages, filling the streets in
riotous crowds and pillaging houses. After the garrison of the Tower
came, the workmen resisted with cudgels and cutlasses, resulting in
deaths and woundings. The throwsters [those who pulled the silk fibers
from the cocoons of the silk worms and twisted them together to make a
thread] and the handkerchief weavers also became discontent. A battle
between soldiers and silk weavers at their meeting place resulted in
several men on both sides being killed. In 1773, wages and prices for
the work of journeymen silk weavers in and around London were designated
to be regulated by the Mayor and Justices of the Peace. Foremen were
excluded. No silk weaver could have more than two apprentices or else
forfeit 20 pounds. Journeymen weavers entering into combinations
forfeited 40s. This statute satisfied the weavers, but they formed a
union to ensure that it was followed.
In 1750, 1761, and 1765, there were strikes which stopped the work of
the coal industry and harbor at Newcastle for weeks. In 1763, the
keelmen formed a combination to force their employers to use the
official measure fixed by statute for the measurement of loads of coals.
The book "Consideration upon the East-India Trade" dating from 1701
advocated free foreign trade. It argued that the import of goods from
India not only benefited the consumer but also the nation, because it
was a waste of labor to use it in producing goods which could be bought
cheap abroad. This labor could be better put to use at easily learned
plain work in the new industries. Also the low cost of imported goods
would motivate the invention of machines in the nation which would be
even more efficient in manufacturing these goods. But English
manufacturers were still suspicious of free trade.