THE MULE AND THE RISE OF A NEW COTTON MANUFACTURE
I
To combine in a superior spinning-machine, the most important
principles of those with which the names of James Hargreaves and
Richard Arkwright are associated, is the task accomplished by Samuel
Crompton. This machine was the “mule,” and whatever doubt there may be
as to the real inventor of the jenny and the rollers, no serious doubt
has ever been cast upon the title of Crompton as the inventor of the
mule. In the letters printed in the following pages he informs us how,
where, why, and when he invented the machine, and some indication is
given of its effects upon the development of a new cotton manufacture.
In addition, we have a vivid account of his efforts, and of the
measures taken, to obtain adequate recompense for his ingenuity as
inventor. The letters are so complete in themselves that, in many
respects, little needs to be added to them. But after a lapse of one
hundred and forty years from the date when Crompton began to invent
his machine, it should be possible to place it more adequately in its
relations than it was when the letters were written.
To give a detailed account of Crompton’s life and labours is not
required, as that task has been excellently performed by his
fellow-townsman, Gilbert J. French, and also by his staunch friend,
John Kennedy.[355] But, in association with these letters, to give
some of the outstanding facts of his career will be considered
excusable and even necessary.
[Footnote 355: French, _The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton_, first
edition, 1859. The references which follow are to this edition.
Kennedy, _A Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton_, Manchester Literary and
Philosophical Society, vol. v., second series, 1831.]
When Crompton was born, on the 3rd of December 1753, his parents
lived at Firwood Fold, a hamlet in the township of Tonge, in the
parish of Bolton, but about a mile outside the town. Soon after his
birth they removed to another cottage in the same township, and,
when he was about five years old, they took up their residence in a
portion of a large picturesque dwelling near by, which Lancashire
folk call Hall-i’-th’-Wood.[356] It was here where, according to his
own account, as early as 1772, he began his endeavours to discover a
method of producing a better quality of yarn than that which he as a
weaver had to use.[357] This was two years after Hargreaves had taken
out his belated patent for the jenny, and three years after Arkwright
had obtained his patent for the rollers. Two or three years before
1772, Crompton is stated to have spun upon a jenny,[358] and, if the
statement is correct, it substantiates the view already expressed, that
before Hargreaves took out his patent the jenny was in common use.
[Footnote 356: French, _ibid._, pp. 2, 26-27.]
[Footnote 357: _Infra_, p. 167.]
[Footnote 358: Kennedy, _ibid._, p. 319.]
It was not until 1778, however, that Crompton began to construct the
machine, which, known at first by the names of the “Hall-i’-th’ Wood
Wheel” and the “Muslin Wheel,” later became known as the “Mule.” The
machine was completed in 1779, and until the beginning of 1780 he spun
upon it both warp and weft yarn for his own use as a weaver.[359] At
this time he devoted himself entirely to spinning, as well he might,
seeing that he obtained as much as 14s. per lb. for 40’s yarn, and
as much as 25s. for 60’s.[360] These prices indicate the intense
demand for yarn of the quality spun by his method. They also explain
why during 1780 he “was beset on every side by people of various
descriptions from the distance of 60 miles and upwards as well as by
my neighbours” anxious to learn his secret.[361] Before the end of the
year, convinced that he could not retain it, he consented to make his
machine public, on the promise of a liberal subscription, “and received
by subscription only so much as built me a new one with 4 spindles more
than my first,”[362] which had 48.[363]
[Footnote 359: _Infra_, p. 167.]
[Footnote 360: French, _ibid._, p. 76.]
[Footnote 361: _Infra_, p. 168. Accepting a view held by Crompton’s
descendants that Arkwright paid a surreptitious visit to Crompton
intent upon discovering his secret, French (_ibid._, pp. 79-80),
referring to a passage similar to the above in one of Crompton’s
letters, suggests that in it there is a hidden reference to Arkwright
as “Cromford, where Arkwright then resided, is about sixty miles from
Bolton.” May not the proverb, “Give a dog a bad name ...” do something
to explain some of the statements made regarding this man?]
[Footnote 362: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 363: Letter addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, 30th October 1807.
Brown, _The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims_, p. 24. In the
agreement on which the machine was made public fifty-five individuals
and firms promised to subscribe £1, 1s. each, twenty-seven 10s. 6d.,
one 7s. 6d. and one 5s. The agreement concluded with a statement that
“a contribution is desired from every well-wisher of the trade.” It is
said that some of those included in the list did not subscribe, and,
according to Mr. Kennedy’s account, Crompton, at this time, received
only about £50. In the evidence before the Committee on Crompton’s
petition in 1812, the amount was stated as £106. Brown, _ibid._, pp.
24, 31. French, _ibid._, pp. 84, 271, 272. _Infra_, p. 187.]
[Illustration: From “The Hall i’ th’ Wood,” Bolton
A Portfolio of Measured Drawings issued by the Manchester School of
Architecture]
The obvious question which suggests itself is, why did not Crompton
patent his machine? Some light may be thrown upon this question by
considering what was its relation to the jenny on the one hand, and to
Arkwright’s machinery on the other, for which, it must be remembered,
Arkwright was in possession of full patent rights until 1781. Even the
verdict of that year did not legally terminate the rights conferred
by his first patent, which continued until 1783. The two bases of
Crompton’s “mule” were undoubtedly the principle of the jenny and
the principle of the rollers, hence the name. If proof were required
that neither the jenny nor Arkwright’s machine produced a completely
satisfactory thread for fine work, the demand for Crompton’s yarn in
1780 would supply it. But there was the further consideration that the
jenny produced a soft thread which was only really suitable for wefts,
while the characteristic feature of the thread spun by Arkwright’s
machinery was that it was hard and suitable for warps.
One of the defects of Arkwright’s yarn was that it tended to be uneven,
and with the rollers there was no satisfactory method of correcting
it, though Arkwright attempted to do so by passing the rovings through
several machines before they reached the final stage. But the yarn
lacked the “stretch” which was given to it by means of the movable
carriage which, as we have seen, was an essential feature of the
mechanism of the jenny. Crompton’s method was to pass the roving
between rollers and then, by availing himself of the movable carriage,
to get the “stretch.” Thus he obtained the advantages of both methods,
and the result was a thread of much better quality and finer than that
produced previously, and it was not only suitable for wefts, but also
for warps, particularly for those required in the manufacture of fine
cotton fabrics.[364]
[Footnote 364: _Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton_, pp. 20-21. Baines,
_ibid._, p. 197-199.]
But the mule was more than a combination of the jenny and the rollers;
although this in itself was an important development in spinning. As
just mentioned, with the mule method of spinning, the roving was first
passed between rollers and so partly attenuated. When the required
length had passed between them, they stopped, and thus acted like the
clasp arrangement on the movable carriage of the jenny. But whereas,
in the jenny, the spindles were fixed in the frame, in the mule they
were fixed in the movable carriage, which receded from the rollers as
the partly attenuated roving was given out, and continued to recede
when the rollers stopped, thus attenuating it still more, while at the
same time the spindles were revolved to give the required twist to the
thread. Then, as in the jenny, the carriage was moved back to its first
position, and the spindles were again revolved to wind the spun thread
on to them. The important thing about the “stretch” in the machine
invented by Crompton was that he “made the spindles recede from the
rollers in such a way that the yarn was subjected to the least possible
strain until it had been strengthened by twisting or spinning. As a
result the yarn produced by the ‘mule’ was more even and smooth, and
could be spun thinner or of higher ‘counts’ than had been possible on
any earlier machines.”[365]
[Footnote 365: _Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton_, p. 21.]
If ever the labours of anyone have deserved the grant of a patent,
surely it was so in the case of Crompton. Even though his machine was
based upon the jenny and the rollers, it marked an immense advance in
the development of spinning machinery. Usually it is surmised that
he did not obtain a patent owing to lack of funds. Probably it was
much more due to his lack of the business qualities which Arkwright
possessed in abundance, coupled with difficulties connected with
the character of the machine, and with the views regarding patents
prevalent at the time.
French refers to the fact that, before the machine was made public,
Crompton had shown it in confidence to Mr. John Pilkington, a merchant
and manufacturer of Bolton, who gave evidence on his behalf before the
Committee in 1812, and finds it difficult to explain why he did not
advise Crompton to secure a patent and assist him in doing so.[366]
As regards Mr. Pilkington, it is almost certain that his action is
to be explained on the ground of the prevalent dislike to patents.
Apparently, what he advised Crompton to do, was to make his machine
public on the understanding that a subscription should be raised to
reward him for its invention.[367] In giving this advice, he was acting
quite in accordance with the method of reward which then generally
commended itself, and, there is reason to think, commended itself to
Mr. Pilkington. Reference has already been made to the Committee of
Trade in Manchester, which came into existence in 1781,[368] on the
dissolution of the committee which had existed since 1774. Whether Mr.
Pilkington was a member of the Committee before 1781 it is impossible
to say, but he was certainly a member of the Committee appointed
in that year, and it was this Committee which was so prominent in
opposition to Arkwright’s patent, and which, as we have seen, when it
was most actively engaged in this direction, raised a subscription to
reward an inventor.[369]
[Footnote 366: French, _ibid._, p. 83.]
[Footnote 367: Evidence of Mr. Pilkington in 1812, _infra_, pp.
186-187.]
[Footnote 368: _Manchester Mercury_, 17th July 1781. Mr. Pilkington was
a member of the cotton and linen section.]
[Footnote 369: _Ante_, p. 103. The case of Highs in 1771 must be borne
in mind and also another one later, referred to _infra_, p. 123.]
As regards that part of the explanation connected with the character
of the mule, it has to be borne in mind that its use involved the use
of the rollers, for which Arkwright already held a patent. Only by
some arrangement with him could the mule have been openly brought into
use, and it is hard to believe that this fact was not recognised, and,
seeing that such an arrangement would probably have been in Arkwright’s
interest, that it did not influence Mr. Pilkington’s advice.
In 1807 a writer insisted upon the relation between the mule and the
rollers and claimed that, at first, the mule was not used publicly
without Arkwright’s permission.[370] Evidence that such permission
was given in any case is difficult to discover, but apart from it,
the statement of Ure that had not Arkwright’s patent been annulled,
the mule, as embodying the system of rollers, must have remained in
abeyance until the end of its term, seems justified.[371] Unless the
view is taken that the verdict in the 1781 trial annulled the patent
of 1769 (which was never claimed), this means that the mule could not
be freely used until 1783, notwithstanding that verdict, and, as the
1775 patent contained the system of rollers, it would come under legal
restriction again during the short period that intervened between the
second and third trials in 1785.
[Footnote 370: _Manchester Athenæum_, No. 9, 1st September 1807.]
[Footnote 371: Ure, _ibid._, i., p. 277.]
But this suggests another point: is it not probable that the appearance
of the mule does much to explain the infringements of Arkwright’s
patent against which he instituted the actions in 1781? Similarly,
does it not do much to explain the energy with which the actions
were defended, particularly in view of the fact that Peel’s firm was
included among those that subscribed £1, 1s. in order that Crompton
would give publicity to his machine? Unless some arrangement had been
made, Arkwright would have every inducement to prevent the mule coming
into use; on the other side, an opportunity was presented of outwitting
Arkwright, and of securing the free use of a machine even superior to
that for which he held a patent. Here, it appears, we get the elements
of the trouble which culminated in the trial of 1781.
Whatever justification there may have been for the opposition to
Arkwright’s patent, the action of those engaged in the cotton industry
in regard to Crompton in 1780 was despicable. An inhabitant of
Bolton writing in 1799 stated that “the inventor received from the
subscription of individuals 100l. for making his invention public;
the sum of 200l. he says was promised him, which promise was never
fulfilled.”[372] It may have been that Crompton did give his consent
on the promise of such a sum: a similar sum was given to Highs in 1771
and suggested for the man Milne in 1782, and may have been regarded as
customary.[373] Be this as it may, Crompton did not obtain it in 1780,
and his treatment at that time must always remain as a reproach to
those concerned.
[Footnote 372: _Monthly Magazine_, vol. viii., p. 776.]
[Footnote 373: _Ante_, p. 103. This is not to suggest that if Crompton
had received £200 he would have been adequately recompensed. What sum
would have been adequate recompense? No one, in 1780, could have fully
realised the importance of invention as only the future could reveal
it. Had the subscription been considerably larger Crompton’s grievance
might have been lessened though not averted.]
By nature Crompton was probably a man of rather gloomy temperament.
He would probably have been as happy as was possible to him, with a
modest competence, living his life in a corner, but there can be little
doubt that this incident accentuated what nature had endowed him with,
and he brooded over the injustice to the end of his life. Moreover, it
is probable that it checked the exercise of his inventive genius. Four
or five years later he was experimenting with a carding-machine,[374]
which, French tells us, he ultimately destroyed in the belief that it
would be purloined.[375] In view of the date of the experiment one
cannot help wondering whether it was carried on during the short period
in 1785, when Arkwright’s patent rights were temporarily restored, and
had as its object the displacement of his carding machinery.
[Footnote 374: Kennedy, _ibid._, p. 321.]
[Footnote 375: French, _ibid._, p. 67.]
By the time these patent rights were finally annulled considerable
improvements had been effected in the mule, and from about that date
there followed a great extension of its use. Up to 1783 Mr. Kennedy
did not think that Crompton’s machine was in use to the extent of a
thousand spindles,[376] and it must be recognised that it was in a
crude state of construction when it left his hands. Crompton was not a
practical mechanic and his work was performed with the simplest tools.
He was acquainted with the jenny, but he informed Mr. Kennedy that,
when he constructed his machine, he was unacquainted with Arkwright’s
rollers.[377] This may have meant, not that he had not heard of them,
but that he had not seen them at work, which is not improbable, seeing
that, at that time, they were only in use by Arkwright himself, and
by those who had purchased the right to use them. If Crompton had
neither heard of them nor seen them, it appears that he would have to
be regarded as another discoverer of the roller method. The evidence
is too slight, however, to allow a confident assertion on this point.
Mr. Kennedy’s statement that Crompton at first used a single pair
of rollers, expecting to attenuate the roving by pressure, and on
the failure of this method was led to adopt a second pair, one pair
revolving at a higher speed than the other, certainly suggests that
he had no previous close acquaintance with the roller method.[378]
Indeed, one having heard of it, but not having seen it, might well have
proceeded on these lines.
[Footnote 376: Kennedy, _ibid._, p. 330. In 1788 the writer of a
pamphlet estimated that there were at work 550 mule machines of ninety
spindles each, and 20,070 hand-jennies of eighty spindles. Aikin,
_Manchester_, p. 179.]
[Footnote 377: Kennedy, _ibid._, p. 326.]
[Footnote 378: Kennedy, _ibid._, 325. Arkwright claimed that he got his
first hint of the use of rollers for spinning by seeing a red-hot iron
bar elongated by them. Ure, _ibid._, i., p. 271.]
II
Like the jenny and unlike the water-frame, the mule in its early stages
was entirely worked by hand, and was chiefly used in the cottages in
country districts.[379] The method of spinning by it soon became well
known “from the circumstance of the high wages that could be obtained
by those working on it, above the ordinary wages of other artisans,
such as shoemakers, joiners, hat-makers, &c. who on that account left
their previous employment.... By their industry, skill, and economy,
these men first becoming proprietors of perhaps a single mule, and
persevering in habits so intimately connected with success, were
afterwards the most extensive spinners in the trade.”[380]
[Footnote 379: Kennedy, _Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade_,
Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. iii., second series
(1815), p. 127.]
[Footnote 380: Kennedy, _Brief Memoir_, p. 335.]
It was also by such men that many minor improvements were effected in
the mule: “For in the course of their working the machine if there
was any little thing out of gear, each workman endeavoured to fill
up the deficiency with some expedient suggested by his former trade;
the smith suggested a piece of iron, the shoemaker a welt of leather,
&c., all of which had a good effect in improving the machine. Each put
what he thought best to the experiment, and that which was good was
retained.... It would be vain to enumerate all the little additions
to Crompton’s original machine; also as they arose so much out of one
another, it is impossible to give to every claimant, what is exactly
his due for improvements.”[381]
[Footnote 381: Kennedy, _Brief Memoir_, pp. 335-336.]
But there were more conspicuous improvements effected in the mule
during the first six or seven years after it was made public, and among
them were those of Henry Stones of Horwich, who, it is believed, was
the first maker of mules after Crompton, either for his own use or
for the use of others. His improvements consisted in the introduction
of metal rollers, in place of wooden ones, and of a self-acting
contrivance to stop them when they had given out the required length
of roving, while various devices came into use for measuring the
number of revolutions necessary for this purpose. One effect of the
improvements of Stones was to allow the mule to be enlarged to 100 or
130 spindles.[382] Soon afterwards a man named Baker of Bury introduced
other improvements which enabled the whole machine to be further
enlarged, and another man, Hargreaves of Toddington (Tottington near
Bury?), contrived a method for bringing out the carriage.[383]
[Footnote 382: _Ibid._, pp. 332-333.]
[Footnote 383: _Ibid._, 333-334.]
But, in addition to improvements, there was also a development in
connection with the mule in these early years. This was the invention
of a machine called the “Billy” by a man at Stockport who, it may be
noticed, again received a premium as a reward for his ingenuity.[384]
Up to this time the mule had been used solely for the spinning of yarn.
The rovings for spinning had to be made either on the spinning-wheel,
or by Arkwright’s machinery. The “Billy” was a modification of the
mule, or rather a combination of the mule and the jenny; but, instead
of spinning rovings into yarn, it made the carded cotton into rovings.
With this machine rovings could be made for the use of the mule, the
jenny, or even the water-frame, to any required degree of fineness,
and at a greatly reduced cost.[385] This modification of the mule,
therefore, extended its own use, but it was not so with the jenny,
although it was the jenny-spinners who subscribed the premium for the
inventor.
[Footnote 384: _Ibid._, p. 331.]
[Footnote 385: Kennedy, _ibid._, pp. 331-332.]
At this time the jenny had superseded the hand-wheel and was in use
over a wide area, including such centres as Blackburn, Bury, Oldham,
Ashton, and Stockport, but the stage had been reached when in turn, so
far as cotton-spinning was concerned, the jenny was to be superseded
by the mule.[386] To a lesser extent the same may be said of the mule
in relation to the water-frame. The mule, however, was pre-eminently
a machine for spinning the finer counts of yarn; it was owing to this
fact that it gave rise to new branches of trade; in spinning warp yarn
and the coarser counts generally there was still scope for Arkwright’s
spinning-machine. The mule and the jenny were rivals in a way, and to
an extent that the mule and the water-frame were not.[387] Even this
rivalry was absent as between the mule and Arkwright’s machinery for
the processes preparatory to spinning, and with the cancellation of his
patent roving-making for a time became a distinct business. This was
exceedingly important to the small spinners, to whom the rovings were
chiefly sold, as they now got the advantage of methods of preparation
previously confined to mill-owners who had adopted the patent
machinery.[388]
[Footnote 386: _Ibid._, p. 330. According to Guest, at the time he
wrote (1828) the jenny was used in the woollen industry even more
extensively than ever it had been in the cotton industry (_British
Cotton Manufacture_, p. 147).]
[Footnote 387: Baines, _ibid._, p. 198. Evidence of Mr. G. A. Lee
before the Committee on Crompton’s petition. _Infra_, p. 188.]
[Footnote 388: Kennedy, _ibid._, p. 336.
_Autobiography of Robert Owen_, i., pp. 25-26: “My three spinners were
spinning the cotton yarn on my three mules from _rovings_. I had no
machinery to make rovings, and was obliged to purchase them,--they were
the half-made materials to be spun into thread. I had become acquainted
with two industrious Scotchmen, of the names of M‘Connel and Kennedy,
who had also commenced about the same time as myself to make cotton
machinery upon a small scale, and they had now proceeded so far as
to make some of the machinery for preparing the cotton for the mule
spinning machinery so far as to enable them to make the rovings, which
they sold in that state to the spinners at a good profit.... This was
in the year 1790.... _They_ could then only make the _rovings_, without
finishing the thread; and I could only _finish_ the thread, without
being competent to make the _rovings_.”]
In 1790 William Kelly, manager of New Lanark Mills before Robert Owen
came into possession, first applied water-power to the mule, and this
at once led to its further enlargement.[389] Taking advantage of the
greater driving power available, a Manchester machine-maker named
Wright constructed a double mule, which gradually superseded the single
mule. With this new construction, which contained about 400 spindles,
“the spinner could superintend and operate upon four times the quantity
of spindles compared with the former method.”[390]
[Footnote 389: _Ibid._, pp. 53-59. Baines, _ibid._, p. 205.]
[Footnote 390: Kennedy, _ibid._, pp. 337-338.]
The application of water-power did not mean, of course, that afterwards
all the operations of the mule were mechanically performed, but,
in 1792, Kelly took out a patent for a “self-actor” mule, which he
expected young people would be able to operate. In later years the
reason he put forward for its not coming permanently into use was that,
owing to the introduction of the double mule and the rapid increase
in the number of spindles, mule-minding continued to be the task
of a man. Apparently there were other reasons, as, notwithstanding
numerous efforts, a satisfactory “self-actor” mule was not invented
until 1825, when a patent was taken out by Richard Roberts, the famous
Manchester machine-maker, who also gave the finishing touches to the
power-loom.[391] In the meantime, various other improvements had been
effected in the mule, one of which was due to John Kennedy,[392]
to whose writings we are indebted for so much of the information we
possess of the development of the cotton industry in the later years of
the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth centuries.
[Footnote 391: William Fairbairn in Baines’ _Lancashire and Cheshire_,
VI. clxxii. Roberts is an interesting case of a man being the owner of
nearly a hundred patents and yet dying in poverty.]
[Footnote 392: John Kennedy “was the first to introduce the double
speed or twisting motion to Crompton’s mule, and he may be considered
as the immediate successor of Arkwright and Crompton” (Fairbairn,
_ibid._, cxcvii.).]
We have just seen that one consequence of the application of artificial
power to the driving of the mule was an increase in its size. Another
consequence, closely associated with the one mentioned, was the
appearance of the mule in factories, as contrasted with the garrets of
cottages, where it had been previously employed. So long as artificial
power meant water-power, factories were necessarily erected by the side
of streams, mainly in the country districts. When steam-power became
available they could just as well be erected in the towns, and with
the increasing complexity of machinery the presence there of skilful
mechanics, who were lacking in the country districts, was an item of
importance.[393]
[Footnote 393: Kennedy, _Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade_,
pp. 121-122, 126-129. _Report on State of Children employed in
Manufactories_ (1816), p. 344.]
This transition became conspicuous about 1790,[394] and at this time
several men who later became noted cotton-spinners were entering
the industry. It was now that Robert Owen heard “about great and
extraordinary discoveries that were beginning to be introduced into
Manchester for spinning cotton by new and curious machinery” and was
induced to leave Satterfield’s to become a maker of mules.[395] Also
John Kennedy and his partner James M‘Connel were on the point of
founding the firm, among whose business material the following letters
of Samuel Crompton have been discovered.[396] Enough has been said to
indicate the eminence of John Kennedy in the cotton industry, and a
novelist of a later day, taking as her hero a Manchester Blue-Coat
apprentice in the early years of the nineteenth century, could indicate
in no better way the exalted stage he had reached in his career than by
allowing her readers to see him in conversation, almost as an equal,
with the Manchester cotton-spinner, James M‘Connel.[397]
[Footnote 394: Kennedy, _ibid._, p. 16.]
[Footnote 395: _Autobiography_, p. 22.]
[Footnote 396: _Economic Journal_, June, 1915.]
[Footnote 397: Banks, _The Manchester Man_, ch. xxxii. The author was
misinformed as to the Christian name of Mr. M‘Connel.]
Both these men were members of a group of Scottish youths that
migrated into Lancashire from a country district in Kirkcudbrightshire
in the early eighties of the eighteenth century,[398] and they
were not the only members of the group to gain prominent positions
in Manchester. The brothers Adam and George Murray were equally
prominent as cotton-spinners; James Kennedy, brother of John Kennedy,
was scarcely less prominent as the head of another cotton-spinning
concern; while a brother of James M‘Connel became manager of M‘Connel
& Kennedy’s factory. If, to this group, we add Jonathan Pollard, and
the Houldsworths, of whom Thomas and John were spinners in Manchester,
while Henry left Manchester for Glasgow in 1799, and established a
concern there, we have comprehended the principal spinners of fine yarn
in the British cotton industry in the early years of the nineteenth
century.[399] All these men commenced in business within a few years of
each other, those of whom we have definite information having little
capital, and, like Robert Owen, most of them commenced not so much as
spinners as makers of cotton machinery.
[Footnote 398: Kennedy, _Early Recollections_ (1849), pp. 9-10.]
[Footnote 399: _Report on State of Children employed in Manufactories_,
pp. 234, 244.]
When James M‘Connel, John Kennedy, and Adam Murray left Scotland they
became apprenticed to a man named Cannan, an uncle of James M‘Connel,
who himself had migrated from the same district some time before.[400]
This man was a machine-maker, and had established himself at Chowbent,
a village about twelve miles from Manchester, which a gazetteer
published in 1830 still noted for the excellent quality of cotton
machinery made there.[401] Thus, so far as these men were concerned,
there was nothing surprising in the fact that when they began business
in Manchester it was primarily as machine-makers.
[Footnote 400: Kennedy, _Early Recollections_ (1849), pp. 9-10. This
man evidently gathered round himself a small colony of Scotsmen as
there are others mentioned.]
[Footnote 401: Clarke, _The New Lancashire Gazetteer_, pp. 33-34.]
But there were other reasons which have to be taken into account. At
this time the making of cotton machinery had not become a specialised
branch of industry, and there was a lack of experienced workmen. The
firm of Dobson & Rothwell, of Bolton (now the famous firm of Dobson
& Barlow), only commenced in 1790, while the birth of other textile
machinery firms lay far in the future.[402] Machine-making, indeed, was
the business of workers in wood rather than of workers in metal. It
was almost impossible for anyone to begin spinning on any considerable
scale with the new machinery without first making it. As the spinning
firm of M‘Connel & Kennedy expanded, it continued to make machinery for
its own use long after it had ceased to accept orders from outsiders.
[Footnote 402: Dobson, _Evolution of the Spinning Machine_, pp. 108 _et
seq._]
It was such men as these who became prominent when Crompton’s mule was
being introduced into town factories. Their businesses in their early
stages were a mixture of machine-making and fine cotton-spinning, and
in either branch they could prosper. But, as regards many of them, the
intense demand for the fine yarns produced by the mule, turned the
balance in favour of spinning, and, as soon as convenient, they left
the making of machinery to specialised firms.
Although every branch of the cotton manufacture was affected in
greater or lesser degree by Crompton’s invention, it was to the finer
branches that it was supremely important. The previous inventions had
made possible the manufacture of cotton calicoes, and had improved
the manufacture of other goods, but they were not adequate to
produce the quality of material required for the finest fabrics.
For these, consumers in this country were still dependent upon the
long-established cotton industry in the East. Five years before the
date of Arkwright’s first patent Joseph Shaw, of Bolton, had attempted
to make British muslins at a place called Anderton, near Chorley, but
with little success, owing to the lack of suitable yarn.[403] It was
this deficiency which Crompton’s machine supplied.
[Footnote 403: Clarke, _Lancashire Gazetteer_, p. 4. In the paragraph
in which the above information is contained it is stated that in 1782,
“after Sir Richard Arkwright’s improvements had furnished an abundant
supply of that article (yarn), the manufacture was renewed here by Mr.
Oldknow, who realised a large fortune in the production of Balasore
handkerchiefs, and jaconet, and japanned muslins.” Cf. _Autobiography
of Robert Owen_, i., p. 25: “The first British muslins were made when
I was an apprentice with Mr. M‘Guffog (1781-1784), by a Mr. Oldknow at
Stockport ... who must have commenced this branch in 1780, 1781, or
1782.... When I first went to Mr. M‘Guffog, there were no other muslins
for sale except those made in the East Indies, and known as East India
Muslins; but while I was with him, Mr. Oldknow began to manufacture a
fabric which he called, by way of distinction, British Mull Muslin.”
_Cf._ also quotation from Mr. Kennedy on pp. 130-131. Both Owen and
Kennedy speak of Oldknow carrying on his manufacture at Stockport. If
the information given in the _Gazetteer_ is correct, it appears that he
commenced elsewhere. The reference in the _Gazetteer_ to Arkwright’s
machinery ought to be, perhaps, to Crompton’s mule. If not, it would
appear that Oldknow first began to experiment with yarn produced by the
water-frame, and later utilised that produced by the mule.]
In the evidence given in 1812 before the Committee on Crompton’s
petition it was claimed that the manufacture of the fine fabrics, the
cambrics, and the muslins, which then existed was to be attributed
almost entirely to the fine yarns produced by the mule.[404] Thus in
the invention of the mule may be found one of the chief causes of the
transference of the seat of an industry to the Western from the Eastern
world, where it had been situated from time immemorial.[405] Even as
the Committee was sitting, the cotton manufacturers of the United
Kingdom were turning their eyes towards the East, not as a market
from which cotton fabrics were imported, but as an extensive market
for goods that they produced.[406] A century later, of their immense
exports nearly one half was disposed of in that part of the world.[407]
[Footnote 404: _Infra_, p. 190.]
[Footnote 405: “The manufacture of cotton cloth was at its best in
India until very recent times, and the fine Indian muslins were in
great demand and commanded high prices, both in the Roman Empire and
in Mediæval Europe. The industry was one of the main factors in the
wealth of ancient India, and the transfer of that industry to England
and the United States, and the cheapening of the process by mechanical
ginning, spinning and weaving, is perhaps the greatest single factor
in the economic history of our own time” (Schoff, _The Periplus of the
Erythrean Sea_ (1912), p. 71).]
[Footnote 406: In 1815 a small amount of British yarn was sent to
India; six years later it had become a regular export, and in 1829
amounted to 3,185,639 lbs. In 1815, 800,000 yards of British cloth were
sent, and in 1830, 45,000,000 yards (Ure, _ibid._, i., p. 118). In 1831
the manufacturers and dealers in Bengal presented a petition regarding
the import of British cotton goods (Baines, _ibid._, pp. 81-82).]
[Footnote 407: Before the outbreak of the European War it was estimated
that nearly 80 per cent. of the total value of piece goods produced in
the United Kingdom were exported. In 1913, British India took 36 per
cent. and China 12 per cent. of the piece goods exported (_Report of
Committee on Textile Trades_ (1918), p. 60).]
Regarding this development of the manufacture of fine cotton goods in
this country, a witness has left us such a succinct account that it
cannot be omitted: “About 1790, the muslin trade received a stimulus at
Stockport, from the efforts of the late Samuel Oldknow, whose spirit
of enterprise extended to this branch of our manufacture. He took
new ground by copying some of the fabrics imported from India, which
at that time supplied this kingdom with all the finer fabrics, and
which the mule-spun yarn alone could imitate. He was very successful
in carrying on the ingenious processes which he had devised; but the
French Revolution creating a panic and general stagnation for a time,
he abandoned this branch of the trade, and betook himself to his
large water-mill at Mellor, which was built in the year 1790. On his
retiring from the manufacturing of fine muslin, Messrs. Horrocks, who
had just established themselves at Preston as mule-spinners, took up
what he had laid down. They became extensive manufacturers of cloth
similar to that made by Oldknow, and supplied the same market, London.
This gave a new stimulus in that district, and immediately upon the
subsiding of the panic caused by the French Revolution, a market
sprang up on the Continent for yarns of all kinds, but principally for
muslin yarns, up to the highest numbers that could be pronounced....
The Scotch in Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, being long in the habit of
weaving fine cambric from flax yarn, and silk friezes, had also turned
their hands to the manufacture of fine cotton fabrics principally from
the fine yarns produced by Hargreaves’ and other subsequent machines.
The Lancashire manufacturers followed them in the thicker and firmer
fabrics, and about 1805 or 1806 the Nottingham lace trade sprang up.
Mr. Heathcote (formerly a whitesmith) invented a machine by which he
could make lace similar to that of Brussels and Buckingham, which
was worked by hand; and he principally if not wholly, at first, used
fine flax yarns. Twofold fine cotton twisted together was found to
answer very well as a substitute; and as it required the finest yarns,
a great impulse was given towards perfecting the production of fine
cotton yarn. It bore a high price, as the lace manufacturer had only to
compete with hand-spun thread, and hand-made lace.”[408]
[Footnote 408: Kennedy, _Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton_, pp. 339,
344-345.
Heathcote’s machine was patented about 1809 and soon afterwards he is
said to have obtained five guineas a yard for lace which in 1844 could
be equalled at eighteenpence a yard (Dodd, _Textile Manufactures of
Great Britain_ (1844), pp. 210-211).]
In this account Mr. Kennedy implies the existence of markets for fine
yarns in Lancashire, at Nottingham, Glasgow, and on the Continent.
To these must be added the market at Belfast, where, in 1800, in the
town and within a circuit of ten miles 37,000 people were said to
be employed in the cotton manufacture.[409] Glasgow was the most
important market that the firm of M‘Connel & Kennedy supplied with
fine yarns during Mr. Kennedy’s connection with it, which terminated
in 1826, but from 1795 until that date merchants and manufacturers in
Belfast and neighbourhood were among its most important customers.[410]
[Footnote 409: Ure, _ibid._, p. 295.]
[Footnote 410: _Economic Journal_, June, 1915.]
From what has been said it will be apparent, so far as the development
of the cotton industry is concerned, that the period from the
introduction of the jenny and Arkwright’s machinery to the first years
of the nineteenth century may be divided into two parts, with a date
about 1790 marking the division. During the first part the problem of
providing adequate supplies of yarn for all kinds of cotton cloth was
definitely solved, and a new cotton manufacture and a new system of
organisation were born. In the second part that which had been achieved
during the preceding twenty years was developed and consolidated,
and the cotton industry, in its spinning branch, assumed its modern
form. The average import of cotton from 1776 to 1780 amounted to 6-3/4
million pounds; from 1786 to 1790 the amount reached 25-1/2 million
pounds; from 1796 to 1800 it increased to 37-1/2 million pounds; and
during the next five years to nearly 58-1/2 million pounds; afterwards
it increased very little until the conclusion of the war.[411] During
the last decades of the eighteenth century cotton, particularly of the
finer kinds, had assumed a new importance, and as a direct consequence
of the developments in England, the problem of its adequate supply was
already being solved by our kinsmen across the Atlantic.[412] In 1790
the United States had only just commenced to send small quantities of
cotton into Great Britain; fifteen years later the import was no less
than 32-1/2 million pounds.[413]
[Footnote 411: Baines, _ibid._, pp. 346-347.]
[Footnote 412: Kennedy, _ibid._, 347.]
[Footnote 413: Hammond, _The Cotton Industry_ (1897), p. 16. _Ibid._,
App. I.]
III
To a brief consideration of certain other important changes that
took place during the period, a classic passage written by William
Radcliffe forms a useful introduction: “From the year 1770 to 1788 a
complete change had gradually been effected in the spinning of yarns.
That of wool had disappeared altogether, and that of linen was also
nearly gone; cotton, cotton, cotton was become the almost universal
material for employment. The hand wheels, with the exception of one
establishment, were all thrown into lumber-rooms, the yarn was all
spun on common jennies, the carding for all numbers up to 40 hanks in
the pound was done on carding-engines; but the finer numbers of 60 to
80 were still carded by hand, it being a general opinion at that time
that machine-carding would never answer for fine numbers. In weaving
no great alteration had taken place during these eighteen years save
the introduction of the fly-shuttle, a change in the woollen looms to
fustians and calico, and the linen nearly gone, except the few fine
fabrics in which there was a mixture of cotton. To the best of my
recollection there was no increase of looms during this period--but
rather a decrease.... But the mule-twist now coming into vogue, for
the warp, as well as weft, added to the water-twist and common jenny
yarns, with an increasing demand for every fabric the loom could
produce, put all hands in request of every age and description. The
fabrics made from wool or linen vanished, while the old loom-shops
being insufficient, every lumber room, even old barns, cart-houses, and
outbuildings of any description were repaired, windows broke through
old blank walls and all fitted up for loom-shops. This source of making
room being at length exhausted, new weavers’ cottages with loom-shops
rose up in every direction; all immediately filled, and when in full
work the weekly circulation of money, as the price of labour only, rose
to five times the amount ever before experienced in this subdivision,
every family bringing home weekly 40, 60, 80, 100, or even 120
shillings per week!!!”[414]
[Footnote 414: _The Origin of Power-Loom Weaving_ (1828), pp. 61-62.]
In this passage the transition from the use of the hand-wheel in
spinning, and the manufacture of woollen, linen, and mixed goods, to
the use of the inventions, and the manufacture of all kinds of cotton
goods is vividly described. There is abundant evidence, in addition
to that given by Radcliffe, of the prosperity of the weavers as a
consequence of the changes,[415] but this is a matter which must be
considered along with another, especially as much turns upon them in
estimating the social consequences of the transition.
[Footnote 415: French, _ibid._, pp. 115-116. Many lists of wages are
given in the reports of various parliamentary committees--_e.g._
_Report on Commerce, Manufactures and Shipping_ (1833), p. 699. The
following are the prices paid for weaving (on the hand-loom) a 6-4ths,
60 reed cambric, 120 picks in one inch. They were taken in June in each
year. In 1795-1796 the length was 20 yards and afterwards 24 yards.
A weaver working one piece a week was said to be in full employment.
The prices are interesting, not only as showing the decline during the
period they cover, but also as the fluctuations indicate the state of
trade with remarkable accuracy:
+------+-----------+
| Year | Price |
+------+-----------+
| |_s._ _d._ |
| 1795 | 33 3 |
| 1796 | 33 3 |
| 1797 | 29 0 |
| 1798 | 30 0 |
| 1799 | 25 0 |
| 1800 | 25 0 |
| 1801 | 25 0 |
| 1802 | 29 0 |
| 1803 | 24 0 |
| 1804 | 20 0 |
| 1805 | 25 0 |
| 1806 | 22 0 |
| 1807 | 18 0 |
| 1808 | 14 0 |
| 1809 | 16 0 |
| 1810 | 19 6 |
| 1811 | 14 0 |
| 1812 | 14 0 |
| 1813 | 15 0 |
| 1814 | 24 0 |
| 1815 | 14 0 |
| 1816 | 12 0 |
| 1817 | 9 0 |
| 1818 | 9 0 |
| 1819 | 9 6 |
| 1820 | 9 0 |
| 1821 | 8 6 |
| 1822 | 8 6 |
| 1823 | 8 6 |
| 1824 | 8 6 |
| 1825 | 8 6 |
| 1826 | 7 6 |
| 1827 | 6 0 |
| 1828 | 6 0 |
| 1829 | 5 6 |
| 1830 | 5 6 |
| 1831 | 5 6 |
| 1832 | 5 6 |
| 1833 | 5 6 |
+------+-----------+
]
Reference has already been made to the view that in the Lancashire
textile industry, prior to this transition, the operations were
performed by more or less independent producers and some evidence
was presented to the contrary. But in addition to this view there is
another--indeed, between the two there is a close connection--that
these producers were at least part-time agriculturalists engaged in
cultivating small farms.[416] Mainly this view has been based upon
another passage by Radcliffe, and it has also been influenced, no
doubt, by Defoe’s picturesque account of a number of small clothiers in
Yorkshire.[417]
[Footnote 416: Cf. Warner, _Landmarks in English Industrial History_
(1905), pp. 292-294.]
[Footnote 417: Defoe, _A Tour Through Great Britain_ (1769 edition),
iii., pp. 144-145. The passage by Radcliffe runs as follows:--“In the
year 1770, the land in our township (Mellor) was occupied by between
fifty and sixty farmers; rents, to the best of my recollection, did
not exceed 10s per statute acre, and out of these fifty or sixty
farmers, there were only six or seven who raised their rents directly
from the produce of their farms; all the rest got their rent partly in
some branch of trade, such as spinning and weaving woollen, linen, or
cotton. The cottagers were employed entirely in this manner, except
for a few weeks in the harvest. Being one of those cottagers, and
intimately acquainted with all the rest, as well as with every farmer,
I am the better able to relate particularly how the change from the old
system of hand-labour to the new one of machinery operated in raising
the price of land in the subdivision I am speaking of. Cottage rents at
that time, with convenient loom-shop and a small garden attached, were
from one and a half to two guineas per annum. The father of a family
would earn from eight shillings to half-a-guinea at his loom, and his
sons, if he had one, two, or three, alongside of him, six or eight
shillings each per week; but the great sheet-anchor of all cottages
and small farms was the labour attached to the hand-wheel, and when it
is considered that it required six to eight hands to prepare and spin
yarn, of any of the three materials I have mentioned, sufficient for
the consumption of one weaver--this shows clearly the inexhaustible
source there was for labour for every person from the age of seven to
eighty years (who retained their sight and could move their hands) to
earn their bread, say one to three shillings per week, without going to
the parish” (pp. 59-60).]
Just as there is nothing in the petitions presented to Parliament
from Lancashire in the eighteenth century to support the
independent-producer view, but much that suggests the contrary, so as
regards the small-farmer view: it is difficult to imagine independent
producers and small farmers striving to form themselves into trade
unions. At the same time Radcliffe’s statement cannot be dismissed
as baseless. It is rather a question as to how far his description of
the township of Mellor is to be regarded as of general application,
and as to how much should be deduced from it regarding the extent to
which industrial and agricultural occupations were associated. Evidence
to show that such association did exist may be found in the fairly
frequent advertisements in _The Manchester Mercury_ of small farms,
with loom-houses, suitable for weavers. Aikin, whose book was published
in 1795, refers to the size of farms in the parish of Middleton as
“from twenty to thirty acres, which are occupied mostly by weavers, who
alternately engage themselves in the pursuits of husbandry and the more
lucrative one of the shuttle,” and again, in the neighbouring parish of
Rochdale, “The farms, being generally occupied by manufacturers, are
small, seldom exceeding 70l. per annum.”[418] In Lancashire, he states,
“the more general size of farms is from 50 down to 20 acres, or even as
much only as will keep a horse or a cow,” and further, “The yeomanry,
formerly numerous and respectable, have generally diminished of late,
many of them having entered into trade: but in their stead, a number of
small proprietors have been introduced, whose chief subsistence depends
upon manufactures, but who have purchased land round their houses,
which they cultivate by way of convenience and variety.”[419]
[Footnote 418: Aikin, _Manchester_, p. 244-246.]
[Footnote 419: _Ibid._, p. 23.]
Evidence regarding the association of industrial and agricultural
occupations continues until beyond the first quarter of the nineteenth
century. At that time it could be stated that “in Lancashire there
appears to be among the hand-loom weavers two classes almost wholly
distinct from each other; the one, who though they take in work in
their own houses or cellars, are congregated in the large manufacturing
towns; and the other, scattered in small hamlets, or single houses, in
various districts throughout the manufacturing county.... It appears
that persons of this description, for many years past, have been
occupiers of small farms of a few acres, which they have held at high
rents; and combining the business of a hand-loom weaver, with that of a
working farmer, have assisted to raise the rent of their land from the
profits of their loom.”[420]
[Footnote 420: Reports, etc., 1826-1827, v., p. 5. Quoted by Chapman,
_Lancashire Cotton Industry_, p. 11. Other references are given in the
same page.]
In view of this mass of evidence, statements which imply that, in
the eighteenth century, the Lancashire textile industry was carried
on by part-time industrialists would seem to have solid foundation.
Nevertheless, even more cautious statements require considerable
qualification. In the first place, for obvious reasons, we must rule
out the great majority of those engaged in the industry who lived in
Manchester and its immediate neighbourhood, and also those in the other
centres of congregated population.[421] These were evidently in a
similar position to the first class mentioned in the above quotation.
In the eighteenth century, as in the early nineteenth, those who were
associated with both agriculture and industry have to be sought in
country districts such as that to which Radcliffe refers.
[Footnote 421: “The domestic manufacturers resided generally in the
outskirts of large towns or at still more remote distances” (Gaskell,
_The Manufacturing Population of England_ (1833), p. 17).]
But a careful reading of what Radcliffe says will show that, even
in Mellor, a distinction has to be drawn between the small farmers
who “got their rent partly in some branch of trade, such as weaving
woollen, linen, or cotton,” and the cottagers who “were employed
entirely in this manner, except for a few weeks in the harvest.”
Evidently the members of the latter class could not be regarded as
agriculturalists in any reasonable sense, although, apparently,
they had small gardens attached to their cottages. What proportion
the cottagers bore to the small farmers it is impossible to say
with certainty, but it seems extremely probable that they were in a
considerable majority.
In 1795 Aikin described Mellor as having “a chapel of the Church of
England round which are a few straggling houses,”[422] but probably
this description referred only to the centre of the township. When the
1801 census was taken the following particulars were collected:--the
township consisted of 270 houses of which 19 were uninhabited, and the
remainder contained 301 families. It had a population of 1670 (805
males and 865 females), of whom 68 were employed chiefly in agriculture
and 945 chiefly in trade, manufactures or handicraft, leaving 657 not
included in these two classes.[423] Between 1770 (the date mentioned
by Radcliffe) and 1801 population generally had increased, though it
is hardly likely that it would have increased much in a place like
Mellor; indeed, the fact that, at the latter date, there were 19 houses
uninhabited strongly suggests that within a considerable time it had
neither increased nor decreased to any extent. If it can be assumed
that the number of families was the same in 1770 as in 1801, then
allowing 55 of these to have been farmer families (Radcliffe’s fifty
or sixty), 246 families would be left as otherwise occupied: roughly a
proportion of 9 to 2. Even allowing for a considerable increase in the
number of families by 1801, it appears that in 1770 the farmer families
must have been greatly outnumbered by the others.
[Footnote 422: Aikin, _ibid._, p. 482.]
[Footnote 423: _Abstract of Population_, Act 41, Geo. III., 1800, p.
59.]
Though the description of the parish of Middleton by Aikin is not so
picturesque as the description of the township of Mellor by Radcliffe,
it is not improbable, without any great distortion of facts, that one
might be used for the other, and no doubt for other places as well. In
some cases (as in the six or seven mentioned by Radcliffe in Mellor) it
appears that of the two occupations the agricultural may have been the
more prominent, and that in others they were more equal. If French’s
statement relating to Bolton in 1753 may be accepted as correct, this
was evidently the case in the country districts in the neighbourhood of
that town at that time.[424] Even in cases where industrial activities
were of least importance, taking into account the size of farms and
other evidence, there can be little doubt that a spinning-wheel was
to be found in the farm-houses.[425] Starting from these, we appear
to get a gradation with industrial activities becoming more and more
important, until we reach the cottagers mentioned by Radcliffe, who
can hardly be regarded as engaged in agricultural activities at all.
In the country districts it was these cottagers, and the small farmers
of the type to which he refers, who constituted the main supply of
manufacturing labour.
[Footnote 424: French, _ibid._, p. 9.]
[Footnote 425: Aikin, _ibid._, p. 47: “On the dairy farms (in Cheshire)
one woman servant is kept to every ten cows, who is employed in winter
in spinning and other household business, but in milking is assisted by
all the other servants of the farm.”]
This view is substantiated in the writings of Dr. Gaskell, which are of
particular importance in regard to the question under consideration,
as expressing the views of a man who intensely disliked the factory
system, and who naturally was inclined to present the system which it
displaced in as favourable a light as possible.[426]
[Footnote 426: Dr. Gaskell’s views are contained in _The Manufacturing
Population of England_ (1833) and _Artisans and Machinery_ (1836), the
latter being a reprint of the former with additions.]
He distinguished between three classes in the country districts who
were affected by the transition in industry: the yeomen or small
freeholders who apparently were entirely engaged in agriculture; a
superior class of artisans, primarily engaged in manufacturing, but
who commonly rented some land as an accessory; a secondary or inferior
class of artisans entirely dependent upon manufacturing.[427]
[Footnote 427: “The great body of hand-loom weavers had at all times
been divided by a well-defined line of demarcation into two very
distinct classes. This distinction arose from the circumstance of their
being landholders or being entirely dependent upon weaving for their
support.” (_Manufacturing Population_, p. 36).]
Clearly, the members of this second class correspond to Radcliffe’s
small farmers, and the members of the third to his cottagers. According
to Gaskell, the yeomen were anything but an enterprising class; they
cultivated their land as had their forefathers and regarded innovation
as rank heresy, with the result that, in the agricultural changes
of the eighteenth century which accompanied the industrial changes,
they failed to keep pace with the march of events.[428] The farming
of the second class was slovenly and definitely subordinate to their
industrial activities; its importance in Gaskell’s view was that it
gave to the members of the class opportunity for a healthy employment
and raised them above the rank of mere labourers, and, as generally the
weavers had much spare time on their hands owing to irregularity of
work, it is evident that it would be useful in providing a subsidiary
occupation.[429] The members of the third class, who merely had a
garden, were especially prone to suffer from the scarcity of yarn and
irregularity of work, and on occasion they underwent severe privation,
the uncertainty of their livelihood engendering lack of forethought,
improvidence, and carelessness in expenditure.[430]
[Footnote 428: _Manufacturing Population_, p. 41.]
[Footnote 429: _Ibid._, pp. 16, 34.]
[Footnote 430: _Ibid._, p. 37.]
With the coming of the jenny and the mule the circumstances of the two
latter classes were changed, as without extra outlay of capital more
cloth could be produced by their looms, and consequently they derived
great benefit from the inventions. Indeed, Gaskell asserts that a
material improvement had been gradually taking place in their position
during the half-century preceding the application of steam-power to
weaving,[431] not so much because of increased payment for their
labour, as because of a constantly increasing supply of yarn, which
enabled them to turn out a greater and more regular quantity of
cloth.[432]
[Footnote 431: He gives 1806 as the date of the introduction of power
looms. It was about this time that, through the efforts of Horrocks,
Johnson and Radcliffe, they became practicable. In February, 1807,
Robert Owen wrote to M‘Connel and Kennedy inquiring about “the
improvements presently in progress in weaving by power.”]
[Footnote 432: _Ibid._, pp. 34, 38.]
One of the first effects of the improvement was to cause the superior
class of artisans to abandon their agricultural activities, owing to
the fact that their labour with the loom had become so much more
profitable. Gaskell fully recognised this material advance, but
considered that it was gained at the expense of a lowered status;
previously the members of this class had been on a level with the
yeoman; by the change they had become labourers.[433] The effect upon
the inferior class of artisans was that they were at once elevated to
a position of equality with the superior class, and though Gaskell
recognised that the amalgamation raised their general character as a
body, and gave them community of interest and feeling, the change did
not favourably impress him.[434] Whatever else Gaskell may have been,
he was certainly not a strong believer in the elimination of class
distinctions.
[Footnote 433: _Manufacturing Population_, pp. 35, 39.]
[Footnote 434: _Ibid._, pp. 37-38.]
But the effects of these developments in industry extended to the
yeomen. Previously, although the members of this class had not
been noted for their efficiency in farming, they had been able to
maintain their position owing to the still less efficiency of the
farmer-manufacturers who had served them as a bulwark, and, as the
latter disappeared from agriculture, and as new methods and a new type
of cultivator appeared, the yeomen lost the markets they had previously
supplied.
At this stage many of the yeomen turned their attention to the new
machines which were being introduced into industry and purchased
them, in five-sevenths of the cases having to borrow money, generally
on mortgage. But as a result, for a time, a large quantity of yarn
was produced in old farm-houses. Difficulties soon arose, owing, on
the one hand, to the erection of factories where the machinery was
driven by water-power, and, on the other, to the rapid improvements
in machinery.[435] In competition with the factories, the profits
of those who had embarked on spinning in the farm-houses decreased,
and through the other cause, the latest jenny bought in one year
could hardly produce enough yarn in the following year to repay the
outlay. Consequently, they were compelled to dispose of the machine
or to arrange an exchange with a maker on disadvantageous terms. In
Gaskell’s opinion the number of machines thus thrown back into the
market facilitated the growth of factories. Although a machine was
obsolete before a domestic spinner had time to cover the first cost,
yet, worked along with others and driven by water-power, such a machine
was a profitable investment. Thus many of the members of the yeomen
class lost their position in agriculture, and later became incapable of
maintaining their position in industry. But it was not the case with
all of them. A few, Gaskell states, shook off their slothful habits
of body and mind and were successful in their new sphere of activity,
several of the most eminently successful of the steam manufacturers
springing from this class.[436]
[Footnote 435: _Ibid._, pp. 41-42.]
[Footnote 436: _Manufacturing Population_, pp. 43-45. In _Artisans and
Machinery_, p. 33, he mentions Peel, Strutt and others. _Cf._ Aikin,
_ante_, p. 136.]
This account of one aspect of the transition in industry, coming from a
man whose writings were a vigorous attack upon the system that emerged,
and corroborated as it is by much independent evidence, may, in
general outline, be accepted as undoubtedly trustworthy. But its chief
importance for our purpose is the indication it gives of the extent to
which those engaged in the textile industries in the country districts
in the eighteenth century were connected with agriculture, and also in
its giving at least part of the explanation of the break-down of the
connection during the transition period. Apparently the principal link
was constituted by those whom Gaskell regarded as a superior class of
artisans, and whom Radcliffe called small-farmers. Of the two it is
fairly evident that Gaskell’s designation was the more appropriate.
Whether this class was absolutely a large number it is impossible to
say: possibly what has been suggested regarding Mellor may give some
indication of its relative number in the country districts. But when we
take into account the total number engaged in the Lancashire textile
industry in the towns and in the country districts, the conclusion that
the relative number of part-time agriculturalists was small would seem
to have abundant justification. They can hardly be regarded as the
typical workpeople.
But there is another question: To what extent were those in the country
districts independent producers, and thus different from those in the
towns, whose position in this respect has already been considered? That
there may have been some independent producers is probably true,[437]
but there is little reason to think that the number was large. Gaskell
states that “the yarn ... which was wanted by the weaver was received
or delivered by agents who travelled for wholesale houses or depôts
were established in particular neighbourhoods where he could call
weekly.”[438] This is clearly the “putting-out” system which has been
described, and under this system, although the workpeople worked in
their own houses they could not be regarded as independent producers.
[Footnote 437: In the parish of Oldham “there were a considerable
number of weavers who worked on their own account and held at the same
time small pieces of land” (Butterworth, _History of Oldham_, p. 101.
Quoted by Chapman, _ibid._, p. 11).]
[Footnote 438: Gaskell, _ibid._, p. 17.]
The agents mentioned by Gaskell were evidently employees of the
manufacturers, but, as frequent advertisements show, there were
also men in the country districts who described themselves as
“putters-out,” and others, who apparently differed very little from
them, who were ready to undertake work on commission. Then there were
the country fustian manufacturers, some of whom, indeed, probably
occupied a position little different from the others, as they too
sometimes declared themselves ready to make goods on commission.[439]
The relation of these men to the workpeople is indicated in the
statement of one of them that he had “a quantity of approved weavers
at command.”[440] In the country districts of Lancashire in the
eighteenth century there is ample reason for saying that the great
majority of workpeople in the textile industry were employed by these
various types of men. Generally their position was little, if any,
different from the position of the workpeople in the towns--indeed, as
we have seen, the smallware weavers’ combination in 1758 extended to
country districts such as Ashton and Royton.
[Footnote 439: See _infra_, p. 197.]
[Footnote 440: _Manchester Mercury_, 5th October 1779.]
In view of the evidence, it can safely be said that among the first
effects of the developments in the Lancashire textile industry in
the eighteenth century was an improvement in the position of the
workpeople, especially of the weavers, and that, after the cancellation
of Arkwright’s patent, and the fuller utilisation of the mule, there
was a great burst of prosperity. As is well known, this period of
prosperity was not of long duration; soon the weavers were plunged
into a longer period of distress. Weavers formerly engaged in other
branches of trade turned to cotton.[441] Great numbers of agricultural
labourers became weavers, with the effect of raising wages in their
former occupation.[442] But in addition, and far more important, was
the war, as a consequence of which the natural expansion of markets
was impeded and the course of trade marked by violent fluctuations
and crises. During this period even the mule-spinners, whose career
as the “aristocracy” of labour in the cotton trade had now commenced,
had to undergo severe privation, but their higher skill and superior
organisation prevented them from sinking into the depths of distress
which was the lot of the weavers.[443]
[Footnote 441: Gaskell, _ibid._, p. 46-47. _Report of Committee on
Cotton Weavers’, etc., Petitions (1803)._, p. 16.]
[Footnote 442: _Report of Committee on Cotton Weavers’ Petitions_
(1808), p. 24.]
[Footnote 443: Some information regarding the state of trade is given
in two papers by the present writer on “The Cotton Trade during the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars” (_Transactions of the Manchester
Statistical Society_, 1916, 1917). The mule-spinners were combined
in the early nineties of the eighteenth century, and although they
claimed, in answer to the assertion that their combination was illegal,
that it existed only to relieve their fellow-labourers in distress,
they managed to conduct wages disputes in an efficient manner. The
combination continued to exist after the Combination Acts were passed.
In 1803 the master spinners in the town and neighbourhood of Manchester
resolved to form themselves into an Association and raise a fund of
£20,000 by each member contributing in proportion to the number of
spindles he employed in order to defeat “this dangerous and unjust
combination” (Circular dated 7th October 1803).]
The transition in the cotton industry is, of course, only part of that
general transition in industry and agriculture in England which is
now concisely known as the Industrial Revolution, and sometimes the
last decades of the eighteenth and the early decades of the nineteenth
centuries are taken to cover the period of the transition. That the
movement was proceeding apace in these years there can be no doubt,
but it would be erroneous to regard what happened then as more than
an acceleration of what had been taking place before. At any rate, so
far as the cotton industry is concerned, from the moment that we can
take hold of anything that may be called a cotton industry a continuous
development can be traced in all directions. Even the inventions of the
jenny and the water-frame, when viewed in their right relations, are
seen as the outcome of efforts extending over more than thirty years
preceding their appearance, and come as something expected, rather than
as something sudden and unique.
Frequently, and with much justification, the view is taken of this
transition period, particularly of the last decade of the eighteenth
and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries, that it was a time
of great distress and of social retrogression for a large part of the
population, and considerable stress is laid upon the economic movement
as a cause. _A priori_ the idea that an economic movement such as we
have been considering, which was characterised on the one hand by a
greater power of production, and on the other by an expanding economic
unity could, of itself, be a cause of widespread distress and of social
retrogression is a hard one to accept. Moreover, when the previous
position in Lancashire and the effects the economic movement was having
upon it are taken into account, there seems no good reason why it
should be accepted for this period. The movement, in its early stages,
was undoubtedly much more constructive than destructive. An explanation
of what transpired later has to be sought in causes which distorted the
economic movement, and, especially during that portion of the period
mentioned, such causes are not far to seek.
Attention has been drawn to the unrest that prevailed in the country
during the period from the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War to beyond
the conclusion of the American War, and from what has obtained in
similar circumstances, both before and since, that the fundamental
cause was to be found in the wars can hardly be doubted. Indeed, as
we have seen, notwithstanding much confused thinking, the fact was
occasionally recognised at the time.
In 1793, when the war commenced which was destined to continue almost
without intermission for nearly a quarter of a century, a similar
cause at once began to operate, but with greater intensity, owing to
the economic changes which had already taken place, and which were
revealing their most striking results at that time. In considering this
stage of the Industrial Revolution it must be borne in mind that, as
a result of the war, the economic changes were probably intensified
and concentrated in this country to an extent they would not have been
in time of peace; on the other hand, movements which were making for
social development were checked by the exercise of political power. It
is here where we get the connection between the economic movement and
the social retrogression and evils of the time. In the circumstances
created by the war, anything which appeared to obstruct the working
of the economic or political machinery was not to be tolerated, and
legislation was invoked to clear away possible impediments. In the
nature of the case, the legislation was an expression of the views of
those in whose hands lay political power--class legislation of which
the Combination Acts and the General Enclosure Act are prominent
examples.[444]
[Footnote 444: There is a striking resemblance between the situation
during the Napoleonic War and that during the recent European War. In
this country there was the same fear about the food supply and similar
efforts were made to conserve and increase it. In 1795 the members
of the Houses of Parliament agreed by resolution to restrict the
consumption of wheaten bread in their families, and their example was
followed by various bodies throughout the country. In _The Manchester
Mercury_ numerous recipes appeared for making bread out of ingredients
other than wheat. The Board of Agriculture experimented in making bread
with substitutes for wheat and publicly exhibited no fewer than eighty
different sorts (Curtler, _A Short History of English Agriculture_
(1909), p. 230). The General Enclosure Act avowedly had as its aim an
increase in the food supply and was passed during a terrible time of
distress. Except that allotments were not regarded with much favour,
the agricultural legislation was closely analogous to that of the
recent war period. In the political and the industrial spheres the
Combination Act took the place of sections of the Munitions Acts
and the Defence of the Realm Acts. “Under the shadow of the French
Revolution the English governing classes regarded all associations
of the common people with the utmost alarm. In this general terror
lest insubordination should develop into rebellion were merged both
the capitalist’s objection to high wages and the politician’s dislike
of Democratic institutions” (Webb, _History of Trade Unionism_, p.
64). Necessarily the vast proportion of the national expenditure
(including loans to Allies) went to provide war materials of British
manufacture, and war services, and there were the same complaints of
the agricultural, the merchant, and the tradesmen, classes becoming
rich out of war profits. Also, generally speaking, there was a great
increase of employment, particularly in connection with the army,
the navy, and Government offices. In the industrial sphere periods
of intense pressure alternated with periods of great depression when
distress was rampant. The great distinction between the two periods
is evidently to be attributed to the social and political development
which had taken place during the intervening century whereby flagrant
class legislation had become impossible. Much information of a reliable
character concerning conditions during the Napoleonic War is given by
Lowe, in _The Present State of England_ (1822). In the correspondence
of M‘Connel and Kennedy to and from their customers in England,
Scotland, Ireland and on the Continent, the industrial situation is
indicated day by day from 1795 until beyond the conclusion of the war.]
The Napoleonic War thus becomes the dominant factor in the social and
economic history of the later Industrial Revolution period. Owing to
its occurrence, the economic movement in this country was distorted,
and the increased power of production, instead of improving the
material welfare of the community, had to be devoted to the prosecution
of the war; social development was thwarted and thrown back; and the
relationships between employers and workpeople, with which the latter,
in the middle of the eighteenth century, in Lancashire, had shown their
dissatisfaction and were striving through combination to modify, were
continued and solidified, and left as a heritage to the nineteenth and
the twentieth centuries.
In view of the growth and activity of trade unions during the
eighteenth century, is it too much to say that, had not the war broken
out, and had they been allowed to develop as they certainly were
developing, problems of industrial relationships which have yet to be
solved would have been faced a century ago, and possibly solutions
found which would have meant that the present system would have been a
considerable modification on that which now exists? However this may
be, it may be said that the social retrogression and evils which mark
the Industrial Revolution period are only in a very secondary sense
to be attributed to the economic movement: the primary cause is to be
found in the war in which the country was engaged.