CHAPTER IV

TEXTILES.

(A) _Introductory._ Historical importance in women’s economic development—Predominance of women’s labour—Significance in development of Industrialism—Low wages.

(B) _Woollen Trade._ Historical importance—Proportions of men and women employed—Early experiments in factory system abandoned—Declining employment of women in management and control—Women Weavers—Burling—Spinning—Organization of spinning industry—Women who bought wool and sold yarn made more profit than those who worked for wages—Methods of spinning—Class of women who span for wages—Rates of wages—Disputes between spinsters and employers—Demoralisation of seasons of depression—Association of men and women in trade disputes.

(C) _Linen._ Chiefly a domestic industry—Introduction of Capitalism—Increased demand caused by printing linens—Attempt to establish a company—Part taken by women—weaving—bleaching—spinning—Wages below subsistence level—Encouragement of spinning by local authorities to lessen poor relief—Firmin.

(D) _Silk._ _Gold and Silver._ Silk formerly a monopoly of gentlewomen—In seventeenth century virtually one of the pauper trades. Gold and Silver furnished employment to the poorest class of women—Factory system already in use.

(E) _Conclusion._

FROM the general economic standpoint, the textile industries rank second in importance to agriculture during the seventeenth century, but in the history of women’s economic development they hold a position which is quite unique. If the food supply of the country depended largely on the work of women in agriculture, their labour was absolutely indispensable to the textile industries, for in all ages and in all countries spinning has been a monopoly of women. This monopoly is so nearly universal that we may suspect some physiological inability on the part of men to spin a fine even thread at the requisite speed, and spinning forms the greater part of the labour in the production of hand-made textile fabrics.

It requires some effort of the imagination in this mechanical age to realize the incessant industry which the duty of clothing her own family imposed on every woman, to say nothing of the yarn required for the famous Woollen Trade. The service rendered by women in spinning for the community was compared by contemporaries to the service rendered by the men who ploughed. “Like men that would lay no hand to the plough, and women that would set no hand to the wheele, deserving the censure of wise Solomon, Hee that would not labour should not eat.”[180]

Footnote 180:

_Declaration of the Estate of Clothing_, p. 2, 1613.

Textile industries fall into three groups: Woollen, Linen, and Miscellaneous, comprising silk, etc. Cotton is seldom mentioned although imported at this time in small quantities for mixture with linen.

The predominance of women’s labour in the textile trades makes their history specially significant in tracing the evolution of women’s industrial position under the influences of capitalism; for the woollen trade was one of the first fields in which capitalistic organization achieved conspicuous success.

The importance of the woollen trade as a source of revenue to the Crown drew to it so much attention that many details have been preserved concerning its development; showing with a greater distinctness than in other and more obscure trades, the steps by which Capitalistic Organization ousted Family Industry and the Domestic Arts. It is surely not altogether accidental that Industrialism developed so remarkably in two trades where the labour of women predominated—in the woollen trade which in the seventeenth century was already organized on capitalistic lines, and, one hundred years later, in the cotton trade.

Some characteristic features of modern Industrialism were absent from the woollen trade in the seventeenth century. The work of men and women alike was carried on chiefly at home, and thus the employment of married women and children was unimpeded; nor are there any signs of industrial jealousy between men and women, who on the contrary, stand by each other during this period in all trade disputes. Nevertheless, the position of the woman wage-earner in the textile trades was extraordinarily bad, and this in spite of the fact that the demand for her labour appears nearly always to have exceeded the supply. The evidence contained in the following chapter shows that the wages paid to women in the seventeenth century for spinning linen were insufficient, and those paid for spinning wool, barely sufficient, for their individual maintenance, and yet out of them women were expected to support, or partly support, their children.

Possibly the persistence of such low wages throughout the country was due in a measure to the convenience of spinning as a tertiary occupation for married women. She who was employed by day in the intervals of household duties with her husband’s business or her dairy and garden, could spin through the long winter evenings when the light was too bad for other work. The mechanical character of the movements, and the small demand they make on eye or thought, renders spinning wonderfully adapted to women whose serious attention is engrossed by the care or training of their children. A comparison of spinster’s wages with those of agricultural labourers, which were also below subsistence level, will show however that such an explanation does not altogether meet the case.

The fact is that far from underselling the spinsters[181] who were wholly dependent on wages for their living, it seems probable that the women who only span for sale after the needs of their own households had been supplied, received the highest rates of pay, just as the husbandman, who only worked occasionally for wages, was paid better than the labourer who worked for them all the year round, and whose family depended exclusively on him. Disorganization and lack of bargaining power, coupled with traditions founded upon an earlier social organization, were responsible for the low wages of the spinsters. The agricultural labourer was crippled in his individual efforts for a decent wage because society persisted in regarding him as a household servant. The spinster was handicapped because in a society which began to assert the individual’s right to freedom, she had from her infancy been trained to subjection.

Footnote 181:

Spinster in the seventeenth century is used in its technical sense and refers equally to women who are married, unmarried or widows.

It must however be remembered that though a large part of the ensuing

## chapter is concerned with spinsters and their wages, much, perhaps most,

of the thread spun never came into the market, but was produced for domestic consumption. Thus we find all three forms of industrial organisation existing simultaneously in these trades—Domestic Industry, Family Industry, and Capitalistic Industry.

Domestic Industry lingered especially in the Linen Trade until machinery made the spinning wheel obsolete, and Family Industry was still extensively practised in the seventeenth century; but Capitalistic Industry, already established in the Woollen Trade, was making rapid inroads on the other branches of the Textile Trades.

Although Capitalism undermined the position of considerable economic independence enjoyed by married women and widows in the tradesman and farming classes, possibly its introduction may have improved the position of unmarried women, and others who were already dependent on wages; but such improvements belong to a later date. Their only indication in the seventeenth century is the clearly proved fact that wages for spinning were higher in the more thoroughly capitalistic woollen trade, than in the linen trade. Further evidence is a suggestion by Defoe that wages for spinning in the woollen trade were doubled, or even trebled, in the first decade of the eighteenth century, but no sign of this advance can be detected in our period.

B. _Woollen Trade._

The interest of the Government and of all those who studied financial and economic questions, was focussed upon the Woollen Trade, owing to the fact that it formed one of the chief sources of revenue for the Crown. At the close of the seventeenth century woollen goods formed a third of the English exports.[182]

Footnote 182:

Davenant (Inspector-General of Exports and Imports). _An account of the trade between Greate Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Africa, Newfoundland etc., with the importations and exportations of all Commodities, particularly of the Woollen Manufactures, delivered in his reports made to the Commissioners for Publick Accounts._ 1715, p. 71. Our general exports for the year 1699 are valued at £6,788,166, 17s. 6¼d. Whereof the Woollen Manufacture for the same year are valued at £2,932,292, 17s. 6½d.

Historically the Woollen Trade has a further importance, due to the part which it played in the development of capitalism. The manufacture of woollen materials had existed in the remote past as a family industry, and even in the twentieth century this method still survives in the remoter parts of the British Isles; but the manufacture of cloth for Foreign trade was from its beginning organized on Capitalistic lines, and the copious records which have been preserved of its development, illustrate the history of Capitalism itself.

It was estimated that about one million men, women and children were exclusively employed in the clothing trade,—“all have their dependence solely and wholly upon the said _Manufacture_, without intermixing themselves in the labours of _Hedging_, _Ditching_, _Quicksetting_, and others the works belonging to Husbandry.”[183]

Footnote 183:

_Proverb Crossed_, p. 8, 1677. See also _Case of the Woollen Manufacturers of Great Britain_ which states that they are “the subsistance of more than a Million of Poor of both sexes, who are employed therein.”

In 1612 eight thousand persons, men, women and children were said to be employed in the clothing trade in Tiverton alone.[184] While giving 933,966 hands as the number properly employed in woollen manufacture, another writer says that women and children (girls and boys) were employed in the proportion of about eight to one man.[185]

Footnote 184:

Dunsford. _Hist. Tiverton_, p. 408.

Footnote 185:

_Short Essay upon Trade_, p. 18, 1741.

Such figures must be taken with reserve, for the proportions of men and women employed varied according to the quality of the stuff woven, and pamphleteers of the seventeenth century handled figures with little regard to scientific accuracy.[186] But the uncertainty only refers to the exact proportion; there can be no doubt that the Woollen Trade depended chiefly upon women and children for its labour supply.

Footnote 186:

The following estimates were made by different writers: out of 1187 persons supposed to be employed for one week in making up 1200 lbs. weight of wool, 900 are given as spinners. (_Weavers True Case_, p. 42, 1714.)

One pack of short wool finds employment for 63 persons for one week, viz: 28 men and boys: 35 women and girls who are only expected to do the carding and spinning.

A similar pack made into stockings would provide work for 82 men and 102 spinners and if made up for the Spanish trade, a pack of wool would employ 52 men and 250 women.

(Haynes (John) _Great Britain’s Glory_, p. 6, p. 8. 1715.)

For the student of social organization it is noteworthy that in the two textile trades through which capitalism made in England its most striking advances—the woollen trade, and in later years, the cotton trade, the labour of women predominated,—a fact which suggests obscure

## actions and reactions between capitalism and the economic position of

women, worthy of more careful investigation than they have as yet received.

The woollen trade passed through a period of rapid progress and development in the sixteenth century. It was then that the Clothiers of Wiltshire and Somerset acquired wealth and fame, building as a memorial for posterity the Tudor houses and churches which still adorn these counties. Leland, writing of a typical clothier and his successful enterprises and ambitions, describes at Malmesbury, Wiltshire “a litle chirch joining to the South side of the _Transeptum_ of thabby chirch, ... Wevers hath now lomes in this litle chirch, but it stondith ... the hole logginges of thabbay be now longging to one Stumpe, an exceding riche clothiar that boute them of the king. This Stumpes sunne hath maried Sir Edward Baynton’s doughter. This Stumpe was the chef causer and contributer to have thabbay chirch made a paroch chirch. At this present tyme every corner of the vaste houses of office that belongid to thabbay be fulle of lumbes to weve clooth yn, and this Stumpe entendith to make a stret or 2 for clothier in the bak vacant ground of the abbay that is withyn the toune waulles.”[187]

Footnote 187:

Leland (John), _Itinerary_, 1535-1543; Part II, pp. 131-2.

There must have been a marked tendency at this time to bring the wage-earners of the woollen industry under factory control, for a description which is given of John Winchcombe’s household says that

“Within one room being large and long There stood two hundred Looms full strong, Two hundred men the truth is so Wrought in these looms all in a row, By evry one a pretty boy Sate making quills with mickle joy. And in another place hard by, An hundred women merrily, Were carding hard with joyful cheer Who singing sate with voices clear. And in a chamber close beside, Two hundred maidens did abide, In petticoats of Stammell red, And milk-white kerchers on their head.”[188]

Footnote 188:

Lipson, _Econ. Hist. of England_, p. 420.

These experiments were discontinued, partly because they were discountenanced by the Government, which considered the factory system rendered the wage-earners too dependent on the clothiers; and also because the collection of large numbers of workpeople under one roof provided them with the opportunity for combination and insubordination.[189] Moreover the factory system was not really advantageous to the manufacturer before the introduction of power, because he could pay lower wages to the women who worked at home than to those who left their families in order to work on his premises. Thus the practice was dropped. In 1603 the Wiltshire Quarter Sessions published regulations to the effect that “Noe Clotheman shall keepe above one lombe in his house, neither any weaver that hath a ploughland shall keepe more than one lombe in his house. Noe person or persons shall keepe any lombe or lombs goeinge in any other house or houses beside their owne, or mayntayne any to doe the same.”[190]

Footnote 189:

See _Weavers’ Act_, 1555.

Footnote 190:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 75, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._, 1603.

Few references occur to the wives of successful clothiers or wool-merchants who were actively interested in their husband’s business, though no doubt their help was often enlisted in the smaller or more struggling concerns. Thus the names of three widows are given in a list of eleven persons who were using handicrafts at Maidstone. “The better sorte of these we take to bee but of meane ability and most of them poore but by theire trade the poore both of the towne and country adjoyning are ymploied to spynnyng.”[191]

Footnote 191:

_S.P.D._, cxxix, 45, Ap. 10, 1622, _Return of the Mayor_.

A pamphlet published in 1692 describes how in former days “the Clothier that made the cloth, sold it to the merchant, and heard the faults of his own cloth; and forc’d sometimes not only to promise amendment himself, but to go home and tell _Joan_, to have the Wool better pick’d, and the Yarn better spun.”[192]

Footnote 192:

_Clothier’s Complaint, etc._, p. 7, 1692.

A certain Rachel Thiery applied for a monopoly in Southampton for the pressing of serges, and having heard that the suit had been referred by the Queen to Sir J. Cæsar, the Mayor and Aldermen wrote, July 2, 1599, to let him know how inconvenient the granting of the suit would be to the town of Southampton.

I. Those strangers who have presses already would be ruined.

II. Many of their men servants (English and strangers) bred up to the trade would be idle.

III. “The woeman verie poore and beggarlie, altogether unable to performe it in workmanshipp or otherwise.... Againe she is verie idle, a prattling gossipp, unfitt to undertake a matter of so great a charge, her husband a poore man being departed from her and comorant in Rochell these 11 yeres at least. She is verie untrustie and approoved to have engaged mens clothes which in times past have been putt to her for pressinge. Verie insufficient to answer of herself men’s goodes and unable to procure anie good Caution to render the owners there goodes againe, havinge not so much as a howse to putt her head in, insomuch as (marvellinge under what coullour she doth seeke to attaine to a matter of such weight) we ... should hold them worsse than madd that would hazzard or comitt there goodes into her handes. And to conclude she is generallie held amongest us an unfitt woeman to dwell in a well governed Commonwealth.”[193]

Footnote 193:

Lansdowne, 161, fo. 127, 2nd July, 1599.

An incident showing the wife as virtual manager of her husband’s business is described in a letter from Thomas Cocks of Crowle to Sir Robert Berkely, Kt., in 1633. He writes complaining of a certain Careless who obtained a licence to sell ale “because he was a surgeon and had many patients come to him for help, and found it a great inconvenience for them to go to remote places for their diet and drink, and in that respect obtained a licence with a limitation to sell ale to none but his patients ... but now of late especially he far exceeds his bounds.... A poor fellow who professed himself an extraordinary carder and spinner ... was of late set a work by my wife to card and spin coarse wool for blankets and when he had gotten some money for his work to Careless he goes.” Having got drunk there and coming back in the early hours of the morning he made such a noise in the churchyard “being near my chamber I woke my wife who called up all my men to go into the churchyard and see what the matter was.”[194]

Footnote 194:

Bund (J. W. W.), _Worcestershire Records_, Vol. I., p. 530.

That Mrs. Cocks should engage and direct her husband’s workpeople would not be surprising to seventeenth century minds, for women did so naturally in family industry; but when capitalized, business tended to drift away beyond the wife’s sphere, and thus even then it was unusual to find women connected with the clothing trade, except as wage-earners.

Of the processes involved in making cloth, weaving was generally done by men, while the spinning, which was equally essential to its production, was exclusively done by women and children.

In earlier days weaving had certainly been to some extent a woman’s trade. “Webster” which is the feminine form of the old term “Webber” is used in old documents, and in these women are also specifically named as following this trade; thus on the Suffolk Poll-Tax Roll are entered the names of

“John Wros, shepherd. Agneta his wife, webster. Margery, his daughter, webster. Thomas his servant and Beatrice his servant.”

It appears also that there were women among the weavers who came from abroad to establish the cloth making in England, for a Statute in 1271 provides that “all workers of woollen cloths, male and female, as well of Flanders as of other lands, may safely come into our realm there to make cloths ... upon the understanding that those who shall so come and make such cloths, shall be quit of toll and tallage, and of payment of other customs for their work until the end of five years.”[195]

Footnote 195:

Riley, _Chronicles of London_, p. 142.

Later however, women were excluded from cloth weaving on the ground that their strength was insufficient to work the wide and heavy looms in use; thus orders were issued for Norwich Worsted Weavers in 1511 forbidding women and maids to weave worsteds because “thei bee nott of sufficient powre to werke the said worsteddes as thei owte to be wrought.”[196]

Footnote 196:

Tingye, _Norwich Records_, Vol. II., p. 378.

Complaint was made in Bristol in 1461 that weavers “puttyn, occupien, and hiren ther wyfes, doughters, and maidens, some to weve in ther owne lombes and some to hire them to wirche with othour persons of the said crafte by the which many and divers of the king’s liege people, likely men to do the king service in his wars and in defence of this his land, and sufficiently learned in the said craft, goeth vagrant and unoccupied, and may not have their labour to their living.”[197]

Footnote 197:

_Little Red Book of Bristol_, Vol. II., p. 127.

At Kingston upon-Hull, the weavers Composition in 1490, ordained that “ther shall no woman worke in any warke concernyng this occupacon wtin the towne of Hull, uppon payn of xls. to be devyded in forme by fore reherced.”[198]

Footnote 198:

Lambert, _2000 years of Gild Life_, p. 6.

A prohibition of this character could not resist the force of public opinion which upheld the woman’s claim to continue in her husband’s trade. Widow’s rights are sustained in the Weaver’s Ordinances formulated by 25 Charles II. which declare that “it shall be lawfull for the Widow of any Weaver (who at the time of his death was a free Burgesse of the said Town, and a free Brother of the said Company) to use and occupy the said trade by herselfe, her Apprentices and Servants, so long as shee continues a Widow and observeth such Orders as are or shalbe made to be used amongst the Company of Weavers within this Town of Kingston-upon-Hull.”[199]

Footnote 199:

Lambert, 2000 _Years of Gild Life_, p. 210.

Even when virtually excluded from the weaving of “cloaths” women continued to be habitually employed in the weaving of other materials. A petition was presented on their behalf against an invention which threatened a number with unemployment: “Also wee most humbly desire your worship that you would have in remembrance that same develishe invention which was invented by strangers and brought into this land by them, which hath beene the utter overthrowe of many poore people which heretofore have lived very well by their handy laboure which nowe are forced to goe a begginge and wilbe the utter Destruccion of the trade of weaving if some speedy course be not taken therein. Wee meane those looms with 12, 15, 20, 18, 20, 24, shuttles which make tape, ribbon, stript garteringe and the like, which heretofore was made by poore aged woemen and children, but none nowe to be seene.”[200]

Footnote 200:

_S.P.D._, cxxi, 155, 1621.

The Rules of the Society of Weavers of the “Stuffs called Kiddirminster Stuffes” required that care should be taken to have apprentices “bound according to ye Lawes of ye Realme ... for which they shall be allowed 2s. 6d. and not above, to be payd by him or her that shall procure the same Apprentice to be bound as aforesayd.”[201]

Footnote 201:

Burton, J. R., _Hist. of Kidderminster_, p. 175, _Borough Ordinances_, 1650.

John Grove was bound about the year 1655 to “the said George and Mary to bee taught and instructed in the trade of a serge-weaver,” and a lamentable account is given of the inordinate manner in which the said Mary did beat him.[202]

Footnote 202:

_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III., pp. 268-9. 1655.

It is impossible from the scanty information available to arrive at a final conclusion concerning the position of women weavers. Clearly an attempt had been made to exclude them from the more highly skilled branches of the trade, but it is also evident that this had not been successful in depriving widows of their rights in this respect. Nor does the absence of information concerning women weavers prove that they were rarely employed in such work. The division of work between women and men was a question which aroused little interest at this time and therefore references to the part taken by women are accidental. They may have been extensively engaged in weaving for they are mentioned as still numerous among the handloom weavers of the nineteenth century.[203] Another process in the manufacture of cloth which gave employment to women was “Burling.” The minister and Mayor of Westbury presented a petition to the Wiltshire Quarter Sessions in 1657 on behalf of certain poor people who had obtained their living by the “Burling of broad medley clothes,” three of whose daughters had now been indicted by certain persons desirous to appropriate the said employment to themselves; they show “that the said employment of Burling hath not been known to be practised among us as any prentice trade, neither hath any been apprentice to it as to such, but clothiers have ever putt theyr clothes to Burling to any who would undertake the same, as they doe theyr woolles to spinning. Also that the said imployment of Burling is a common good to this poore town and parish, conducing to the reliefe of many poore families therein and the setting of many poore children on work. And if the said imployment of Burling should be appropriated by any particular persons to themselves it would redound much to the hurt of clothing, and to the undoing of many poore families there whoe have theyre cheife mainteynance therefrom.”[204]

Footnote 203:

_Report of the Commissioners on the condition of the Handloom Weavers_, 1841. x p. 323, _Mr. Chapman’s report_.

“The young weaver just out of his apprenticeship is perhaps as well able to earn as he will be at any future period setting aside the domestic comforts incidental to the married state, his pecuniary condition is in the first instance improved by uniting himself with a woman capable of earning perhaps nearly as much as himself, and performing for him various offices involving an actual pecuniary saving. A married man with an income, the result of the earnings of himself and wife of 20s. will enjoy more substantial comfort in every way than he alone would enjoy with an income of 15s. a week. This alone is an inducement to early marriage. In obedience to this primary inducement the weaver almost invariably marries soon after he is out of his apprenticeship. But the improvement of comfort which marriage brings is of short duration;.... About the tenth year the labour of the eldest child becomes available.... Many men have depended on their wives & their children to support themselves by their own earnings, independent of his wages. The wives and children consequently took to the loom, or sought work in the factories; and now that there is little or no work in the district, the evil is felt, and the husband is obliged to maintain them out of his wages.”

Footnote 204:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 135, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._, 1657.

It was not however the uncertain part they played in the processes of weaving, burling or carding, which constituted the importance of the woollen trade in regard to women’s industrial position. Their employment in these directions was insignificant compared with the unceasing and never satisfied demand which the production of yarn made upon their labour. It is impossible to give any estimate of the quantity of wool spun for domestic purposes. That this was considerable is shown by a recommendation from the Commission appointed to enquire into the decay of the Cloth Trade in 1622, who advise “that huswyves may not make cloth to sell agayne, but for the provision of themselves and their famylie that the clothiers and Drapers be not dis-coraged.”[205]

Footnote 205:

_Report of Commission of Decay of Clothing Trade_, 1622, Stowe, 554, fo. 48b.

The housewife span both wool and flax for domestic use, but this aspect of her industry will be considered more fully in connection with the linen trade, attention here being concentrated on the condition of the spinsters in the woollen trade. Their organization varied widely in different parts of the country. Sometimes the spinster bought the wool, span it, and then sold the yarn, thus securing all the profit of the transaction for herself. In other cases she was supplied with the wool by the clothier, or a “market spinner” and only received piece wages for her labour. The system in vogue was partly decided by the custom of the locality, but there was everywhere a tendency to substitute the latter for the former method.

Statute I. Edward VI. chap. 6 recites that “the greatest and almost the whole number of the poor inhabitants of the county of Norfolk and the city of Norwich be, and have been heretofore for a great time maintained and gotten their living, by spinning of the wool growing in the said county of Norfolk, upon the rock [distaff] into yarn, and by all the said time have used to have their access to common markets within the said county and city, to buy their wools, there to be spun as is aforesaid, of certain persons called retailers of the said wool by eight penny worth and twelve penny worth at one time, or thereabouts, and selling the same again in yarn, and have not used to buy, ne can buy the said wools of the breeders of the said wools by such small parcels, as well as for that the said breeders of the said wools will not sell their said wools by such small parcels, as also for that the most part of the said poor persons dwell far off from the said breeders of the said wools.”[206]

Footnote 206:

James (John) _Hist. of Worsted_, p. 98.

During a scarcity of wool the Corporation at Norwich compelled the butchers to offer their wool fells exclusively to the spinsters during the morning hours until the next sheep-shearing season, so that the tawers and others might not be able to outbid them.[207]

Footnote 207:

Tingye, _Norwich_, Vol II. xcvii, 1532.

It is suggested that nearly half the yarn used in the great clothing counties at the beginning of the seventeenth century was produced in this way: “Yarn is weekly broughte into the market by a great number of poor people that will not spin to the clothier for small wages, but have stock enough to set themselves on work, and do weekly buy their wool in the market by very small parcels according to their use, and weekly return it in yarn and make good profit, having the benefit both of their labour and of their merchandize and live exceeding well.... So many that it is supposed that more than half the cloth of Wilts., Gloucester and Somersetshire is made by means of these yarnmakers and poor clothiers that depend wholly on the wool chapman which serves them weekly for wools either for money or credit.”[208]

Footnote 208:

_S.P.D._ lxxx., 13., Jan. 1615. _General Conditions of Wool and Cloth Trade._

Apparently this custom by which the spinsters retained in their own hands the merchandize of their goods still prevailed in some counties at the beginning of the following century, for it is said in a pamphlet which was published in 1741 “that poor People, chiefly Day Labourers, ... whilst they are employed abroad themselves, get forty or fifty Pounds of Wool at a Time, to employ their Wives and Children at home in Carding and Spinning, of which when they have 10 or 20 pounds ready for the Clothier, they go to Market with it and there sell it, and so return home as fast as they can ... the common way the poor women in _Hampshire_, _Wiltshire_, and _Dorsetshire_, and I believe in other counties, have of getting to Market (especially in the Winter-time) is, by the Help of some Farmers’ Waggons, which carry them and their yarn; and as soon as the Farmers have set down their corn in the Market, and baited their Horses, they return home.... During the Time the waggons stop, the poor Women carry their Yarn to the Clothiers for whom they work; then they get the few Things they want, and return to the Inn to be carried home again.... Many of them ten or twelve miles ... there will be in Market time 3 or 400 poor People (chiefly Women) who will sell their Goods in about an Hour.”[209]

Footnote 209:

_Remarks upon Mr. Webber’s scheme_, pp. 21-2, 1741.

According to this writer other women worked for the “rich clothier” who “makes his whole year’s provision of wool beforehand ... in the winter time has it spun by his own spinsters ... at the lowest rate for wages,” or they worked for the “market spinner” or middleman who supplied them with wool mixed in the right proportions and sold their yarn to the clothiers. In either case the return for their labour was less than that secured by the spinsters who had sufficient capital to buy their wool and sell the yarn in the dearest market. When the Staplers tried to secure a monopoly for selling wool, the Growers of wool, or Chapmen petitioned in self-defence explaining “that the clothier’s poor are all servants working for small wages that doth but keepe them alive, whereas the number of people required to work up the same amount of wool in the new Drapery is much larger. Moreover, all sorts of these people are masters in their trade and work for themselves, they buy and sell their materials that they work upon, so that by their merchandize and honest labour they live very well. These are served of their wools weekly by the wool-buyer.”[210]

Footnote 210:

_S.P.D._, lxxx., 15-16, Jan, 1615.

Opinion was divided as to whether the spinster found it more advantageous to work direct for the Clothier or for the Market Spinner. A proposal in 1693 to put down the middle-man, was advised against by the Justices of Assize for Wiltshire, on the ground that it was “likely to cause great reduction of wages and employment to the spinners and the poor, and a loss to the growers of wool, and no advantage in the quality of the yarn.”

The Justices say in their report: “We finde the markett spinner who setts many spinners on worke spinnes not the falce yarn, but the poorer sorte of people (who spinne theyr wool in theyr owne howses) for if the markett spinners who spinne greate quantitys and sell it in the markett should make bad yarne, they should thereby disable themselves to maynetayne theyre creditt and livelyhood. And that the more spinners there are, the more cloth will be made and the better vent for Woolls (which is the staple commodity of the kingdome) and more poor will be set on worke. The markett spinners (as is conceived) are as well to be regulated by the lawe, for any falcity in mixing of theyr woolles as the Clothier is, who is a great markett spinner himselfe and doth both make and sell as falce yarne as any market spinner.... We finde the markett spinner gives better wages than the Clothier, not for that reason the Clothier gives for the falcity of the yarne, but rather in that the markett spinners vent much of their yarne to those that make the dyed and dressed clothes who give greater prizes than the white men do.”[211]

Footnote 211:

_S.P.D._, ccxliii., 23, July 23, 1633.

The fine yarn used by the Clothiers required considerable skill in spinning, and the demand for it was so great in years of expansion that large sums of money were paid to persons able to teach the mysteries of the craft in a new district. Thus the Earl of Salisbury made an agreement in 1608 with Walter Morrell that he should instruct fifty persons of the parish of Hatfield, chosen by the Earl of Salisbury, in the art of clothing, weaving, etc. He will provide work for all these persons to avoid idleness and for the teaching of skill and knowledge in clothing will pay for the work at the current rates, except those who are apprentices. The Earl of Salisbury on his part will allow Walter Morrell a house rent free and will pay him £100 per annum “for instructing the fifty persons, to be employed in:—the buying of wool, sorting it, picking it, dying it, combing it, both white and mingle colour worsted, weaving and warping and quilling both worsted of all sorts, dressing both woollen and stuffes, spinning woollen (wofe and warpe), spinning all sortes of Kersey both high wheel and low wheel, knitting both woollen and worsted.”[212]

Footnote 212:

_S.P.D._, xxxviii., 72, 73, Dec., 1608.

A similar agreement is recorded in 1661-2 between the Bailiffs and Burgesses of Aldeburgh and “Edmund Buxton of Stowmarket, for his coming to set up his trade of spinning wool in the town and to employ the poor therein, paying him £50—for 5 years and £12—for expense of removing, with a house rent free and the freedom of the town.”[213]

Footnote 213:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. IV., p. 311.

The finest thread was produced on the distaff, but this was a slow process, and for commoner work spinning wheels were in habitual use—

“There are, to speed their labor, who prefer “Wheels double spol’d, which yield to either hand “A sev’ral line; and many, yet adhere “To th’ ancient distaff, at the bosom fix’d, “Casting the whirling spindle as they walk.”[214]

Footnote 214:

Dyer John., _The Fleece_, 1757.

The demands made on spinning by this ever expanding trade were supplied from three sources: (1) the wives of farmers and other well to do people, (b) the wives of husbandmen and (c) women who depended wholly on spinning for their living, and who are therefore called here spinsters. The first care of the farmers’ wives was to provide woollen stuffs for the use of their families, but a certain proportion of their yarn found its way to the market. The clothiers at Salisbury who made the better grades of cloth were said to “buy their yarn of the finer kinds that come to the market at from 17d the lb. to 2s. 4d, made all of the finer sortes of our owne Welshire wool, and is spun by farmers’ wives and other of the better sorte of people within their owne houses, of whose names wee keep due Register and do write down with what cardes they promise us their several bundles of yarne are carded, and do find such people just in what they tell us, or can otherwise controule them when wee see the proofe of our cloth in the mill, ... and also some very few farmers’ wives who maie peradventure spinne sometimes a little of those sortes in their own houses and sell the same in the markett and is verie current without mixture of false wooll grease, etc.”[215]

Footnote 215:

_S.P.D._, cclxvii., 17, May 2, 1634. Certificate from Anthony Wither, Commissioner of reformation of clothing.

Probably a larger supply of yarn came from the families of husbandmen where wife and children devoted themselves to spinning through the long winter evenings. Children became proficient in the art at an early age, and could often spin a good thread when seven or eight years old. This subsidiary employment was not sufficient to supply the demand for yarn, and in the clothing counties numbers of women were withdrawn from agricultural occupations to depend wholly upon their earnings as spinsters.

The demand made by the woollen trade on the labour of children is shown by a report from the Justices of the Peace of the Boulton Division of the Hundred of Salford, ... “for apprentices there hath beene few found since our last certificate by reason of the greate tradeing of fustians and woollen cloth within the said division, by reason whereof the inhabitants have continuall employment for their children in spinning and other necessary labour about the same.”[216]

Footnote 216:

_S.P.D._, ccclxiv., 122, July, 1637.

Those who gave out the wool and collected the yarn were called market spinners, but the qualifying term “market” is sometimes omitted, and when men are referred to as spinners it may be assumed that they are organising the work of the spinsters, and not engaged themselves in the process of spinning.[217] Though the demand for yarn generally exceeded the supply, wages for spinning remained low throughout the seventeenth century. A writer in the first half of the eighteenth century who urges the establishment of a nursery of spinners on the estate of an Irish landlord admits that their labour is “of all labour on wools the most sparingly paid for.”[218]

Footnote 217:

_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III., p. 56, 1648. _Complaint ... by ... Thos Chambers, Randall Carde, Dorothy Palmer, Stephen Hodges and Wm. Hurman, persons ymployed by Henry Denmeade servant to Mr. Thos. Cooke, Clothier for the spinning of certen wool and convertinge it into yarne and twistinge it thereof for the benefitt of the said Mr. Cooke that theire wages for the same spinninge and twistinge had been deteyned from them by the said Mr. Cooke ... it is ordered that the said Mr. C. doe forthwith pay to the said Thos. Chambers the some of ffowerteene shillings to the said Randall Carde the some of nyne shillings and fower pence, to the said Dorothy Palmer the some of eighteen shillings and one penny to the said Stephen Hodges the some of nyne shillings and four pence and to the said Wm. Hurman the some of nyne shillings._

Footnote 218:

_Scheme to prevent the running of Irish wools to France_, p. 19.

Wages for spinning are mentioned in only three of the extant Quarter Sessions’ Assessments, and it is not specified whether the material is wool or flax:

1654. Devon. 6d. per week with meat and drink, or 1s. 4d. without them.

1688. Bucks. Spinners shall not have by the day more than 4d. without meat and drink.

1714. Devon. 1s. per week with meat and drink, 2s. 6d. without them.

These rates are confirmed by entries in account books,[219] but it was more usual to pay by the piece. Though it is always more difficult to discover the possible earnings per day of women who are working by a piece rate in their own homes, it so happens that several of the writers who discuss labour questions in the woollen trade specially state that their estimates of the wages of spinners are based on full time. John Haynes quoted figures in 1715 which work out at nearly 1s. 6d. per week for the spinners of wool into stuffs for the Spanish Trade, and about 2s. 11d. for stockings,[220] another pamphlet gives 24s. as the wages of 9 spinsters for a week,[221] while in 1763 the author of the “Golden Fleece” quotes 2s. 3d. a week for Spanish wools.[222] Another pamphlet says that the wages in the fine woollen trade “being chiefly women and children, may amount, one with another to £6 per annum.”[223] A petition from the weavers, undated, but evidently presented during a season of bad trade, declares that “there are not less than a Million of poor unhappy objects, _women and children only_, who ... are employed in Spinning Yarn for the Woollen Manufacturers; Thousands of these have now no work at all, and all of them have suffered an Abatement of Wages; so that now a Poor Woman, perhaps a Mother of many Children, must work very hard to gain Three Pence or Three Pence Farthing per Day.”[224]

Footnote 219:

(_Howard Household Book_, p. 63, 1613.) “Widow Grame for spinning ij stone and 5ˡ of wooll vjs. To the wench that brought it iijid. To Ellen for winding yarn iij weekes xviijid.”

(Fell, Sarah; _Household Accounts_, Nov. 28, 1677, p. 439.) “Pd. Agnes Holme of Hawxhead foʳ spininge woole here 7 weeks 02.04.”

Footnote 220:

Haynes, _Great Britain’s Glory_, pp. 8, 9.

Footnote 221:

_Weavers’ True Case_, p. 43, 1719.

Footnote 222:

James, John, _Hist. of the Worsted Manufacture_, p. 239.

Footnote 223:

_Further considerations for encouraging the Woollen Manufactures._

Footnote 224:

_Second Humble Address from the Poor Weavers._

Though these wages provided no margin for the support of children, or other dependants, it was possible for a woman who could spin the better quality yarns to maintain herself in independence.

John Evelyn describes “a maiden of primitive life, the daughter of a poore labouring man, who had sustain’d her parents (some time since dead) by her labour, and has for many years refus’d marriage, or to receive any assistance from the parish, besides yᵉ little hermitage my lady gives her rent free: she lives on fourepence a day, which she gets by spinning; says she abounds and can give almes to others, living in greate humility and content, without any apparent affectation or singularity; she is continualy working, praying, or reading, gives a good account of her knowledge in religion, visites the sick; is not in the least given to talke; very modest, of a simple not unseemly behaviour, of a comely countenance, clad very plaine, but cleane and tight. In sum she appeares a saint of an extraordinary sort, in so religious a life as is seldom met with in villages now-a-daies.”[225]

Footnote 225:

Evelyn (John) _Diary_, Vol. III., p. 7, 1685.

It is probable that the wages for spinning were advanced soon after this date, for Defoe writes in 1728 that “the rate for spinning, weaving and all other Manufactory-work, I mean in Wool, is so risen, that the Poor all over _England_ can now earn or gain near twice as much in a Day, and in some Places, more than twice as much as they could get for the same work two or three Years ago ... the poor women now get 12d. to 15d. a Day for spinning, the men more in proportion, and are full of work.”[226] “The Wenches ... wont go to service at 12d. or 18d. a week while they can get 7s. to 8s. a Week at spinning; the Men won’t drudge at the Plow and Cart &c., and perhaps get £6 a year ... when they can sit still and dry within Doors, and get 9s. or 10s. a Week at Wool-combing or at Carding.”[227] “Would the poor Maid-Servants who choose rather to spin, while they can gain 9s. per Week by their Labour than go to Service at 12d. a week to the Farmers Houses as before; I say would they sit close to their work, live near and close, as labouring and poor People ought to do, and by their Frugality lay up six or seven shillings per Week, none could object or blame them for their Choice.”[228] Defoe’s statement as to the high rate of wages for spinning is supported by an account of the workhouse at Colchester where the children’s “Work is Carding & Spinning Wool for the Baymakers; some of them will earn 6d. or 7d. a Day.”[229] But there is no sign of these higher wages in the seventeenth century.

Footnote 226:

Defoe, _Behaviour_, p. 83.

Footnote 227:

Defoe, _Behaviour_, pp. 84-5.

Footnote 228:

_Ibid._ p. 88.

Footnote 229:

_Acc. of several Workhouses_, p. 59, 1725.

Continual recriminations took place between clothiers and spinsters, who accused one another of dishonesty in their dealings. A petition of the Worsted Weavers of Norwich and Norfolk, and the Bayes and Sayes makers of Essex and Suffolk, to the Council proposes: “That no spinster shall winde or reele theire yarne upon shorter reeles (nor fewer thriddes) than have bene accustomed, nor ymbessell away their masters’ goodes to be punished by the next Justices of the Peace.”[230]

Footnote 230:

_S.P.D._, civ. 97, 1618. _Petition for regulation._

And again in 1622 the Justices of the Peace of Essex inform the Council: “Moreover wee understand that the clothiers who put forthe their woolle to spinne doe much complaine of the spinsters that they use great deceit by reason they doe wynde their yarne into knottes upon shorter reeles and fewer threedes by a fifth part than hath beene accustomed. The which reeles ought to be two yardes about and the knottes to containe fowerscore threedes apeece.”[231]

On the other hand in Wiltshire the weavers, spinners and others complained that they “are not able by their diligent labours to gett their livinges, by reason that the Clothiers at their will have made their workes extreme hard, and abated wages what they please. And some of them make such their workfolkes to doe their houshold businesses, to trudge in their errands, spoole their chains, twist their list, doe every command without giving them bread, drinke or money for many days labours.”[232]

Footnote 231:

_S.P.D._, cxxx., 65, May 13, 1662.

Footnote 232:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 94, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._, 1623.

Report was made to the Council in 1631-2 that the reele-staffe in the Eastern Counties “was enlarged by a fift or sixt part longer than have bene accustomed and the poores wages never the more encreased.” Whereupon the magistrates in Cambridge agreed “that all spinsters shall have for the spinning and reeling of six duble knots on the duble reele or 12 on the single reele, a penny, which is more by 2d. in the shilling than they have had, and all labourers and other artificers have the like increase. Essex and Suffolk are ready to make the same increase provided that the same reel and rate of increase is used in all other counties where the trade of clothing and yarn-making is made, otherwise one county will undersell another to the ruin of the clothiers and the poor dependent on them. Therefore the Council order that a proportional increase of wages is paid according to the increase of the reel and the officers employed for keeping a constant reel to give their accounts to the Justices of the Assize.”[233]

Footnote 233:

_Council Register_, 2nd March, 1631-2.

Other complaints were made of clothiers who forced their workpeople to take goods instead of money in payment of wages. At Southampton in 1666 thirty-two clothiers, beginning with Joseph Delamot, Alderman, were presented for forcing their spinners “to take goods for their work whereby the poor were much wronged, being contrary to the statute, for all which they were amerced severally.” The records however do not state that the fine was exacted.[234]

Footnote 234:

Davies (J. S.) _Southampton_, p. 272.

Low as were the spinster’s wages even in seasons of prosperity, they, in common with the better-paid weavers endured the seasons of depression, which were characteristic of the woollen industry. The English community was as helpless before a period of trade depression as before a season of drought or flood. Employment ceased, the masters who had no sale for their goods, gave out no material to their workers, and men and women alike, who were without land as a resource in this time of need, were faced with starvation and despair.[235] The utmost social demoralisation ensued, and family life with all its valuable traditions was in many cases destroyed.

Footnote 235:

A report to the council from the High Sheriff of Somerset says: “Yet I thincke it my duty to acquaynt your Lordshipps that there are such a multytude of poore cottages builte upon the highwaies and odd corners in every countrie parishe within this countye, and soe stufte with poore people that in many of those parishes there are three or fower hundred poore of men and women and children that did gett most of their lyvinge by spinnyng, carding and such imployments aboute wooll and cloath. And the deadness of that trade and want of money is such that they are for the most parte without worke, and knowe not how to live. This _is_ a great grievance amongst us and tendeth much to mutinye.”

(_S.P.D._, cxxx., 73, May 14, 1622, High Sheriff of Somersetshire to the Council.)

Complaints from the clothing counties state “That the Poor’s Rates are doubled, and in some Places trebbled by the Multitude of Poor Perishing and Starving Women and Children being come to the Parishes, while their Husbands and Fathers _not able to bear the cries which they could not relieve_, are fled into _France_ ... to seek their Bread.”[236]

Footnote 236:

_Second Humble Address from the poor Weavers._

These conditions caused grave anxiety to the Government who attempted to force the clothiers to provide for their workpeople.[237]

Footnote 237:

The Council ordered the Justices of the Peace for the counties of Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Gloucester, Worcester, Oxford, Kent and Suffolk, to summon clothiers and “deale effectually with them for the employment of such weavers, spinners and other persons, as are now out of work.... We may not indure that the cloathiers ... should att their pleasure, and without giving knowledge thereof unto this Boarde, dismisse their workefolkes, who being many in number and most of them of the poorer sort are in such cases likely by their clamour to disturb the quiet and government of those partes wherein they live.” (_C.R._, 9th Feb., 1621-2.)

Locke reported to Carleton, Feb. 16th, 1622: “In the cloathing counties there have bin lately some poore people (such chieflie as gott their living by working to Clothiers) that have gathered themselves together by Fourty or Fifty in a company and gone to the houses of those they thought fittest to relieve them for meate and money which hath bin given more of feare than charitie. And they have taken meate openly in the markett without paying for it. The Lords have written letters to ten Counties where cloathing is most used, that the Clothier shall not put off his workemen without acquainting the Councill, signifying that order is taken for the buying off their cloathes, and that the wooll grower shall afford them his wooll better cheape but yet the cloathiers still complaine that they can not sell their cloath in Blackwell Hall....”[238]

Footnote 238:

_S.P.D._, cxxvii., 102, Feb. 16, 1622.

The Justices of Assize for Gloucester reported March 13, 1622, that they have interviewed the Clothiers who have been forced to put down looms through the want of sale for their cloth. The Clothiers maintain that this is due to the regulations and practices of the Company of Merchant Adventurers. They say that they, the Clothiers, have been working at a loss since the deadness of trade about a year ago, “their stocks and credits are out in cloth lying upon their hands unsold, and that albeit they have bought their woolles at very moderate prices, being such as do very much impoverish the grower, yet they cannot sell the cloth made thereof but to their intolerable losses, and are enforced to pawne theire clothes to keepe theire people in work, which they are not able to indure ... that there are at the least 1500 loomes within the County of Gloucester and in ... the Citie and that xxs. in money and sixteene working persons and upwards doe but weekly mainteyne one loome, which doe require 1500li. in money, by the weeke to mainteyne in that trade 24000 working people besides all others that are releeved thereby, and so the wages of a labouring person is little above xiid. the week being much too little.”[239]

Footnote 239:

_S.P.D._, cxxviii, 49, March 13, 1622.

In June of the same year the Justices of Gloucester wrote to the Council: “The distress of those depending on the Cloth trade grows worse and worse. Our County is thereby and through want of money and means in these late tymes growne poore, and unable to releeve the infynite nomber of poore people residinge within the same (drawne hither by meanes of clothing) ... therefore very many of them doe wander, begg and steale and are in case to starve as their faces (to our great greefes) doe manifest.... The peace is in danger of being broken.”[240]

Footnote 240:

_S.P.D._, cxxxi., 4, June 1, 1622.

The distress was not limited to the rural districts; the records of the Borough of Reading describe efforts made there for its alleviation. “At this daye the complainte of the poore Spynners and Carders was agayne heard etc. The Overseers and Clothiers apoynted to provide and assigne them worke apeared and shewed their dilligence therein, yett the complaint for lacke of worke increaseth; for a remedye is agreed to be thus, viz: every Clothier according to his proportion of ... shall weekly assigne and put to spynning in the towne his ordinarye and course wooffe wooll, and shall not send it unto the country and if sufficient be in the towne to doe it.”[241] At another time it is recorded that “In regard of the great clamour of divers poore people lackinge worke and employment in spynninge and cardinge in this Towne, yt was this daye thought fitt to convent all the undertakers of the stocke given by Mr. Kendricke, and uppon their appearaunce it was ordered, and by themselves agreed, that every undertaker, for every 300li. shall put a woowf a weeke to spyninge within the Towne, as Mr. Mayour shall apoynt, and to such spynners as Mr. Mayour shall send to them[242]....”

Footnote 241:

Guilding, _Reading_, Vol. II., p. 159, 1623.

Footnote 242:

_Ibid._, Vol. III., p. 7, Mar. 3, 1629-30.

In these times of distress and in all disputes concerning wages and the exactions of the employers, men and women stood together, supporting each other in their efforts for the improvement of their lot. Thus the Justices of the Peace of Devonshire reported that “complaints were made by the most parte of the clothiers weavers, spinsters and fullers between Plymouth and Teignmouth,”[243] and the Council is informed that at the last Quarter Sessions in Wilts, many “weavers, spinners, and fullers for themselves and for manie hundreds more ... complained of distress by increasing want of work.... Clothiers giving up their trade, etc.”[244]

Footnote 243:

_S.P.D._, xcvii., 85, May 25, 1618. J.P.s of Devonshire to Council.

Footnote 244:

_Ibid._, cxv., 20, May 11, 1620. J.P.s of Wiltshire to Council.

Sometimes the petitions, though presented on behalf of spinners as well as weavers, were actually signed only by men. This was the case with the Weavers, Fullers and Spinners of Leonard Stanley and King Stanley in Gloucestershire, who petitioned on behalf of themselves and others, 800 at the least, young and old, of the said parishes, “Whereas your poore petitioners have heretofore bene well wrought and imployed in our sayd occupations belonging to the trade of clothing whereby we were able in some poore measure and at a very lowe rate to maintaine ourselves and families soe as hitherto they have not suffered any extreme want. But now soe it is that we are likely for the time to come never to be imployed againe in our callinges and to have our trades become noe trades, whereunto we have bene trained up and served as apprentices according to the lawe, and wherein we have always spent our whole time and are now unfitt for ... other occupations, neither can we be received into worke by any clothiers in the whole countrey.”[245]

Footnote 245:

_S.P.D._, ccxliv., 1, Aug. 1, 1633.

At other times women took the lead in demanding the redress of grievances from which all were suffering. When the case of the say-makers abating the wages of the spinsters, weavers and combers of Sudbury was examined by the Justices, the Saymakers alleged that all others did the same, but that they were content to give the wages paid by them if these were extended by proclamation or otherwise throughout the kingdom. “But if the order is not general it will be their undoing ...” Whereupon the Justices ordered the Saymakers to pay spinsters “for every seaven knottes one penny, the reel whereon the yarne is reeled to be a yard in length—no longer,” and to pay weavers “12d. a lb. for weaving thereof for white sayes under 5 lbs. weight.”[246]

Footnote 246:

_S.P.D._, clxxxix., 40, Ap. 27, 1631. J.P.s of Essex to Council.

Shortly afterwards the Council received a petition from the Mayor asking to be heard by the Council or Commissioners to answer the complaint made against them. “by Silvia Harber widow set on worke by Richard Skinnir of Sudbury gent ... for abridging and wronging of the spinsters and weavers of the said borough in their wages and for some other wrongs supposed to bee done to the said Silvia Harber,” followed by an affidavit stating “Wee whose names are hereunder written doe testifye as followeth with our severell handes to our testification.

“1. That one Silvia Harber of our Towne of Sudbury comonly called Luce Harbor did say that shee had never undertaken to peticion the Lordes of the Counsell in the Behalfe of the Spinsters of Sudbury aforesaid but by the inducement of Richard Skinner gentleman of the Towne aforesaid who sent for her twoe or three times before shee would goe unto him for that purpose, and when shee came to him hee sent her to London and bare her charges. Witness, Daniel Biat Clement Shelley.

“2. That having conference with Richard Skinner aforesaid Gentleman, hee did confesse that hee would never have made any stir of complaint against the saymakers in behalf of weavers and spinsters, but that one Thomas Woodes of the towne abovesaid had given him Distaystfull wordes.” Witness, Vincent Cocke.[247]

Footnote 247:

_S.P.D._, cxcvii., 72, July, 1631. Affidavit about Saymakers in County of Suffolk.

No organisation appears to have been formed by the wage-earners in the woollen Trade. Their demonstrations against employers were as yet local and sporadic. The very nature of their industry and the requirements of its capitalistic organisation would have rendered abortive on their part the attempt to raise wages by restricting the numbers of persons admitted into the trade; but the co-operation in trade disputes between the men and women engaged in this industry, forms a marked contrast to the conditions which were now beginning to prevail in the apprentice trades and which will be described later. Though without immediate result in the woollen trade, it may be assumed that it was this habit of standing shoulder to shoulder, regardless of sex-jealousy, which ensured that when Industrialism attained a further development in the closely allied cotton trade, the union which was then called into being embraced men and women on almost equal terms.

The broad outline of the position of women in the woollen trade as it was established in the seventeenth century shows them taking little, if any, part in the management of the large and profitable undertakings of Clothiers and Wool-merchants. Their industrial position was that of wage-earners, and though the demand for their labour generally exceeded the supply, yet the wages they received were barely sufficient for their individual maintenance, regardless of the fact that in most cases they were wholly or partly supporting children or other dependants.

The higher rates of pay for spinning appear to have been secured by the women who did not depend wholly upon it for their living, but could buy wool, spin it at their leisure, and sell the yarn in the dearest market; while those who worked all the year round for clothiers or middlemen, were often beaten down in their wages and were subject to exactions and oppression.

C. _Linen._

While the woollen trade had for centuries been developing under the direction of capitalism, it was only in the seventeenth century that this influence begins to show itself in the production of linen. Following the example of the clothiers, attempts were then made to manufacture linen on a large scale. For example, Celia Fiennes describes Malton as a “pretty large town built of Stone but poor; ... there was one Mr. Paumes that marry’d a relation of mine, Lord Ewers’ Coeheiress who is landlady of almost all yᵉ town. She has a pretty house in the place. There is the ruins of a very great house whᶜʰ belonged to yᵉ family but they not agreeing about it Caused yᵉ defaceing of it. She now makes use of yᵉ roomes off yᵉ out-buildings and gate house for weaving and Linning Cloth, haveing set up a manuffactory for Linnen whᶜʰ does Employ many poor people.”[248]

Footnote 248:

Fiennes (Celia) p. 74. _Through England on a Side-saddle._

In spite of such innovations the production of linen retained for the most part its character as one of the crafts “yet left of that innocent old world.” The housewife, assisted by servants and children span flax and hemp for household linen, underclothes, children’s frocks and other purposes, and then took her thread to the local weaver who wove it to her order. Thus Richard Stapley, Gent., enters in his Diary: “A weaver fetched 11 pounds of flaxen yarn to make a bedticke; and he brought me ten yds of ticking for yᵉ bed, 3 yds and ¾ of narrow ticking for yᵉ bolster & for yᵉ weaving of which I paid him 10s. and ye flax cost 8d. per pound. My mother spun it for me, and I had it made into a bed by John Dennit, a tailor, of Twineham for 8d. on Wednesday, July 18th, and it was filled on Saturday, August 4th by Jonas Humphrey of Twineham for 6d.” The weaver brought it home July 6th.[249] Similarly Sarah Fell enters in her Household book: “Nov. 18th, 1675, by mᵒ. pᵈ. Geo. ffell weaver foʳ workeinge 32: ells of hempe tow cloth of Mothrs. at ld½ ell. 000.04.00.”[250]

Footnote 249:

_Suss. Arch. Coll._, Vol. II., p. 121. _Extracts from the Diary of Richard Stapley, Gent._, 1682-1724.

Footnote 250:

Fell (Sarah) _Household Accts._, p. 233.

By the industry and foresight of its female members the ordinary household was supplied with all its necessary linen without any need for entering the market, the expenses of middlemen and salesmen being so avoided. Nevertheless, it is evident that a considerable sale for linen had always existed, for the linen drapers were an important corporation in many towns. This sale was increased through an invention made about the middle of the century: By printing patterns on linen a material was produced which closely imitated the costly muslins, or calicoes as they were then called, imported from India; but at so reasonable a price that they were within the reach of a servant’s purse. Servants were therefore able to go out in dresses scarcely distinguishable from their mistresses’, and the sale of woollen and silk goods was seriously affected. The woollen trade became alarmed; riots took place; weavers assaulted women who were wearing printed linens in the streets, and finally, Parliament, always tender to the woollen trade, which furnished so large a part of the national revenue, prohibited their use altogether. The linen printers recognising that “the Reason why the _English_ Manufacture of linnen is not so much taken notice of as the _Scotch_ or _Irish_, is this, the _English_ is mostly consumed in the Country, ... whereas the _Scotch_ and _Irish_ must come by sea and make a Figure at our custom’s house,”[251] urged in their defence that “the linens printed are chiefly the Growth and Manufacture of _North Britain_ pay 3d. per Yard to the Crown, ... and Employ so many Thousands of _British_ poor, as will undoubtedly entitle them to the Care of a British Parliament.”[252]

Footnote 251:

_Case of British and Irish Manufacture of Linnen._

Footnote 252:

_Case of the Linen Drapers._

But even this argument was unavailing against the political influence of the woollen trade. The spirit of the time favouring the spread of capitalistic enterprise from the woollen trade into other fields of

## action, an attempt was now made to form a Linen Company. Pamphlets

written for and against this project furnish many details of the conditions then prevailing in the manufacture of linen. “How,” it was said, will the establishment of a Linnen Company “affect the Kingdom in the two Pillars that support it, that of the Rents of Land and the imploying our Ships and Men at Sea, which are thought the Walls of the Nation. For the Rents of Land they must certainly fall, for that one Acre of Flax will imploy as many Hands the year round, as the Wooll of Sheep that graze twenty Acres of Ground. The Linnen Manufactory imploys few men, the Woollen most, Weaving, Combing, Dressing, Shearing, Dying, etc. These Eat and Drink more than Women and Children; and so as the Land that the Sheep graze on raiseth the Rent, so will the Arable and Pasture that bears Corn, and breeds Cattle for their Subsistence. Then for the Employment of our Shipping, it will never be pretended that we can arrive to Exportation of Linnen; there are others and too many before us in that.... That Projectors and Courtiers should be inspired with New Lights, and out of love to the Nation, create new Methods in Trades, that none before found out; and by inclosing Commons the Liberty of Trade into Shares, in the first place for themselves, and then for such others as will pay for both, is, I must confess, to me, a Mystery I desire to be a Stranger unto.... The very Name of a Company and Joint-Stock in Trade, is a spell to drive away, and keep out of that place where they reside, all men of Industry.... The great motive to Labour and Incouragement of Trade, is an equal Freedom, and that none may be secluded from the delightful Walks of Liberty ... a Subjection in Manufactories where a People are obliged to one Master, tho’ they have the full Value of their Labour, is not pleasing, they think themselves in perpetual Servitude, and so it is observed in _Ireland_, where the _Irish_ made a Trade of Linnen Yarn, no Man could ingage them, but they would go to the Market and be better satisfied with a less price, than to be obliged to one master.... There was much more Reason for a Company and Joint-stock to set up the Woollen Manufactory, in that ignorant Age, than there is for this of the Linnen Manufactory; that of the Woollen was a new Art not known in this Kingdom, it required a great Stock to manage, there was required Foreign as well as Native Commodities to carry it on ... and when the Manufactory was made, there must be Skill and Interest abroad to introduce the Commodity where others had the Trade before them; but there is nothing of all this in the Linnen Manufactory; Nature seems to design it for the weaker Sex. The best of Linnen for Service is called House Wife’s Cloth, here then is no need of the Broad Seal, or Joint-Stock to establish the Methods for the good Wife’s weeding her Flax-garden, or how soon her Maid shall sit to her Wheel after washing her Dishes; the good Woman is Lady of the Soil, and holds a Court within herself, throws the Seed into the Ground, and works it till she brings it there again, I mean her Web to the bleaching Ground.... To appropriate this which the poorest Family may by Labour arrive unto, that is, finish and bring to Market a Piece of Cloth, to me seems an infallible Expedient to discourage universal Industry.... The Linnen Manufactory above any Trade I know, if (which I must confess I doubt) it be for the Good of the Nation, requires more Charity than Grandeur to carry it on, the poor Spinner comes as often to her Master for Charity to a sick Child, or a Plaister for a Sore, as for Wages; and this she cannot have of a Company, but rather less for her labour, when they have beat all private Undertakers out. These poor Spinners can now come to their Master’s Doors at a good time, and eat of their good tho’ poor master’s Chear; they can reason with him, if any mistake, or hardship be put upon them, and this poor People love to do, and not be at the Dispose of Servants, as they must be where their Access can only be by Doorkeepers, Clerks, etc., to the Governors of the Company.”[253]

Footnote 253:

Linnen and Woollen Manufactory, p. 4-8, 1691.

On the other side it was urged that “All the Arguments that can be offer’d for Encouraging the woollen manufacture in _England_ conclude as strongly in proportion for Encouraging the linnen manufacture in _Scotland_. ’Tis the ancient Staple Commodity there, as the Woollen is here.”[254]

Footnote 254:

_True case of the Scots Linen Manufacture._

The part taken by women in the production of linen resembled their share in woollen manufactures. Some were weavers; thus Oliver Heywood says that his brother-in-law, who afterwards traded in fustians, was brought up in Halifax with Elizabeth Roberts, a linen weaver.[255] Entries in the Foulis Account Book show that they were sometimes employed in bleaching but spinning was the only process which depended exclusively on their labour.

Footnote 255:

Heywood (Rev. Oliver) _Autobiography_, Vol. I., p. 36.

The rates of pay for spinning flax and hemp were even lower than those for spinning wool. Fitzherbert expressly says that in his time no woman could get her living by spinning linen.[256] The market price was of little moment to well-to-do women who span thread for their family’s use and who valued the product of their labour by its utility and not by its return in money value; but the women who depended on spinning for their living were virtually paupers, as is shown by the terms in which reference is made to them:—“shee beeinge very poore, gettinge her livinge by spinninge and in the nature of a widowe, her husband beeinge in the service of His Majesty.”[257]

Footnote 256:

Ante, p. 48.

Footnote 257:

_S.P.D._, cccclvii., 3., June 13, 1640.

Yet the demand for yarn and thread was so great that if spinners had been paid a living wage there would have been scarcely any need for poor relief.

The relation between low wages and pauperism was hardly even suspected at this time, and though the spinsters’ maximum wages were settled at Quarter Sessions, no effort was made to raise them to a subsistence level. Instead of attempting to do so Parish Authorities accepted pauperism as “the act of God,” and concentrated their attention on the task of reducing rates as far as possible by forcing the pauper women and children, who had become impotent or vicious through neglect and under-feeding, to spin the thread needed by the community. Schemes for this purpose were started all over the country; a few examples will show their general scope. At Nottingham it was arranged for Robert Hassard to “Receave pore children to the number of viij. or more, ... and to haue the benefitt of theire workes and labours for the first Moneth, and the towne to allowe him towards their dyett, for everie one xijid. a Weeke, and theire parents to fynde them lodginge; and Robert Hassard to be carefull to teache and instructe them speedyly in the spyninge and workinge heare, to be fitt to make heare-cloth, and allsoe in cardinge and spyninge of hards to make candle weeke, and hee to geue them correccion, when need ys, and the greate wheeles to be called in, and to be delivered for the vse of these ymployments.”[258]

Footnote 258:

_Ibid._, pp. 259-60, 1649.

A few years later in the scheme “for setting the poore on worke” the following rates of pay were established:—

6d. per pound for cardinge and spinning finest wool.

5d. per pound for ye second sort.

4d. ob. (＝ _obolus_, ½d.) for ye third sorte.

1d. per Ley [skein] for ye onely spinninge all sortes of linen, the reele beeing 4 yards.

ob. per pound for cardinge candleweake.

1d. per pound for pulling midling [coarser part] out of it.

1d. per pound for spininge candleweake.[259]

Footnote 259:

_Nottingham Records_, Vol. V., pp. 174-5, 1636.

Orders for the Workhouse at Westminster in 1560, read that “old Women or middle-Aged that might work, and went a Gooding, should be Hatchilers of the Flax; and one Matron over them. That common Hedges, and such like lusty naughty Packs, should be set to spinning; and one according to be set over them. Children that were above Six and not twelve Years of Age should be sent to winde Quills to the Weavers.”[260]

Footnote 260:

Stow, _London_, Book VI., p. 60.

At a later date in London “Besides the relieving and educating of poor friendless harborless children in Learning and in Arts, many hundreds of poor Families are imployed and relieved by the said Corporation in the Manufactory of Spinning and Weaving: and whosoever doth repair either to the Wardrobe near Black-friars, or to Heiden-house in the Minories, may have materials of Flax, Hemp, or Towe to spin at their own houses ... leaving so much money as the said materials cost, until it be brought again in Yarn; at which time they shall receive money for their work ... every one is paid according to the fineness or coarseness of the Yarn they spin ... so that none are necessitated to live idly that are desirous or willing to work. And it is to be wished and desired, that the Magistrates of this city would assist this Corporation ... in supressing of Vagrants and common Beggars ... that so abound to the hindrance of the Charity of many pious people towards this good work.”[261]

Footnote 261:

_Poor Out-cast Children’s Song and Cry._

The Cowden overseers carried out a scheme of work for the poor from 1600 to 1627, buying flax and having it spun and woven into canvas. The work generally paid for itself; only one year is a loss of 7s. 8d. entered, and during the first seventeen years the amount expended yearly in cash and relief did not exceed £6 11s. rising then in 1620 to £28 5s. 10d., after which it fell again. The scheme was finally abandoned in 1627, the relief immediately rising to £43 7s. 6d.[262]

Footnote 262:

_Suss. Arch. Coll._, Vol. xx., pp. 99-100, _Acct. Book of Cowdon_.

Richard Dunning describes how in Devon “for Employing Women, ... We agreed with one Person, who usually Employed several _Spinsters_, ... he was to employ in _Spinning_, _Carding_, etc., all such Women as by direction of the Overseers should apply to him for Work, to pay them such Wages as they should deserve.”[263]

Footnote 263:

Dunning, _Plain and Easie Method_, p. 8, 1686.

“Mary Harrison, daughter of Henry Harrison, was comited to the hospitall at Reading to be taught to spyn and earne her livinge.”[264] Similarly at Dorchester “Sarah Handcock of this Borough having this day been complayned of for her disorderly carriage and scolding in the work house ... ... among the spinsters, is now ordered to come no more to the work house to work there, but is to work elsewhere and follow her work, or to be further delt withall according to the lawe.”[265]

Footnote 264:

Guilding, _Reading_, Vol. II., p. 294.

Footnote 265:

Mayo (C.H.) _Municipal Records of Dorchester_, p. 667, 1635.

At Dorchester a school was maintained for some years in which poor children were taught spinning: “This day John Tarrenton ... is agreed withall to vndertake charge and to be master of the Hospitall to employ halfe the children at present at burlinge,[266] and afterwards the others as they are willing and able, To have the howse and Tenne per annum: wages for the presente, and yf all the Children come into burlinge, and ther be no need of the women that doe now teach them to spinne, then the Towne to consyder of Tarrington to giue him either part or all, that is ix pownd, the women now hath....”[267]

Footnote 266:

To burl, “to dress cloth as fullers do.”

Footnote 267:

Mayo (C. H.), _Municipal Records of Dorchester_, p. 515, 1638.

Another entry, February 3rd, 1644-5, records that “Mr. Speering doth agree to provide spinning work for such poore persons that shall spin with those turnes as are now there [in the hospital house] ... and to pay the poore for their spinning after the vsual rates for the worke they doe.”[268]

Footnote 268:

_Ibid._ p. 521.

In 1649 it is entered “This day Thos. Clench was here, and demanded 10 _li._ per ann. more than the stocke of the Hospital, which is 150 _li._ lent him for the furnishing of the house with worke for spinners, and for the overlooking to the children ... the spinners shall have all the yeare 3½d. a _li._ for yearne ... and that there be as many children kept aworke as the roomes will hold ... wee shall take into consideracion the setting of the poore on worke in spinning of worsted, and knitting of stockins, and also of setting vp a trade of making sackcloth.”[269]

Footnote 269:

_Ibid._ pp. 517-8.

Schemes for teaching spinning were welcomed with enthusiasm by the economists of the period, because in many districts the poor rates had risen to an alarming height. They believed that if only the poor would work all would be well. One writer urged “That if the Poor of the Place do not know how to spin, or to do the Manufacture of that Place, that then there be Dames hired at the Parish-Charge to teach them; and Men may learn to spin as well as Women, and Earn as much money at it as they can at many other employments.”[270] Another writer calculated that if so employed “ixcl children whᶜʰ daielie was ydle may earne one wᵗ another vjid. a weke whᶜʰ a mownte in the yere to jMiijcxxxvˡⁱ. Also that jciiijxx women ... ar hable to earne at lest some xijid., some xxd., and some ijs. vjid. a weeke.”[271]

Footnote 270:

_Trade of England_, p. 10, 1681.

Footnote 271:

Tingey, _Norwich_, Vol. II., p. 355.

This zest for teaching spinning was partly due to the fact that the clothiers were represented on the local authorities, and often the extending of their business was hampered by the shortage of spinsters. But the flaw in all these arrangements was the fact that spinning remained in most cases a grant in aid, and could not, owing to the low wages paid, maintain a family, scarcely even an individual, on the level of independence.

Children could not live on 6d. a week, or grown women on 1s. or 1s. 8d. a week. And so the women, when they depended wholly upon spinning flax for their living, became paupers, suffering the degradation and loss of power by malnutrition which that condition implies.

In a few cases this unsatisfactory aspect of spinning was perceived by those who were charged with relieving the poor. Thus, when a workhouse was opened in Bristol in 1654, the spinning scheme was soon abandoned as unprofitable.[272] Later, when girls were again taught spinning, the managers of the school “soon found that the great cause of begging did proceed from the low wages for Labour; for after about eight months time our children could not get half so much as we expended in their provisions. The manufacturers ... were always complaining the Yarn was spun couarse, but would not advance above eightpence per pound for spinning, and we must either take this or have no work.” Finally the Governor took pains therefore to teach them to produce a finer yarn at 2s. to 3s. 6d. per pound. This paid better, and would have been more profitable still if the girls as they grew older had not been sent to service or put into the kitchen.[273]

Footnote 272:

Latimer, _Annals of Bristol_, p. 249.

Footnote 273:

Cary, (John) _Proceedings of Corporation of Bristol_, p. 13, 1700.

Thomas Firmin, after a prolonged effort to help the poor in London, came to a similar conclusion. He explains that “the Poor of this Parish, tho’ many, are yet not so many as in some others; yet, even here there are many poor people, who receive Flax to spin, tho’ they are not all Pensioners to the Parish, nor, I hope, ever will be, it being my design to prevent that as much as may be; ... there are above 500 more out of other Parishes in and about the City of _London_; some of which do constantly follow this Employment, and others only when they have no better; As, suppose a poor Woman that goes three dayes a Week to Wash or Scoure abroad, or one that is employed in Nurse-keeping three or four Months in a Year, or a poor Market-woman, who attends three or four Mornings in a Week with her Basket, and all the rest of the time these folks have little or nothing to do; but by means of this spinning are not only kept within doors ... but made much more happy and chearful.”[274]

Footnote 274:

Firmin, _Some Proposals_, p. 19, 1678.

Firmin began his benevolent work in an optimistic spirit, “had you seen, as I have done many a time, with what joy and satisfaction, many Poor People have brought home their Work, and received their money for it, you would think no Charity in the World like unto it. Do not imagine that all the Poor People in _England_, are like unto those Vagrants you find up and down in the Streets. No, there are many Thousands whose necessities are very great, and yet do what they can by their Honest Labour to help themselves; and many times they would do more than they do but for want of Employment. Several that I have now working to me do spin, some fifteen, some sixteen, hours in four and twenty, and had much rather do it than be idle.”[275]

Footnote 275:

Firmin, Thomas, _Life_, pp. 31-32, 1698.

The work developed until “He employed in this manufacture some times 1600, some times 1700 Spinners, besides Dressers of flax, Weavers and others. Because he found that his Poor must work sixteen hours in the day to earn sixpence, and thought their necessities and labour were not sufficiently supplied or recompensed by these earnings; therefore he was wont to distribute Charity among them ... without which Charity some of them had perished for want, when either they or their children fell ill.... Whoever of the Spinners brought in two pound of Yarn might take away with ’em a Peck of Coals. Because they soiled themselves by carrying away Coals in their Aprons or Skirts ... he gave ’em canvass bags. By the assistance and order of his Friends he gave to Men, Women and Children 3,000 Shirts and Shifts in two years.”[276]

Footnote 276:

_Ibid._ pp. 31-2, 1698.

“In above £4000, laid out the last Year, reckning House-rent, Servants wages, Loss by Learners, with the interest of the Money, there was not above £200 lost, one chief reason of which was the kindness of several Persons, who took off good quantities ... at the price they cost me to spin and weave ... and ... the East India Co., gave encouragement to make their bags.” But the loss increased as time went on.... “In 1690 his design of employing the poor to spin flax was taken up by the Patentees of the Linen Manufacture, who made the Poor and others, whom they employed, to work cheaper; yet that was not sufficient to encourage them to continue the manufacture.... The poor spinners, being thus deserted, Mr. _Firmin_ returned to ’em again; and managed that trade as he was wont; But so, that he made it bear almost its own Charges. But that their smaller Wages might be comfortable to them he was more Charitable to ’em, and begged for ’em of almost all Persons of Rank with whom he had intimacy, or so much as Friendship. He would also carry his Cloth to divers, with whom he scarce had any acquaintance, telling ’em _it was the Poor’s cloth, which in conscience they ought to buy at the Price it could be afforded_.”[277] ... Finally, “he was persuaded by some, to make trial of the _Woollen Manufacture_; because at this, the Poor might make better wages, than at Linen-work. But the price of wool advancing very much, and the _London_-Spinsters being almost wholly unskilful at Drawing a Woollen-Thread, after a considerable loss ... and 29 months trial he gave off the project.”[278]

Footnote 277:

Firmin (Thomas) _Life_, pp. 33-6.

Footnote 278:

_Ibid._ pp. 39-40.

Firmin’s experiment, corroborating as it does the results of other efforts at poor relief, shows that at this time women could not maintain themselves by the wages of flax spinning; still less could they, when widows, provide for their children by this means.

But though the spinster, when working for wages received so small a return for her labour, it must not be forgotten that flax spinning was chiefly a domestic art, in which the whole value of the woman’s labour was secured to her family, unaffected by the rate of wages. Therefore the value of women’s labour in spinning flax must not be judged only according to the wages which they received, but was more truly represented by the quantity of linen which they produced for household use.

D. _Silk, and Gold and Silver._

The history of the Silk Trade differs widely from that of either the Woollen or Linen Trades. The conditions of its manufacture during the fifteenth century are described with great clearness in a petition presented to Henry VI. by the silk weavers in 1455, which “Sheweth unto youre grete wisdoms, and also prayen and besechen the Silkewymmen and Throwestres of the Craftes and occupation of Silkewerk within the Citee of London, which be and have been Craftes of wymmen within the same Citee of tyme that noo mynde renneth unto the contrarie. That where it is pleasyng to God that all his Creatures be set in vertueux occupation and labour accordyng to their degrees, and convenient for thoo places where their abode is, to the nourishing of virtue and eschewyng of vices and ydelness. And where upon the same Craftes, before this tyme, many a wurshipfull woman within the seid Citee have lyved full hounourably, and therwith many good Housholdes kept, and many Gentilwymmen and other in grete noumbre like as there nowe be moo than a M., have been drawen under theym in lernyng the same Craftes and occupation full vertueusly, unto the plesaunce of God, whereby afterward they have growe to grete wurship, and never any thing of Silke brought into yis lande concerning the same Craftes and occupation in eny wise wrought, but in rawe Silk allone unwrought”; but now wrought goods are introduced and it is impossible any longer to obtain rawe material except of the worst quality ... “the sufferaunce whereof, hath caused and is like to cause, grete ydelness amongs yonge Gentilwymmen and oyer apprentices of the same Craftes within ye said Citee, and also leying doun of many good and notable Housholdes of them that have occupied the same Craftes, which be convenient, worshipfull and accordyng for Gentilwymmen, and oyer wymmen of wurship, aswele within ye same Citee as all oyer places within this Reaume.” The petitioners assumed that “Every wele disposed persone of this land, by reason and naturall favour, wold rather that wymmen of their nation born and owen blode hadde the occupation thereof, than strange people of oyer landes.”[279]

Footnote 279:

_Rolls of Parliament_, V., 325. _A Petition of Silk Weavers_, 34 Henry VI., c. 55.

The petition received due attention, Statute 33, Henry VI enacting that “Whereas it is shewed to our Sovereign Lord the King in his said parliament, by the grevous complaint of the silk women and spinners of the mystery and occupation of silk-working, within the city of London, how that divers Lombards and other strangers, imagining to destroy the said mystery, and all such virtuous occupations of women in the said Realm, to enrich themselves ... have brought ... such silk so made, wrought, twined, ribbands, and chains falsely and deceitfully wrought, all manner girdels and other things concerning the said mystery and occupation, in no manner wise bringing any good silk unwrought, as they were wont.” Therefore the importation of “any merchandise ... touching or concerning the mystery of silk women, (girdels which come from Genoa only excepted,)” is forbidden.[280]

Footnote 280:

_Statutes_, II., p. 374, 33 Henry VI., c. 5.

This statute was re-enacted in succeeding reigns with the further explanation that “as well men as women” gained their living by this trade.

Few incidents reveal more clearly than do these petitions the gulf separating the conception of women’s sphere in life which prevailed in mediæval London, from that which governed society in the first decade of the twentieth century. The contrast is so great that it becomes difficult to adjust one’s vision to the implications which the former contains. Other incidents can be quoted of the independence, enterprise, and capacity manifested by the prosperous women of the merchant class in London during the Middle Ages. Thus Rose de Burford, the wife of a wealthy London merchant, engaged in trading transactions on a large scale both before and after her husband’s death. She lent money to the Bishop in 1318, and received 100 Marks for a cope embroidered with coral. She petitioned for the repayment of a loan made by her husband for the Scottish wars, finally proposing that this should be allowed her off the customs which she would be liable to pay on account of wool about to be shipped from the Port of London.[281]

Footnote 281:

By kind permission of Miss Eileen Power.

It is, however, a long cry from the days of Rose de Burford to the seventeenth century, when “gentilwymmen and other wymmen of worship” no longer made an honourable living by the silk trade; which trade, in spite of protecting statutes, had become the refuge of paupers. To obviate the difficulties of an exclusive reliance on foreign supplies for the raw material of the silk trade, James I. ordered the planting of 10,000 mulberry trees so that “multitudes of persons of both sexes and all ages, such as in regard of impotence are unfitted for other labour, may bee set on worke, comforted and releved.”[282]

Footnote 282:

_S.P.D._, xxvi., 6. Jan. 1607.

The unsatisfactory state of the trade is shown in a petition from the merchants, silk men, and others trading for silk, asking for a charter of incorporation because “the trade of silke is now become great whereby ... customes are increased and many thousands of poore men, women and children sett on worke and mayntayned. And forasmuch as the first beginning of this trade did take its being from women then called silkwomen who brought upp men servants, that since have become free of all or moste of the severall guilds and corporacions of London, whose ordinances beeing for other particular trades, meet not with, nor have power to reprove such abuses and deceipts as either have or are likely still to growe upon the silk trade.”[283]

Footnote 283:

_S.P.D._, clxxv., 102, Nov. 25, 1630.

A petition from the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Company of Silk Throwers, shows that by this “Trade between Forty and Fifty thousand poor Men, Women and Children, are constantly Imployed and Relieved, in and about the City of _London_ ... divers unskilful Persons, who never were bred as Apprentices to the said Trade of _Silk-throwing_, have of _Late years_ intruded into the said Trade, and have Set up the same; and dwelling in Places beyond the Bounds and Circuit of the Petitioners Search by their Charter, do use Divers Deceits in the _Throwing_ and _Working_ of the Manufacture of Silk, to the great Wrong and Injury of the Commonwealth, and the great Discouragement of the Artists of the said Trade.”[284]

Footnote 284:

_Humble Petition of the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Company of Silk Throwers._

An act of Charles II. provided that men, women and children, if native subjects, though not apprentices, might be employed to turn the mill, tie threads, and double and wind silk, “as formerly.”[285]

Footnote 285:

Statutes 13 and 14, Charles II., c. 15.

“There are here and there,” it was said, “a Silk Weaver or two (of late years) crept into some cities and Market Towns in _England_, who do employ such people that were never bound to the Trade ... in all other Trades that do employ the poor, they cannot effect their business without employing such as were never apprentice to the Trade ... the Clothier must employ the Spinner and Stock-carder, that peradventure were never apprentices to any trade, else they could never accomplish their end. And it is the same in making of Buttons and Bone-lace, and the like. But it is not so in this Trade; for they that have been apprentices to the Silk-weaving Trade, are able to make more commodities than can be easily disposed of ... because there hath not been for a long time any other but this, to place forth poor men’s Children, and Parish Boyes unto; by which means the poor of this Trade have been very numerous.”[286]

Footnote 286:

_Trade of England_, p. 18.

During this period all the references to silk-spinning confirm the impression that it had become a pauper trade. A pamphlet calling for the imposition of a duty on the importation of wrought silks explains that “The Throwsters, by reason of this extraordinary Importation of raw Silk, will employ several hundred persons more than they did before, as Winders, Doublers, and others belonging to the throwing Trade, who for the greatest part are poor Seamen and Soldier’s wives, which by this Increase of Work will find a comfortable Subsistence for themselves and Families, and thereby take off a Burthen that now lies upon several Parishes, which are at a great charge for their Support.”[287] The “comfortable subsistence” of these poor seamen’s wives amounted to no more than 1s. 6d. or 1s. 8d. per week.[288]

Footnote 287:

_Answer to a Paper of Reflections, on the Project for laying a Duty on English Wrought Silks._

Footnote 288:

_Case of the Manufacturers of Gilt and Silver Wire_, 1714.

There seems here no clue to explain the transition from a monopoly of gentlewomen conducting a profitable business on the lines of Family Industry to a disorganised Capitalistic Trade, resting on the basis of women’s sweated labour. The earlier monopoly was, however, probably favoured by the expensive nature of the materials used, and the necessity for keeping in touch with the merchants who imported them, while social customs secured an equitable distribution of the profits. With the destruction of these social customs and traditions, competition asserted its sway unchecked, till it appeared as though there might even be a relation between the costliness of the material and the wretchedness of the women employed in its manufacture; for the women who span gold and silver thread were in the same stage of misery.

Formerly women had been mistresses in this class of business as well as in the Silk Trade, but a Proclamation of June 11th, 1622, forbade the exercise of the craft by all except members of the Company of Gold Wire Drawers.

Under this proclamation the Silver thread of one Anne Twiseltor was confiscated by Thomas Stockwood, a constable, who entered her house and found her and others spinning gold and silver thread. “The said Anne being since married to one John Bagshawe hath arrested Stockwood for the said silver upon an action of £10, on the Saboth day going from Church, and still prosecuteth the suite against him in Guild Hall with much clamor.”[289] Bagshawe and his wife maintained that the silver was sterling, and therefore not contrary to the Proclamation. Stockwood refused to return it unless he might have some of it. Therefore they commenced the suit against him.

Footnote 289:

_C.R._, June 16, 1624.

Probably few, if any, women became members of the Company of Gold Wire Drawers, and henceforward they were employed only as spinners. Their poverty is shown by the frequency with which they are mentioned as inmates of tenement houses, which through overcrowding became dangerous to the public health. It was reported to the Council for example, that Katherine Barnaby “entertayns in her house in Great Wood Streate, divers women kinde silver spinners.”[290]

Footnote 290:

_S.P.D._, ccclix., Returns to Council ... of houses, etc., 1637.

These poor women worked in the spinning sheds of their masters, and thus the factory system prevailed already in this branch of the textile industry; the costliness of the fabrics produced forbade any great expansion of the trade, and therefore the Masters were not obliged to seek for labour outside the pauper class.

The Curate, Churchwardens, Overseers and Vestrymen of the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, drew up the following statement: “There are in the said Parish, eighty five sheds for the spinning Gilt and Silver Thread, in which are 255 pair of wheels.”

The Masters with their Families amount unto 581

These imploy poor Parish-Boys and Girls to the 1275 number of

There are 118 master Wire-Drawers, who with their 826 wives, Children and Apprentices, make

Master weavers of Gold and Silver Lace and Fringes 106

Their Wives, Children, Apprentices and Journey Men 2120 amount unto

Silver and Gold Bone-Lace makers, and Silver and 1000 Gold Button makers with their Families

Windsters, Flatters of Gold and Silver and Engine 300 Spinners with their Families

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Total 6208

They continue: “The Poor’s Rate of the Parish amounts to near Four Thousand Pounds per annum.... The Parish ... at this present are indebted One Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Pounds. Persons are daily removing out of the Parish, by Reason of this heavy Burthen, empty Houses increasing. If a Duty be laid on the manufacture of Gold and Silver wyres the Poor must necessarily be increased.”[291]

Footnote 291:

_Case of the Parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate._

Such a statement is in itself proof that Gold and Silver Thread making ranked among the pauper trades in which the wages paid must needs be supplemented out of the poor rates.

E. CONCLUSION.

IT has been shown that in textile industries all spinning was done exclusively by women and children, while they were also engaged to some extent in other processes, such as weaving, burling, bleaching, fulling, etc. The fact that the nation depended entirely upon women for the thread from which its clothing and household linen was made must be remembered in estimating their economic position. Even if no other work had fallen to their share, they can hardly have been regarded as mere dependants on their husbands when the clothing for the whole family was spun by their hands; but it has been explained in the previous chapter that in many cases the mother, in addition to spinning, provided a large proportion of the food consumed by her family. If the father earned enough money to pay the rent and a few other necessary expenses, the mother could and did, feed and clothe herself and her children by her own labours when she possessed enough capital to confine herself wholly to domestic industry. The value of a woman’s productive capacity to her family was, however, greatly reduced when, through poverty, she was obliged to work for wages, because then, far from being able to feed and clothe her family, her wages were barely adequate to feed herself.

This fact indicates the weakness of women’s position in the labour market, into which they were being forced in increasing numbers by the capitalistic organisation of industry. In consequence of this weakness, a large proportion of the produce of a woman’s labour was diverted from her family to the profit of the capitalist or the consumer; except in the most skilled branches of the woollen industry, spinning was a pauper trade, a “sweated industry,” which did not provide its workers with the means for keeping themselves and their families in a state of efficiency, but left them to some extent dependent on other sources for their maintenance.

Comparing the various branches of textile industry together, an interesting light is thrown upon the reactions between capitalistic organisation of labour and women’s economic position.

Upper-class women had lost their unique position in the silk trade, and the wives of wealthy clothiers and wool-merchants appear to have seldom taken an active interest in business matters. Thus it was only as wage-earners that women were extensively employed in the textile trades.

Their wages were lowest in the luxury trades i.e., silk, silver and gold, and in the linen trade. The former were now wholly capitalistic, but the demand for luxuries being limited and capable of little expansion, the labour available in the pauper classes was sufficient to satisfy it. The situation was different in the linen and allied trades, where the demand for thread, either of flax or hemp, appears generally to have been in excess of the supply. Although the larger part of the linen manufactured in England was still produced under the conditions of domestic industry, the demand for thread for trade purposes was steady enough to suggest to Parish Authorities the value of spinning as a means of reducing the poor rates. It did not occur to them, however, that if the wages paid for spinning were higher the poor would have been as eager to learn spinning as to gain apprenticeship in the skilled trades, and thus the problem of an adequate supply of yarn might have been solved at one stroke with the problem of poverty itself; no attempt was made to raise the wages, and the production of thread for trade purposes continued to be subsidised out of the poor rates. The consequent pauperisation of large numbers of women was a greater disaster than even the burthen of the poor rates. Instead of the independence and self-reliance which might have been secured through adequate wages, mothers were not only humiliated and degraded, but their physical efficiency and that of their children was lowered owing to the inadequacy of the grudging assistance given by the Churchwardens and Overseers.

The woollen trade, in which capitalistic organisation had attained its largest development, presents a more favourable aspect as regards women’s wages. Already in the seventeenth century a spinster could earn sufficient money to maintain her individual self. In spite of periodic seasons of depression, the woollen trade was rapidly expanding; often the scope of the clothiers was limited by the quantity of yarn available, and so perforce they must seek for labour outside the pauper class. Possibly a rise was already taking place in the spinsters’ wages at the close of the century, and it is interesting to note that during this period the highest wages were earned, not by the women whose need for them was greatest, that is to say the women who had children depending exclusively on their wages, but rather by the well-to-do women who could afford to buy the wool for their spinning, and hold the yarn over till an advantageous opportunity arose for selling it.

Spinning did not present itself to such women as a means of filling up vacant hours which they would otherwise have spent in idleness, but as an alternative to some other profitable occupation, so numerous were the opportunities offered to women for productive industry within the precincts of the home. Therefore to induce women of independent position to work for him, the Clothier was obliged to offer higher wages than would have been accepted by those whose children were suffering from hunger.

Somewhat apart from economics and the rate of wages, is the influence which the developments of the woollen trade exercised on women’s social position, through the disintegration of the social organisation known as the village community. The English village had formed a social unit almost self-contained, embracing considerable varieties of wealth, culture and occupation, and finding self-expression in a public opinion which provided adequate sanction for its customs, and determined all the details of manners and morals. In the formation of this public opinion women took an active part.

The seasons of depression in the Woollen Trade brought to such communities in the “Clothing Counties” a desolation which could only be rivalled by Pestilence or Famine. Work came to a standstill, and wholesale migrations followed. Many fathers left their starving families, in search of work elsewhere and were never heard of again. The traditions of family life and the customs which ruled the affairs of the village were lost, never to be again restored, and with them disappeared, to a great extent, the recognised importance of women in the life of the community.

The social problems introduced by the wages system in its early days are described in a contemporary pamphlet. It must be remembered that the term “the poor” as used at this time signified the pauper class, hard-working, industrious families who were independent of charity or assistance from the poor rates being all included among the “common people.” “I cannot acknowledge,” the writer says, “that a Manufacture maketh fewer poor, but rather the contrary. For tho’ it sets the poor on work where it finds them, yet it draws still more to the place; and their Masters allow wages so mean, that they are only preserved from starving whilst they can work; when Age, Sickness, or Death comes, themselves, their wives or their children are most commonly left upon the Parish; which is the reason why those Towns (as in the _Weald of Kent_) whence the clothing is departed, have fewer poor than they had before.”[292]

Footnote 292:

_Reasons for a Limited Exportation of Wooll_, 1677.

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