III
At the close of the seventeenth century, the annual import of cotton-wool amounted to nearly 2,000,000 lbs., and was still brought mainly from the Levant and the islands of the Mediterranean, though in the previous century some was imported from Africa.[64] In the seventeenth century, excellent witness is borne to the importance it had attained, by those interested in floating companies for colonisation putting forward prospects of its growth as an inducement to subscribers to their schemes.[65] Before the end of the century, cotton from the British plantations had assumed a prominent place, and from this time the European West Indian colonies, with South America, became the most important sources of supply until the end of the eighteenth century, when they in turn were displaced by the United States. Also, during these two centuries, cotton-yarn and fine cotton fabrics were imported by the East India Company from the ancient home of the cotton industry in the East.[66]
Apparently it was this import of fine cotton fabrics which in 1691 attracted the attention of John Barkstead, merchant, of London, and threatened to bring the developing cotton industry into the hands of a patentee. Mr. Barkstead was evidently an enterprising individual who was interested not only in the cotton industry, but also in the silk industry, and in copper mining.
We get the first glimpse of him in October, 1690, when he presented a petition, in which he pointed out that the workmanship of the fine thrown silk imported amounted to one quarter of its value, the benefits of which would be enjoyed by the poor if it were performed at home. As he had found out an engine which would achieve the desired end, he requested the grant of a patent for fourteen years to enable him to introduce it. In the same month a warrant for the patent was issued, but there is no clear indication that the claim stated in the petition materialised.[67] In May, 1692, however, in a warrant issued to prepare a Bill for incorporating a company for winding silk, he appeared as the first governor[68]; and in July of the preceding year as an assistant in a company which had as its object the purchase of lands where copper was expected to be found.[69]
It was in this month that he presented a petition, in which he claimed that, by his industry and at great expense, he had “procured cotton wool from the West Indies, to be spun so extraordinarily fine, as to be fit to make such cloths commonly called callicoes ... as well as in the East Indies,” and prayed for a patent for his invention.[70] A few days later a warrant was issued to prepare a Bill to grant this prayer.[71] Whether in the meantime his idea had developed, or he had evolved a new one, it is difficult to say, but in the following month his name as petitioner again appeared, this time in connection with an invention for “making calicoes, muslins, and other fine cloths of that sort (out of the cotton wool of the growth and produce of the Plantations in the West Indies) to as great perfection as those which are brought over and imported hither from Calicut and other places in the East Indies.”[72] Again a warrant was issued to prepare a Bill for the grant of a patent which he evidently secured.[73]
The next step was the customary one of applying for a charter of incorporation in order to exploit the invention. Consequently two months later (October, 1691) we find Mr. Barkstead and five other London merchants, including one of the assistants in the silk-winding company, pointing out that the “said Barkstead has found out an invention for making calicoes and muslins, etc., out of Cotton wool for which he has a patent for 14 years, but that the undertaking requiring at least £100,000 stock to carry on and manage the said invention, the petitioners humbly pray to be incorporated with the Earl of Nottingham as their first governor.” The petition was referred to the Attorney or Solicitor-General, but fortunately the scheme does not appear to have come to anything.[74]
As a matter of fact, although this incident is interesting, like the majority of schemes of a similar character relating to other industries, it cannot be regarded as of any importance in the development of the cotton industry in this country. The idea of supplanting the fine cotton fabrics of the East by home productions was, no doubt, an attractive one—doubly so because in 1691 the existing East India Company was being vigorously opposed by a rival syndicate. In the same month as the above charter was applied for, a petition was presented to the House of Commons, in the name of the London merchants, attacking the existing company, and less than five months later an address was presented to the King praying that he would dissolve it and incorporate a new one.[75] It may well have been that Mr. Barkstead’s scheme was a part of, or at any rate a symptom of, the opposition then prevailing, and had very little substantial foundation. His application for a patent stands altogether on a different footing from those of the next century, when the machinery to which they referred did actually attain the end which he claimed to have in view. In the seventeenth century this was impossible: at that time, it is questionable whether any fabrics consisting entirely of cotton were produced in the country at all. In any case it is certain that the chief products of the English cotton manufacture were the hybrid fustians consisting of a linen warp and cotton weft.
After the collapse of Mr. Barkstead’s scheme the English cotton industry does not appear to have had much attraction for men with grandiose aims, until the South Sea period arrived, when two companies were proposed, each with a capital of £2,000,000, one “for making calico in Great Britain and encouraging the growth of cotton in the plantations,” and the other “for the cotton manufacture in Lancashire,” while there was also “A proposal by several ladies and others to make, print and paint and stain callicoes in England and also fine linen as fine as any Holland to be made of British flax.” Subscribers to the latter scheme had to be women dressed in calico.[76] How this scheme fits into its historical environment will at once become apparent.
Before the end of the seventeenth century the import of fabrics from the East had created considerable agitation among those engaged in the silk and woollen trades, and demands were made for legislative interference. In 1700 an Act was passed,[77] by which the import of printed or dyed calicoes was prohibited, and their sale or use either for apparel or furniture made subject to a penalty. The prohibition was speedily followed by an import of plain calicoes which were printed or dyed in this country, and as early as 1703, petitions for further restrictions were again being presented to Parliament.[78] For some years little notice was taken of them, but from 1719 the petitions became a flood,[79] with the result that, in 1721, another Act[80] was passed which prohibited the use or wear of printed or dyed calicoes, whether the printing or dyeing had been performed in England or elsewhere.
It has been stated that one of the reasons for the failure of the Act of 1700 was that “Lancashire men set to work to produce cloth of linen warp and cotton weft which was sent to London to be printed and dyed in imitation of the prohibited Oriental fabrics.”[81] It appears, however, that there is little or no justification for this view. At a time when petitions to Parliament were regarded almost as a positive obligation on the part of anyone who had a real or imaginary grievance, it is exceedingly improbable, had such been the case, that the Lancashire men would have failed to make their voices heard. Apparently, not a single petition was presented from the county in opposition to the proposed legislation by those engaged in making cloth of the character mentioned, while there was at least one in favour of it.[82] Moreover, it is significant that no mention of such a cloth is to be found in the petitions praying for restriction. The opposition to the Bill came mainly from the towns of Scotland engaged in the linen industry, where it was feared that linens would be included, and this opposition was successful, as British linens were specifically excluded from the Act.[83]
Singularly enough, the opposition on behalf of a cotton manufacture came, not from Lancashire, but from Dorset in the following petition, which is of sufficient interest in the early history of the English cotton industry to be quoted in full:
A “Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen, Bailiffs, Capital Burgesses and principal inhabitants of the Borough of Weymouth and Melcomb Regis in the County of Dorset, together with the Merchants, Masters of Ships, Master workmen, Weavers and Spinners of Cotton Wool imported from the British Plantations and manufactured in the town aforesaid, in behalf of themselves and many hundred of poor Cotton spinners in that neighbourhood was presented to the House and read, setting forth, that for many years past a manufacture had been carried on in the said town for making Cotton Wool imported from the British Plantations into cloth of divers kinds, more particularly into such fabrics as imitate calicoes; which having, of late years, been printed and dyed, have afforded the manufacturers opportunity to support the Poor in that town and neighbourhood thereof. That the petitioners are apprehensive that the manufacture of cotton cloth in that town may, under the name of calicoes, be interdicted the weaving, by which means many hundred families of poor cotton spinners will be reduced to want, and the Manufacture of that town entirely lost: and praying that the Cotton cloth manufactured in that town, both checqued, printed, and dyed, may be permitted to be worn in the same manner and liable to the same duties as the Manufacture of British and Irish Linens are permitted.”[84]
The apprehension of the petitioners was justified, as a motion to refer their petition to the Committee of the whole House, then concerned with the Bill for more stringent restrictions on the use and wear of printed or dyed calicoes, was passed in the negative by 190 votes to 68.[85] In the Act of 1721 the prohibition included any printed stuff made of cotton or mixed therewith, but from its scope muslins, neckcloths, and fustians were excluded.[86]
The above petition is distinctly interesting, not only as evidence that cotton was manufactured in Dorset, but also in that there is no suggestion that the cloths were not composed solely of cotton, and this at a time when it is improbable that such cloths were manufactured to any extent in Lancashire.
The fustian manufacture had been in existence in the country for more than a century, and, by 1720, must have been of considerable importance, but apparently a stage had not been reached when printed fustians were seriously competitive with other kinds of printed cloth.
The prohibition of the use of printed calicoes had its effect, however, in stimulating the printing of other fabrics,[87] and after the passing of the Act of 1721 it is clear that printed fustians began to occupy a prominent place in the cloth trade of the country, which again called forth opposition from those engaged in the woollen trades which came to a head in 1735.
This time the opposition, which centred in Norwich, took the form of instituting prosecutions under the 1721 Act, of inserting notices in newspapers and distributing them, informing the public that the wearing or using of printed fustians was illegal. As printed fustians had been excluded from the scope of the Act, there was no illegality, but the opposition was sufficient to call forth a petition from the fustian manufacturers in Manchester and other parts of Lancashire, and in the counties of Cheshire and Derbyshire, appealing for the Act to be explained so that the question would be placed beyond doubt.[88] In the evidence on the petition[89] a strong case was presented on behalf of merchants engaged in foreign trade—particularly in the import of cotton—and of fustian manufacturers, it being stated that several thousand persons from five to seventy years of age were employed in the manufacture. One witness asserted that he and his brother employed upwards of 600 looms in the weaving of fustians, and as one weaver required four spinners to supply him with yarn, he computed that upwards of 3000 persons were dependent upon them for employment—a striking case of large-scale production, in the sense of numbers employed, nearly forty years before the appearance of the factory in the cotton industry.
In little over a month after the petition was presented the “Manchester Act”[90] was passed, which explained the 1721 Act, so as definitely to exclude from its scope printed goods made of linen yarn and cotton-wool, manufactured in Great Britain. It will be noticed that even this Act did not remove the prohibition on the use of printed goods made entirely of cotton. The justification given in the Act for allowing the use of printed goods, when made of linen-yarn and cotton-wool, was that they were “a branch of the ancient fustian manufacture of this kingdom.” So far as petitions were concerned, the only opposition to the “Manchester Act” came from the Company of Weavers in London, on the ground that fustians could only with great difficulty be distinguished from Indian calicoes, and that the use of the latter would be made easy; and from the Gentlemen, Landowners, Occupiers of Land, Wool-staplers, Wool-combers, and Weavers of the City of Peterborough, who desired the Bill which preceded the Act to be explained for the general good of the wool and silk manufactures.[91] On the other hand, the traders of Wakefield supported the Bill with the argument that a restriction on the import of cotton-wool, which the prohibition of printed fustians would involve, would prejudice their export of woollens, and the woollen manufacturers of Burnley adopted a similar attitude; also, the Bill was whole-heartedly supported by the merchants engaged in foreign trade at Glasgow, Whitehaven and Lancaster.[92]
From the thirties of the eighteenth century until the coming of the great inventions the cotton industry made slow but steady progress. The import of cotton-wool which in 1730 amounted to 1,545,472 lbs. reached 3,870,392 lbs. in 1764, but it was not until the eighties that a startling increase was seen; the average import in the last two years of that decade amounted to 32,000,000 lbs.[93] At that time the organisation of the industry, the methods of manufacture, and the character of its products, were undergoing the changes which mark the early stages of the industry in its present form.