INDEX

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH

[1] Baines, History of Cotton Manufacture, pp. 38-43.

[2] A. Schaube, Handelsgeschichte der romanischen Völker des Mittelmeergebiets, pp. 159-160.

[3] F. Bourquelot, Etudes sur les foires de Champagne, i. 273.

[4] E. Nübling, Ulms Baumwolleveberei im Mittelaltes in Schmollers Forschunsen, Bd. IX.

[5] Ashley, Economic History, vol. i., pt. i., ch. 3. Unwin, Gilds and Companies of London, pp. 42-46.

[6] Unwin, Industrial Organisation, pp. 30-31; A. H. Johnson, History of Drapers Company, i. G. des Marez, Organisation du Travail à Bruxelles.

[7] Keutgen, Der Grosshandel im Mittelalter in Hansische Geschichtsblätter, 1901, p. 67.

[8] Unwin, Industrial Organisation, pp. 32-36.

[9] W. J. Ashley, James and Philip van Artevelde, pp. 162-163.

[10] A. Doren, Die Florentiner Wollentuchindustrie, pp. 124-242.

[11] G. des Marez, Organisation du Travail à Bruxelles, pp. 118-119, and Le Compagnannage des Chapelier Bruxellois, pp. 17-19.

[12] Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van de Leidsche textielnijverheid, I. xxi. Ed. N. W. Posthumus.

[13] Unwin, Industrial Organisation in the 16th and 17th Centuries, pp. 52-61, 126. Commerce and Coinage in Shakespeare’s England, i., p. 330.

[14] G. Espinas, Jehan Boine Broke, Bourgeois et drapier-Douasien in Vierteljahrschrift für Social und Wirthschaftsgeschichte, vol. ii., pp. 53-70.

[15] A. Doren, Die Florentiner Wollentuchindustrie, chap. v.

[16] J. M. Lappenberg, Urkundliche Geschichte des Hansischen Stahlhofes zu London, p. 175.

[17] Acts of the Privy Council for 1550, p. 19.

[18] R. Ehrenberg, Hamburg und England, chap. iv.

[19] W. Harrison, Description of England, Book III., chap. iv.

[20] W. R. Scott, Joint Stock Companies, 1720, i., p. 88.

[21] Eliz., State Papers Domestic, cci.

[22] W. R. Scott, op. cit., i., chap. v.

[23] Memoirs of Sir T. F. Buxton, ed. by his son, 288-289.

[24] Outside the area mentioned, Glasgow and neighbourhood is the only centre in the United Kingdom where the industry is carried on to a considerable extent (Report of Committee on Textile Trades (1918), pp. 45, 49. (Cd. 9070)).

[25] Published in 1835, p. 96.

[26] Gras, The Early English Customs System (1918), pp. 119, 161, 167, 193, 222, 271, 452, 503, 554-555, 635, 647, 696. In 1507 there is an entry of cotton wolle “spowne.”

In a Chronological History of Bolton to 1873, compiled for The Bolton Chronicle, it is stated that cotton yarns were spun at Horwich in 1510.

[27] Fustians were imported into Lynn at the end of the fourteenth century, and there are many references to the import of cotton-russet in 1509 (Gras, ibid., pp. 436, 581 et seq.). In the inventory of the goods of Alexander Staney (1477) “12 yards of white osborner fustian” are mentioned (Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, Chetham Society, vol. iii., N.S.).

[28] 6 Hen. VIII., c. 9; 27 Hen. VIII., c. 12. In view of what will be said later, it may be noticed that, in the first of these statutes, regulations were laid down regarding the delivery of wool, by clothiers, for breaking, combing, carding and spinning, and the amounts of wool or yarn to be redelivered by workpeople.

[29] Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 96.

[30] The Itinerary of John Leland, edited by Thomas Hearne (1711), vii., p. 41.

[31] 5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 6.

[32] 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 11.

[33] 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, c. 5. Ashley, Economic History (1909), vol. i., pp. 233-235. Unwin, Industrial Organisation in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries (1904), pp. 92-93. In 1558-1559 and 1575-1576 other places were exempted, and in 1623-1624 the Act was finally repealed.

[34] 8 Eliz., c. 12.

[35] Vict. County Hist., Lancs., ii., p. 296.

[36] State Papers Domestic, Eliz., vol. iii., 38. Economic Journal, x., p. 24. According to the 1551 statute, a piece of cottons had to be 22 goads in length, 3/4 yard in breadth and 30 lbs. in weight. In 1566 the length had to be 21 goads or 20 goads at least, the same breadth as before, but only 21 lbs. in weight. In 1551 a piece of frieze had to be 36 yards in length, 3/4 yard in breadth and 48 lbs. in weight. In 1566 the length was 35 to 36 yards, the same breadth as before, but only 44 lbs. in weight.

[37] 39 Eliz., c. 20.

[38] S.P.D. Eliz., vol. cclxix. 45.

[39] 43 Eliz., c. 10.

[40] These facts are borne out in the writings of the apologists for regulation. Cf. John May, A Declaration of the Estate of Clothing now used within this Realme of England (1613).

[41] 4 Jas. I., c. 2.

[42] At the end of the sixteenth century Camden referred to Manchester as “eminent for its woollen cloth or Manchester cottons” (Britannia, Gibson’s edition (1772), ii., p. 143).

[43] 11 and 12 Wm. III., c. 20.

[44] S.P.D. Eliz., vol. ccliii. 122.

[45] Ibid., vol. cclv. 56. In 1580 the merchants and citizens of Chester petitioned that Chester might be made the only port for Manchester cottons, which petition was ultimately granted (Ibid. Add., vol. xxvi., 90. Ibid., vol. clviii. 2). In 1605 it was stated that “the most part of English cloth transported for France is made up of the coarsest wools as kerseys, cottons, and bays, serving for linings” (Ibid. Add., vol. xxxvii. 60).

[46] In the eighteenth century a writer well acquainted with Manchester manufactures still referred to cotton as wool (Infra, pp. 37-38).

[47] The Treasure of Traffike (London, 1641), pp. 32-34.

[48] W. H. Price, “On the Beginning of the Cotton Industry in England,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xx., pp. 608-613. He quotes from London Guildhall Library, vol. Beta, Petition and Parliamentary Matters, 1620-1621, No. 16 (old No. 25). My attention was drawn to this reference by its being quoted by S. J. Chapman in V.C.H. Lancs., ii., p. 380. Mr. Price also gives a reference (State Papers Domestic, lix. 5) of the presumed date, 1610, where a petitioner asks the Earl of Salisbury for confirmation of a grant made to him for reformation of frauds daily committed in the manufacture of “bombazine cotton such as groweth in the land of Persia being no kind of wool.”

[49] See note infra, pp. 195-196.

[50] See infra, p. 197.

[51] P. 22.

[52] The fact that the writer of the pamphlet makes no mention of cotton in connection with fustians raises a speculation as to the character of the following species of new drapery. He certainly implies that it was something distinct from the “cottons” mentioned so frequently in the sixteenth century: “A sort of cloth is made called Manchester or Lancashire plaines to make cottons, which containe about a yard in breadth; these are often bought by merchants and others, which cut them to length according to a kersie, and hath them dressed and dyed in forme to a kersie, the which are not onely vented in foreign parts, but many of them vented in the Realme; which cloth proves very unprofitable in wearing” (p. 32).

[53] Pp. 33-34.

[54] Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, ii. pp. 82-83.

[55] Smiles, The Huguenots (1870), p. 56.

[56] Ibid., p. 83.

[57] Baines, ibid., p. 99.

[58] Scott, Joint Stock Companies to 1720 (1912), i., p. 253.

[59] Calendar of State Papers Domestic, lxvi., Feb. 1, 9.

[60] Ibid., lxix. 7.

[61] Dehn, The German Cotton Industry (1913), pp. 1-2.

[62] Worthies of England (1662), ii., pp. 106-107.

[63] Infra, pp. 25, 27, 29.

[64] Baines, ibid., p. 346. Scott, ibid., ii., p. 11.

[65] Scott, ibid., pp. 323, 326, 335.

[66] Records of Fort St George, Despatches from England, 1670-1677, pp. 4, 27 et seq. Ure, Cotton Manufacture, i., p. 355, 1861 edition.

[67] S.P.D., Petition Entry Book, i., p. 96. S.P.D., Warrant Book, xxxv., p. 434.

[68] Ibid., H.O. Warrant Book, vi., p. 335.

[69] Ibid., p. 115.

[70] Ibid., Petition Entry Book, i., p. 154.

[71] Ibid., H.O. Warrant Book, vi., p. 125.

[72] Ibid., Petition Entry Book, i., p. 178.

[73] Ibid., H.O. Warrant Book, vi., p. 164. For a reference to this patent see French, Life and Times of Samuel Crompton (1859), pp. 233-234.

[74] S.P.D., Petition Entry Book, i., p. 198. It is apparent that it was much the same set of men who were interested in all Barkstead’s schemes. Another assistant in the silk-winding company appeared with Barkstead as assistant in the copper mines company. I have been unable to find any trace of the cotton company, and Professor W. R. Scott informs me that he does not think the company was actually floated even if a charter was granted. By those acquainted with the exhaustive character of Professor Scott’s work his statement will be regarded as conclusive.

[76] Scott, ibid., iii., pp. 450-452.

[75] Scott, ibid., ii., p. 152.

[77] 11 and 12 Wm. III., c. 10.

[78] Journals of the House of Commons, xiv., pp. 280, 283, 284.

[79] Ibid., xix., p. 182 et seq.

[80] 7 Geo. I., c. 7.

[81] Espinasse, Lancashire Worthies (1874), pp. 297-298.

[82] J.H.C., xix. 208.

[83] Ibid.

[84] J.H.C., xix. 295.

[85] Ibid.

[86] Ibid., xxii. 566.

[87] “I proceed to another visible increase of trade, which spreads daily among us, and affects not England only, but Scotland and Ireland also, though the consumption depends wholly upon England, and that is, the printing or painting of linen. The late Acts prohibiting the use and weaving of painted callicoes either in clothes, equipages, or house furniture, were without question aimed at improving the consumption of our woollen manufacture, and in part it had an effect that way. But the humour of the people running another way, and being used to and pleased with the light, easie, and gay dress of the callicoes, the callicoe printers fell to work to imitate those callicoes by making the same stamps and impressions, and with the same beauty of colours, upon linen, and thus they fell upon the two branches of linen called Scots cloth and Irish linen. So that this is an article wholly new in trade, and indeed the printing itself is wholly new; for it is but a few years ago since no such thing as painting or printing of linen or callicoe was known in England; all being supplied so cheap and performed so very fine in India, that nothing but a prohibition of the foreign printed callicoes could raise it up to a manufacture at home; whereas now it is so increased, that the parliament has thought it of magnitude sufficient to levy a tax upon it, and a considerable revenue is raised by it” (A Plan of the English Commerce (1728), p. 296, quoted in Baines’ Cotton Manufacture, pp. 260-261). A good brief account of the early development of calico printing in this country is given in two lectures by Edmund Potter, of Manchester, vol. iii., The Monthly Literary and Scientific Lecturer, 1852. The trade began in the neighbourhood of London in the last years of the seventeenth century and was first established in Lancashire in 1764. Shortly afterwards the first Robert Peel became interested in it and carried it on with great vigour. “Peel was to calico printing what Arkwright was to spinning.” See also Report of Committee on Manufactures, Commerce, and Shipping (1833), p. 237.

[88] J.H.C., xxii., p. 551.

[89] Ibid., pp. 566-567.

[90] 9 Geo. II., c. 4.

[91] J.H.C., xxii., pp. 589, 605. The weavers claimed to be manufacturers of worsted stuffs and stuffs made of silk and cotton.

[92] Ibid., xxii., pp. 593-595.

[93] Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 346-347.

[94] Quoted from Aikin’s A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester (1795), p. 154. The description originally appeared with “A Plan of Manchester and Salford taken about 1650.” This plan was inserted in the sheet of another “Plan of the towns of Manchester and Salford,” first published in 1741, and republished with small alterations in 1746 and 1751. The 1751 plan has been reissued with Procter’s Memorials of Bygone Manchester (1880). These plans are important for our purpose as the letterpress accompanying them contains a description of Manchester and Salford from which the second quotation in the text is taken. The whole of the letterpress is given by Procter, ibid., pp. 350-356.

[95] See tables infra, pp. 67-68. In 1603, and in 1613, the Town Jury of Manchester dealt with complaints of the keeping of a Friday market in the open street for the sale of “Sackclothe, Incle-points, Garteringe, Threede, Buttons, and other Smallwares” to the prejudice of the Saturday market (Manchester Court Leet Records, vol. ii., pp. 189, 287).

[96] Republished in 1887 under the title of Manchester a Hundred Years Ago, and edited with an introduction by William E. A. Axon. A comparison of the portion of Aikin’s Manchester dealing with the trade of the town will show that this is the “printed account” from which his information was obtained. The references in the above text are to the 1887 reprint.

[97] Ogden, ibid., p. 73.

[98] Ogden, ibid., p. 78-79.

[99] Ibid., p. 81.

[100] Ibid., p. 82.

[101] Ibid., p. 74.

[102] Infra, p. 67.

[103] Ogden, ibid., p. 82.

[104] Infra, p. 67.

[105] Ogden, ibid., p. 75.

[106] Ibid., pp. 75, 77.

[107] J.H.C., pp. 76-78, 1737. In his evidence on a petition relating to linens, threads, tapes, etc., John Marriot, threadmaker, Manchester, stated that the thread manufacture in Lancashire had more than doubled during the preceding twenty-four years.

[108] Warrington was especially noted for this manufacture. In March, 1749 (J.H.C.), it was stated in evidence from Warrington that 5000 people were thus employed. In the evidence given on this occasion instances were mentioned of one manufacturer at Reading having 500 families, comprehending 2000 persons, on his books as employees. Another at Deptford had 46 looms employed and 500 poor families. See also J.H.C., xxvi., p. 781, 1754. Three principal hosiers at Nottingham had 100 frames each. For evidence as to manufacture of sail-cloth at Warrington, see also Aikin, Manchester, p. 302; Pococke, Travels Through England, i., p. 9.

[109] Ogden, ibid., p. 74.

[110] By Ure and Espinasse definitely, by Baines more cautiously. Ure, Cotton Manufacture, i., p. 223. Espinasse, Lancashire Worthies, p. 415. Baines, ibid., pp. 101, 322.

[111] Ogden, ibid., pp. 78-79. After referring to various goods produced in Manchester, certainly before 1770, he proceeds: “To these succeeded washing hollands all cotton in the warp which were a good article with the housewives, till yarn was mixed with the warp and ruined their character.” He also refers to the manufacture of cotton goods for the African trade. The statements of the other writers are, of course, based upon the fact that it was difficult to spin a cotton thread suitable for warp with the existing appliances. Even so, cotton goods were made in other countries, and cotton yarn was imported. As regards the use of the word “yarn” in the eighteenth century in England, it was not often used with reference to cotton, but usually to linen yarn. Cf. Ogden, ibid., p. 92: “If cotton comes down to a reasonable price, the warps made of this twist would be as cheap as those made of yarn, and keep the money here which was sent abroad for that article, there being no comparison between yarn and cotton warps for goodness.”

[112] J.H.C., xvii., p. 377.

[113] Ibid., xvi., pp. 311-324, 509-511.

[114] Hollingworth, Mancuniensis, Willis’s Edition (1839), p. 28. In the introduction to this edition the following facts are given of the author:—Richard Hollingworth was a Fellow of Christ College, Manchester, and died on 11th November 1656, in Manchester, after being imprisoned and deprived of the income arising from his fellowship in consequence of the breaking up of the collegiate body by Colonel Thomas Birch of Birch Hall, near Manchester, acting under the command of the Committee of Sequestration. In the Chetham Library there are two manuscript copies, and in both the date is given as 1120, but in one it is corrected “a mistake for 1520 about 12 H. 8,” a correction which is obviously justified.

[115] 33 Henry VIII., c. xv., quoted by Baines, ibid., pp. 92-93.

[116] 5 and 6 Edward VI., c. 7.

[117] S.P.D. Eliz., vol. cxvii. 38, quoted Economic Journal, x., p. 23.

[118] In 1578 the will of James Rillston, of Manchester, “cotton man,” was proved at Chester. Evidently he was in partnership with his cousin, who resided in London, to whom he used to send “packs” of cottons, worth £11, 11s. each. He owned “houses, shoppes, chambers, and warehouses” in Deansgate. One of his sons became a citizen and grocer of London, and married the eldest daughter of Richard Tipping, Linen Draper of Manchester. In the will of Edward Hanson, mercer and grocer of Manchester (1584), the statement appears that “Wm Napton, Wm Woodcocke, and Thos Sawell citizens and grocers of London oweth me for six packs of cottons at 10l. xvs. a pack the sum of 64l. 10s.” Mr. Hanson was Boroughreeve of Manchester in 1569 (Manchester Court Leet Records, vol. i., pp. 203-204, 245).

[119] Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, Chetham Society, New Series, vol. iii.

[120] Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, ibid., N.S., vol. xxviii., pp. 15 et seq. If the sum mentioned were not raised the £500 had to be put out at eight per cent. interest for ten years, and of the annual £40 thus raised, £5 had to be used for repairing the Parish church of Manchester, £5 to be devoted to the support of poor scholars of the free schools in Manchester, Middleton or Rochdale going to either university, £10 to the maintenance of bridges and highways in the Parish of Manchester, £10 to fuel and apparel for the poor of Manchester and Salford, £5 to the poor of Rochdale, and £5 to poor folks next of kin to the testator and to his wife. At the end of the ten years the £500 had to go to his children.

[121] Ibid., p. 35.

[122] Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, ibid., p. 24.

[123] Ibid., p. 15 et seq.

Cloth at Home and Abroad

£s.d. £s.d.
70 pieces of broad
Whites ready dressed
at 45s. a piece 		157100 At Robt. Bowker’s:
46 broad Whites at
46s. 8d. a piece 		10768
38 Graies at 30s. a
piece 		5700 34 Graies at 30s. a
piece 		5100
13 Cottons at 32s. a
piece 		20160 At Roger Nayden’s
Mylne:
1 Black Cotton1100 30 Graies at 30s. a
piece 		4500
12 pieces Rett (?)
canvas 		10100 At Wm. Wardleworth’s
Mylne:
6 Cottons and one
Graie 		10100
At Jno. Heywood’s
Mylne:
7 Graies at 30s. a
piece 		10100
£24760 £22468

[124] Raines and Sutton, Life of Humphrey Chetham, Chetham Society, N.S., vol. xlix.

[125] Ibid., pp. 8-11.

[126] Ibid., p. 11.

[127] Ibid., pp. 12, 21-22.

[128] Ibid., p. 7. This system of having a branch in Manchester and one in London was apparently customary at the time. It seems to have obtained in the case of William Mosier, mentioned above. Cf. ante, p. 32, note.

[129] Ibid., pp. 14-15.

[130] Raines and Sutton, Life of Humphrey Chetham, pp. 8-15, 123-124. Chetham employed people in Manchester, Ashton, Hollinwood, Eccles and other places.

[131] Ibid., p. 30.

[132] Cf. Unwin, Industrial Organisation in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, pp. 235-236, where a classification of clothiers is given from a State document, 1615.

[133] J.H.C., xiv., p. 67.

[134] 1 Anne, c. 18.

[135] 9 Anne, c. 32.

[136] 13 Geo. II., c. 8.

[137] 22 Geo. II., c. 27. Professor Ashley has drawn attention to the significance of these Acts (Economic Organisation of England (1914), p. 145). Cf. J.H.C., xvi., p. 311, 1709: “Petition of divers principal traders and dealers in linen manufactures on behalf of themselves and several thousand workmen employed by them in the said trade in Manchester and adjacent parts.”

[138] Ogden, ibid., pp. 74-88.

[139] Ogden, ibid., p. 74. It will be noticed that the statement regarding wool being given to the weavers means cotton-wool ready spun—weft—as is made clear in the next quotation.

[140] Ibid., p. 88.

[141] Guest, Compendious History of the Cotton Manufacture (1823), p. 9.

[142] Ibid., p. 11.

[143] Infra, pp. 67-69.

[144] Manchester Reference Library, No. 28266.

[145] Cf. Ogden, ibid., p. 82, also Chapman, Lancashire Cotton Industry, pp. 19-22, where the loom is described.

[146] Smollett, History of England (1818 edition), iv., p. 177.

[147] The prices of cereals in Manchester are given weekly in The Manchester Mercury until 1766 and spasmodically afterwards.

[148] In The Manchester Mercury.

[149] Ibid., 21st June 1757.

[150] Ibid., 11th November, 28th December 1756.

[151] Ibid., 14th and 21st June 1757. Rioting took place in Stockport in September. Ibid., 30th September.

[152] Ibid., 14th December 1756.

[153] Ibid., 8th November 1757.

[154] Smallware Weavers’ Apology, p. 9. There is no reason to think the word “shop” referred to a workshop in the ordinary sense. Possibly the place where work was given out and taken in was called a shop.

[155] 9th January.

[156] Manchester Mercury, 25th March 1760.

[157] Manchester Mercury, 5th September 1758. Gentleman’s Magazine, 12th August 1758. Smollett, ibid., v. 439-440.

[158] Mr. Thomas Percival (1719-1762) must not be confused with Dr. Thomas Percival who, later in the century, became prominent in his endeavours to improve the conditions in the cotton factories particularly as regards children. The Thomas Percival referred to in the text lived at Royton, near Oldham. The check manufacturers spoke of him as “a landed proprietor” and as one who was “known to be an enemy of oppression of all kinds.” He was a Justice of Peace, a Whig in politics, and wrote in opposition to the High Church clergy and the non-jurors in Manchester. In his day he was well known as an antiquarian and was elected F.R.S. in 1756 and F.S.A. in 1760 (Dict. of Nat. Biog., xliv., p. 383).

[159] Letter to a Friend, p. 5.

[160] Ibid., App. I.

[161] Ibid., p. 10.

[162] 25th April 1758.

[163] Letter to a Friend, p. 12.

[164] Letter to a Friend, App. I. The Act referred to is the Statute of Apprentices, 1563, and it is evident that the check-weavers were giving to it, as did other workpeople during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, an interpretation which was not in the minds of its originators. The two clauses of the Act upon which they invariably fixed were those relating to the assessment of wages and to apprentices. The original Act, among other things, authorised Justices of the Peace to assess wages, taking into account “the plenty or scarcity of the time.” The wages thus assessed were maxima not minima, and penalties were provided for those who paid or received more than the maxima. In 1603 the statute was re-enacted, and, at this time, so far as the workers in the woollen industry were concerned, the rates fixed were to be minima, but it appears that few assessments were made on this basis—they were made on the “not more” basis, not on the “not less.” In the industrial changes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries workpeople desired the latter, and frequently requested the enforcement of the Act with this object in view, and it figured prominently in the demands of the rising organisations. The clause relating to apprenticeship laid down that after the passing of the Act no one should exercise “any art, mistery, or manual occupation” without first serving a seven years’ apprenticeship, and why the workpeople in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries desired the enforcement of this clause is clearly explained by the same reasons as underlay their desire for the assessment of wages. The Statute of Apprentices cannot be fully understood unless it is read as a whole, with a background given by the conditions in the middle of the sixteenth century. When this is done the statute becomes important not as a great constructive piece of statesmanship, but as indicating the outlook of statesmen on the social and industrial problems of their day, and as a futile attempt to check the operation of forces which for long had been irresistibly making for change. The wages clause was finally repealed in 1813 and the apprenticeship clause in the following year, but long before they had become practically obsolete (Unwin, Industrial Organisation, pp. 137-141, 252; Tawney, The Assessment of Wages in England by Justices of the Peace; Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, pp. 25-44; S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism, chap. i.).

[165] Letter to a Friend, p. 48.

[166] Ibid., p. 13.

[167] Ibid., App. II.

[168] Letter to a Friend, p. 14.

[169] Ibid., App. III.

[170] Ibid., p. 8. As another example of the number of people employed by one concern in the early eighteenth century, it may be noticed that one check-maker stated that he would employ 500 weavers if he had not to turn off unfair men.

[171] 25th June 1758.

[172] Ibid., 17th October 1758.

[173] Letter to a Friend, App. VIII.

[174] Manchester Mercury, 3rd April 1759.

[175] History of Trade Unionism (1911), p. 44.

[176] Ibid., p. 28. The first instances given by Mr. and Mrs. Webb from The Journals of the House of Commons of combinations in this district are in 1717. Earlier instances appear in 1706 from Taunton and Bristol. In the Taunton petition it is stated “that within 4 or 5 years” weavers in most towns where woollen manufactures are made have formed themselves into clubs (J.H.C., xv., p. 312).

[177] Industrial Organisation in the XVIth and the XVIIth Centuries, pp. 51, 58-61, 123, 135, 198-199, 208-210, 229-234.

[178] Manchester Mercury, 7th August 1781.

[179] Ibid., 11th September 1781.

[180] Manchester Mercury, 2nd October 1781. In addition to the smallware weavers there is evidence of organisation in the following trades before 1790: silk weavers, hatters, calico and fustian printers, cotton-spinners, and paper-makers. The hatters were presented with the “document” as early as 11th February 1777 (Manchester Mercury).

[181] For “putting-out” system, see Radcliffe, Origin of Power Loom Weaving (1828), pp. 13, 16, 68. Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England Anterior to the Application of Steam (1833), p. 17.

[182] In Mr. Percival’s Letter to a Friend the following passage appears which is none the less informative because it is satirical: “Another objection against me in common with other gentlemen, is, that we envy these check-makers; really, sir, I wonder what any country gentleman can be supposed to envy them for! Is it their houses? What country gentleman has reason to envy the possessor of a house of four, five, or six rooms of a floor with warehouses under and warping rooms over?... Is it their furniture? See one room drest out like a baby house.... Is it their equipages? Surely no, when one sees their chariots or post-chaises, with a pair of callender tits, and the callender lad for coachman, it must set any spectator a-laughing at the grotesque, did not the honest horses by hanging down their heads shew that they were ashamed of their employment. Is it their cookery? Here indeed I am almost at a stand to find a reason, which a Manchester check-maker will allow for a good one, why the country gentlemen do not envy their cookery; but on recollection I have one; they must allow it as a maxim, that the heart grieves not at what the eye sees not; and no country gentleman that I have ever heard of, could ever yet certify what was for dinner in the house of a Manchester check-maker. The reason their good wives believe we envy them their cookery, is, that when they move into the country for some weeks in the summer, the cook is too covetous to move his shop after them, and, as they know not how to get in their own families, anything more than plain boiled or roast, they are wise enough to believe nobody knows more, and because they are half starved whilst they are out of the town of Manchester, imagine there is no good livelihood anywhere else. Is it their fine clothes? Upon my honour I know many country gentlemen better dressed. Is it their handsome perriwigs? to comfort us country folks, I know few with worse heads ...” (pp. 9-10).

[183] Infra, p. 61.

[184] Treasure of Traffike, p. 32. Ellison, Cotton Trade of Great Britain, p. 170.

[185] J.H.C., xxii., pp. 566-567. Slack, Remarks on Cotton (early nineteenth-century pamphlet). Aikin, England Delineated (1790), pp. 39, 83. Aikin, England Described (1818), pp. 26, 87.

[186] Ante, pp. 30-31. In 1639 the Town Jury of Manchester ordered “that Anne Thorp, widow, shall have the keepinge of the scales and waights usuall for wayinge of Ireish yarne” (Court Leet Records, iii., p. 321). It was stated in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1736 by one witness that he bought linen-yarn, from a person in Northumberland, in one transaction, to the value of £1000 (J.H.C., xxii., pp. 566-567).

[187] Life and Correspondence of Samuel Hibbert Ware (1882), pp. 96-98.

[188] Ibid., p. 98.

[189] Ibid., pp. 97-98.

[190] Infra, p. 68.

[191] Ware, ibid., pp. 17-18. In these pages some memoranda of a commercial traveller for a Dantzig house preserved among Dr. Ware’s papers are given. Manchester Mercury, 3rd March 1772, contains a notice of the funeral of Daniel Kahl, eminent yarn merchant, partner of Delius & Kahl, Bremen.

[192] In every issue of The Manchester Mercury.

[193] While there apparently was a distinction between merchants and manufacturers it should not be drawn too rigidly. Cf. Radcliffe, ibid., p. 131: “All those great merchants were manufacturers with scarcely an exception.”

[194] Raines and Sutton, Life of Humphrey Chetham, pp. 13, 127.

[195] J.H.C., xiv., p. 498; xvi., p. 311; xviii., p. 543; xxiii., pp. 76-78.

[196] Aikin, Manchester, pp. 182-184. Radcliffe, ibid., p. 93.

[197] Manchester Mercury, 29th November 1769; 6th February 1770.

[198] Ante, p. 29, note. Guest, Compendious History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 12. About this time Manchester traders figure in the petitions against the African and the Hudson Bay Companies.

[199] Radcliffe, ibid., pp. 131-133.

[200] J.H.C., xiv., pp. 498, 504.

[201] Aikin, ibid., pp. 183-184.

[202] Smiles, Lives of the Engineers (1862), i., pp. 178-181. Westerfield, Middlemen in English Business (1915), pp. 313-314.

[203] Defoe, A Tour through Great Britain (1769 edition), iii., p. 126.

[204] Westerfield, ibid., pp. 362-363.

[205] Aikin, ibid., p. 184.

[206] Baines, Lancashire and Cheshire, iii., pp. 84-85.

[207] Manchester Mercury, 1752 onwards. Smiles, ibid., p. 206. Between 1760 and 1774 452 Acts were passed for making and repairing highways.

[208] Infra, p. 71.

[209] National Debt, 1756, £72,000,000. End of Seven Years’ War, 1763, £136,600,000. End of American War, 1783, £238,000,000 (Bastable, Public Finance, pp. 632-633).

[210] Life and Correspondence of Samuel Hibbert Ware, pp. 99-101. The Bill was introduced in August, 1784, and was quickly passed. It was resolved to repeal it in June, 1785. For the agitation, see Manchester Mercury and pamphlets published during these months. Details of the tax are given by Baines, ibid., p. 328.

[211] J.H.C., xl., p. 1001; xli., p. 283; xliv., p. 295.

[212] Ibid., xliv., pp. 276, 422.

[213] Ibid., xl., pp. 1107, 1109.

[214] Ibid., p. 1039.

[215] J.H.C., xl., p. 1026.

[216] Ibid., pp. 1017-1018.

[217] Ibid., p. 1020.

[218] The hawkers and pedlars of London and Westminster stated that they composed part of a body which numbered 1400 in England alone (ibid., p. 1007).

[219] The year 1623 marks an important date in this connection. Unwin, ibid., p. 190, also The Gilds and Companies of London, ch. xvii. Professor W. R. Scott’s Joint-Stock Companies to 1720, is a storehouse of fundamental facts relating to the economic history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

[220] One described as dyer and printer.

[221] One described as manufacturer and printer.

[222] Two described as fustian silk and linen manufacturers.

[223] One described as silk and smallware manufacturer, two as silk throwsters, and one as throwster and dyer.

[224] One described as linen merchant.

[225] Two described as linen and fustian dyers.

[226] One described as frieze-maker, one as woollen manufacturer and paper-maker, and one as worsted weaver.

[227] One described as woollen draper and cloth-worker, and one as woollen draper and check manufacturer.

[228] One described as dealer in cotton weft.

[229] One described as hatter and hosier, and one as hat-lining cutter.

[230] One described as dresser and cutter, and one as presser.

[231] One described as twister and dyer, and one as dyer printer and manufacturer.

[232] In this list there are three partnerships.

[233] Ante, p. 40.

[234] Chapman, ibid., p. 21.

[235] John Kay was born near Bury in 1704, but lived at Colchester at the time of the invention. He returned to Bury some time after 1745, and lived there apparently until about 1753 (Espinasse, Lancashire Worthies (1874), pp. 310-318).

[236] Ogden, ibid. (1783), p. 89, states that “the fly shuttle” is “in such estimation here (in Manchester) as to be used generally even on narrow goods.”

[237] Guest, ibid., p. 9. Espinasse, ibid., p. 313.

[238] Espinasse, ibid., pp. 310-318.

[239] Guest, ibid., p. 9.

[240] Espinasse, ibid.

[241] Ogden, ibid., pp. 76-77. This loom was the predecessor of the Jacquard loom. Chapman, ibid., pp. 22-23.

[242] Ante, p. 23. Ogden, ibid., p. 87. Guest, ibid., pp. 11-12.

[243] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. v., Second Series (1831), p. 324. Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, 10th July 1913, pp. 12, 13. The sections on cotton-spinning, and on early cotton machinery, were written by Mr. Thomas Midgley, Curator of Chadwick Museum, Bolton, and contain a clear exposition of the spinning processes. In the museum there is an excellent collection of the early machinery of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton, as well as of more ancient machinery.

[244] Dobson, Evolution of the Spinning Machine (1911), p. 28.

[245] Ibid., pp. 33-35. Kennedy, Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. iii., Second Series (1815), pp. 118-119. Mr. Kennedy states that before the coming of the great inventions the endeavours to find better methods filled the cottages with little improvements, and that the multiplication of instruments was forcing the work out of cottages. “Here,” he says “commences the factory system” (p. 118).

[246] Cole, Some Account of Lewis Paul. Paper read at the meeting of the British Association, 1858. Reproduced by French, Life and Times of Samuel Crompton (1859), App. III. The references are to the pages in French’s book.

[247] For the contrary view, Ure, Cotton Manufacture, i., pp. 237 et seq. The proximity of the date of the patent to that of Kay’s patent and the “Manchester Act” is a fact again worthy of notice.

[248] French, ibid., pp. 269-270. Espinasse, ibid., p. 341.

[249] Ibid., pp. 256, 268.

[250] Baines, ibid., p. 134. Espinasse, ibid., pp. 349-350.

[251] French, ibid., p. 266. Espinasse asserts that it was introduced into at least one Yorkshire workhouse (ibid., p. 355).

[252] French, ibid., p. 269.

[253] Ibid., p. 252.

[254] Ibid., p. 266. It appears, however, that he may have invented this machine as early as 1740 (ibid., 256).

[255] Espinasse, ibid., p. 365.

[256] Dobson, ibid., 36-37.

[257] Dobson, ibid., p. 37.

[258] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, p. 326.

[259] Baines, ibid., pp. 177-179.

[260] Espinasse, ibid., p. 320.

[261] Brown, The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims (reprint, Manchester, 1868), p. 28.

[262] Baines, ibid., p. 156.

[263] Espinasse, ibid., pp. 322, 327.

[264] Ogden, ibid., p. 87.

[265] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture (1828), p. 147. Ogden states that the larger jennies were used for making warps until they were superseded by the water-frame (ibid., p. 91).

[266] Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, pp. 16-17.

[267] Espinasse, ibid., p. 400.

[268] Smiles, Boulton and Watt (1904), p. 111.

[269] Ure, ibid., i., p. 286.

[270] Ogden, ibid., p. 16.

[271] Josiah Wedgwood was an eye-witness of this rising. His account of it is quoted by Espinasse, ibid., pp. 424-426.

[272] Manchester Mercury, 12th October 1779.

[273] J.H.C., xxxvii., p. 926.

[274] It will be borne in mind that the trouble with America began immediately the Seven Years’ War concluded, with the attempt to impose, with increased energy, “the colonial policy” which at once was met by commercial reprisals that greatly dislocated trade and called forth loud protests from British merchants. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce (1805), see under years 1763-1790. Smith, Wars Between England and America (1914).

[275] Meredith, Economic History of England. See Chart B for variations in the amount of wheat which could be purchased with the daily wage of a carpenter and an agricultural labourer. Tooke, History of Prices; Martineau, History of the Peace; Wilks, The Half Century (1852); J. L. and B. Hammond, The Village Labourer; The Town Labourer; The Skilled Labourer.

[276] Manchester Mercury, 9th January 1762.

[277] Ibid., 1st September 1762.

[278] Macpherson, ibid., pp. 391, 406-407.

[279] Macpherson, ibid., pp 438, 452.

[280] Regarding this Assize the following notice, based upon 31 Geo. II., c. 29., was issued in The Manchester Mercury, 18th Nov. 1766:—“In every Assize of Bread respect shall he had to the Market Price of Grain and Meal and Flour making reasonable allowance to the Baker for his Labour and Profit. In order to know the Price of Meal and Flour in proportion to the Price of Wheat, the Magistrates and Justices of Peace are to take notice that the Peck loaf of each sort of Bread is to weigh, when well baken, 17 lbs. 6 ozs. avoirdupois, and the rest in proportion; and that every sack of Meal or Flour is to weigh 2 cwt. 2 qrs. (not 280 lbs.) and that from every sack of Meal or Flour there ought to be produced 20 such Peck loaves of Bread.”

“By this rule from every Manchester load of flour weighing 240 lbs. there ought to be produced 297 lbs. 13 oz. 12 drs., of Bread of each sort well baken. The price of 296 lbs. 7 oz. 8 drs. of Wheaten Bread consisting of 1d. 2d. 6d. 12d. 18d. loaves according to the above Assize is 44s. The Price of a load of Flour is 30s., allowance to Baker is 14s. The Price of 297 lbs. 10 ozs. 15 drs. of Household Bread consisting of such loaves is 32s. 10d. Price of a load of Flour is 27s. 6d. Allowance to Baker is 5s. 4d.”

Assize of Bread for Manchester and Salford
10th November 1766[A]

lbs.ozs.drs.
1d. loaf Wheatentoweigh 87
Ditto Household”” 112
2d. loaf Wheaten””1014
Ditto Household””164
6d. loaf Wheaten””329
Ditto Household””4212
12d. loaf Wheaten””652
Ditto Household””858
18d. loaf Wheaten””9711
Ditto Household””1283

[A] Manchester Mercury, 11th November 1766.

[281] Manchester Mercury, 10th February, 14th April, 28th July.

[282] Ibid., 1st September 1767. The rules and orders of the Society of Agriculture at Manchester are given, 21st June 1774.

[283] Ibid., in various issues.

[284] Manchester Mercury, 6th September 1763.

[285] Macpherson, ibid., pp. 372-373.

[286] Ibid.

[287] Manchester Mercury, 13th September 1763.

[288] Macpherson, ibid., iii., pp. 406-407.

[289] Ibid., pp. 396-397. “This trade united all the advantages which the wisest and most philanthropic philosopher, or the most enlightened legislator, could wish to derive from commerce. It gave bread to the industrious in North America by carrying off their lumber, which must otherwise rot on their hands, and their fish, great part of which without it would be absolutely unsaleable, together with their spare produce and stock of every kind; it furnished the West India planters with those articles without which the operations of their plantations must be at a stand; and it produced a fund for employing a great number of industrious manufacturers in Great Britain; thus taking off the superfluities, providing for the necessities, and promoting the happiness of all concerned.” Cf. Bryan Edwards, History of the West Indies, Book IV., ch. iv. (1801 edition). Pitman, The Development of the British West Indies (1917), pp. 212, 256-257, 271-273, 320, 360, also the charts (pp. 244, 264), showing the balance of trade between the West Indies and England.

[290] Macpherson, ibid., p. 589.

[291] Ibid., pp. 442-443.

[292] J.H.C., xxxvii., pp. 804, 925-926.

[293] J.H.C., xxxvii., p. 882.

[294] A fustian-weaver was said to be able to earn 1s. to 2s. a day. Fustian-weavers appear always to have been a poorly paid class. Cf. Report on State of Children Employed in Manufactories (1816), p. 99, Evidence of Mr. George Gould: “In the fustian trade I think there never was a period when a good hand could get above thirteen or fourteen shillings.”

[295] An attack was made on the first Robert Peel’s machinery when he lived at Peel Fold near Blackburn. “Mr. Peel was accustomed to say that the destruction of his machinery by the populace was a very fortunate occurrence for him, inasmuch as he was forced thereby to adopt Arkwright’s machinery, which otherwise he never should have done, he having a strong and not unnatural affection for his own inventions” (Wheeler, History of Manchester (1824), p. 519).

[296] Arkwright’s Case, p. 99. The Case is quoted in Arkwright’s Patent Trial, 25th June 1785.

[297] 14 Geo. III., c. 72; also infra, p. 197.

[298] Espinasse, ibid., p. 325.

[299] Baines, ibid., p. 162.

[300] Ibid.

[301] Manchester Mercury, 18th June 1771.

[302] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture, pp. 94, 198.

[303] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture, p. 203.

[304] Ibid., p. 203. It will be noticed that in this reference, as in others of the time, the name of the inventor is given as Hayes. I have used the name Highs in the text as he has become best known to posterity by that name. Guest states that it is written Highs in the parish register (ibid., p. 18).

[305] According to Ogden, who, it will be remembered, published his Description of Manchester in 1783, the aim of Highs’ machine was to produce a yarn suitable for warps. After referring to the introduction of the jenny and the risings against it, which called forth an address from Dorning Rasbotham, a magistrate who lived near Bolton, in which he urged that it would be to the interest of the workpeople to encourage jennies, Ogden proceeds: “This seasonable address produced a general acquiescence in the use of these engines, to a certain number of spindles, but they were soon multiplied to three or four times the quantity; nor did the invention of ingenious mechanics rest here, for the demand for twist for warps was greater as weft grew plenty, therefore engines were soon constructed for this purpose: one in particular was purchased at a price which was a considerable reward for the contriver’s ingenuity, and exposed at the Exchange, where he spun on it, and all that were disposed to see the operation were admitted gratis” (pp. 90-91).

[306] Guest, History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 13-14, 53-54. also British Cotton Manufacture.

[307] “Ce que Hargreaves trouva, beaucoup d’autres l’avaient cherché en même temps que lui.... C’est ainsi que Hargreaves put être accusé de n’être pas le premier ou le seul auteur de son invention” (Mantoux, La Révolution au XVIIIe Siècle, p. 210).

[308] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture, p. 195.

[309] Ibid., p. 211.

[310] Baines, ibid., pp. 162-163. Abram, History of Blackburn, 205-206. Baines mentions that Hargreaves’ widow received £400 as her husband’s share in his business. Abram adds the information that Hargreaves left property of the estimated value of £4000, but states that about the middle of the nineteenth century two of his daughters were living in poverty in Manchester and that a subscription was raised with difficulty on their behalf.

[311] Wylie and Briscoe, History of Nottingham, p. 101.

[312] Baines, ibid., p. 151.

[313] Felkin, History of the Machine-Wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures (1867), p. 90.

[314] Ibid.

[315] Smiles, Industry and Invention (1884), ch. iv., “John Lombe: Introducer of the Silk Industry into England.”

The number of workpeople employed by one concern in the silk industry, many years before the appearance of the factory in the cotton industry, is, perhaps, not always realised. In the sixties of the eighteenth century, the silk manufacturers in various parts of the country petitioned the House of Commons regarding the decline of their trade, and in the evidence on the petition some interesting figures were given. One silk-throwster asserted that he had employed as many as 1500 workpeople at a time: 500 in London, 200 in Gloucester, 400 in Dorset, and 400 in Cheshire. Of this number about 1400 were women and children, and 100 men. A Spitalfields throwster asserted that, in 1760, he employed 400 workpeople, but the most striking figures were given in two sets of tables relating to certain firms in London and Macclesfield:

State of Several Silk-Throwsters in London and
Macclesfield in the Years 1761, 1762, 1763, 1764

LONDON

Men, women and children employed by1761176217631764
Spragg, Hopkins, and White 800700300
John Graham500350240120
John Powell 400300170
Triquett and Bunney300300200130
Sam Nicolls300300200150

MACCLESFIELD

Men, women and children employed by1761176217631764
Philip Clows720690540370
Glover and Co.400400300180
Bradock and Hall36036026020
Langford, Robinson and Co.350350280180
Bradburn and Gosling27120011030
Swain and Gosling22919012335
W. Hall1401209070

As regards Macclesfield, it was stated that, in addition to the above, there were not less than twelve silk-mills of inferior note in the town which in 1761-1762 employed 1000 hands or thereabouts. The machines used were called “mills” and the numbers employed by each of the above Macclesfield concerns were given—e.g. Philip Clows had 20, 19, 16, and 10 pairs employed in the years 1761, 1762, 1763, and 1764 (J.H.C., xxx., pp. 208-219). See infra, p. 197.

[316] Mantoux, ibid., pp. 217-221. Espinasse, ibid., pp. 392, 413, 420.

[317] Trial, 25th June 1785, pp. 99, 102.

[318] Ibid., p. 99.

[319] Manchester Mercury, 8th March 1774; 17th July 1781. This second committee consisted of sixteen members, ten for cotton and linen, and three each for silk and smallware. A cotton manufactures company also came into existence in Manchester about October, 1774, which finally closed its accounts in November, 1778. This company apparently existed for the purpose of buying cotton in large quantities and then disposing of it to those who would sign an agreement to purchase from the company for six months. It seems to have arisen out of an agitation against the cotton dealers in Manchester (ibid. 20th September, 4th October, 22nd November, 1774; 10th November 1778, and many other dates. Cf. the Feltmakers’ Project in the seventeenth century described by Unwin, Industrial Organisation in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, pp. 156-164).

[320] Ibid., 21st May, 24th September 1776.

[321] Ibid., 27th February.

[322] Manchester Mercury, 20th March.

[323] Wheeler, History of Manchester (1842), p. 521.

[324] Ibid., pp. 521-522, where the names of the firms are given.

[325] Espinasse, ibid., pp. 428-431.

[326] Trial, 25th June 1785, p. 100.

[327] Ibid., p. 102. J.H.C., xxxviii., p. 687.

[328] Manchester Mercury, 12th February 1782. J.H.C., xxxviii., p. 865.

[329] Manchester Mercury, 16th April 1782.

[330] Ibid., 11th February 1783.

[331] Espinasse, ibid., p. 431.

[332] Arkwright versus Nightingale. Espinasse, ibid., pp. 435-437.

[333] Ante, p. 63.

[334] Manchester Mercury, 22nd March 1785.

[335] Espinasse, ibid., p. 429.

[336] It appears that Watt had a personal interest in the matter. Writing to Matthew Boulton after Arkwright had been non-suited in 1781, he stated: “Though I do not love Arkwright, I don’t like the precedent of setting aside patents through default of specification. I fear for our own.... I begin to have little faith in patents; for according to the enterprising genius of the present age, no man can have a profitable patent but it will be pecked at.” And a few days later: “I am tired of making improvements which by some quirk or wresting of the law may be taken from us as I think has been done in the case of Arkwright, who has been condemned merely because he did not specify quite clearly. This was injustice, because it is plain that he has given this trade a being—has brought his invention into use and made it of great public utility. Wherefore he deserved all the money he has got. In my opinion his patent should not have been invalidated without it had clearly appeared that he did not invent the things in question. I fear we shall be served with the same sauce for the good of the public! and in that case I shall certainly do what he threatens. This you may be assured of, that we are as much envied here as he is in Manchester, and all the bells in Cornwall would be rung at our overthrow” (Letters dated 30th July and 13th August 1781. Smiles, Boulton and Watt (1904 Edition), p. 274).

[337] Espinasse, ibid., p. 436.

[338] Was it generally known in Manchester that an action was pending or were the manufacturers over-confident? So far as newspaper notices were concerned, the activity which preceded the first and the third trials was absent. Two days before the action was tried The Manchester Mercury, which could not be accused of favour to Arkwright, contained the following paragraph: “Rd. Arkwright, Esq., has established a Sunday school at Cromford, in Derbyshire, which already consists of two hundred children. Pleasing it is to the friends of humanity, when power like his is so happily united with the will to do good!” (15th February 1785).

[339] Manchester Mercury, 1st March 1785.

[340] Ibid. Espinasse, ibid., 449 et seq. Robert Owen, Autobiography, i., p. 56.

[341] Trial, 25th June 1785. Evidence of Elizabeth Hargreaves, George Hargreaves, and others regarding the crank and comb. On other points John Lees, Henry Marsland, Thomas Hall, and the partners Pilkington and Wood.

[342] Espinasse, ibid., p. 447.

[343] Baines, ibid., pp. 177-179.

[344] Actually the leading counsel against Arkwright in the third trial asserted that the crank and comb device so impressed the jury in the second trial as to gain Arkwright the verdict on that occasion (Trial, 25th June 1785, p. 19).

[345] Guest, History of Cotton Manufacture, pp. 13, 53. The question of the jenny was not dealt with at the trial, of course.

[346] Trial, 25th June 1785, Highs’ evidence.

[347] Ibid., Kay’s evidence.

[348] Trial, 25th June 1785, Highs’ evidence. Evidently Arkwright made a gesture of impatience, and suggested that even if Highs had any claim to the invention, he had not gone forward with it, and, in such a case, another man had the right to do so.

[349] Espinasse, ibid., pp. 447-448.

[350] 5th July 1785.

[351] Baines, ibid., pp. 122-123.

[352] Trial, 25th June 1785, Kay’s evidence.

[353] In addition to his relation to the machines mentioned in the text Guest asserts that Highs effected some improvement in the carding-machine (British Cotton Manufacture, p. 204).

[354] History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 196.

[355] French, The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton, first edition, 1859. The references which follow are to this edition. Kennedy, A Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. v., second series, 1831.

[356] French, ibid., pp. 2, 26-27.

[357] Infra, p. 167.

[358] Kennedy, ibid., p. 319.

[359] Infra, p. 167.

[360] French, ibid., p. 76.

[361] Infra, p. 168. Accepting a view held by Crompton’s descendants that Arkwright paid a surreptitious visit to Crompton intent upon discovering his secret, French (ibid., pp. 79-80), referring to a passage similar to the above in one of Crompton’s letters, suggests that in it there is a hidden reference to Arkwright as “Cromford, where Arkwright then resided, is about sixty miles from Bolton.” May not the proverb, “Give a dog a bad name ...” do something to explain some of the statements made regarding this man?

[362] Ibid.

[363] Letter addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, 30th October 1807. Brown, The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims, p. 24. In the agreement on which the machine was made public fifty-five individuals and firms promised to subscribe £1, 1s. each, twenty-seven 10s. 6d., one 7s. 6d. and one 5s. The agreement concluded with a statement that “a contribution is desired from every well-wisher of the trade.” It is said that some of those included in the list did not subscribe, and, according to Mr. Kennedy’s account, Crompton, at this time, received only about £50. In the evidence before the Committee on Crompton’s petition in 1812, the amount was stated as £106. Brown, ibid., pp. 24, 31. French, ibid., pp. 84, 271, 272. Infra, p. 187.

[364] Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, pp. 20-21. Baines, ibid., p. 197-199.

[365] Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, p. 21.

[366] French, ibid., p. 83.

[367] Evidence of Mr. Pilkington in 1812, infra, pp. 186-187.

[368] Manchester Mercury, 17th July 1781. Mr. Pilkington was a member of the cotton and linen section.

[369] Ante, p. 103. The case of Highs in 1771 must be borne in mind and also another one later, referred to infra, p. 123.

[370] Manchester Athenæum, No. 9, 1st September 1807.

[371] Ure, ibid., i., p. 277.

[372] Monthly Magazine, vol. viii., p. 776.

[373] Ante, p. 103. This is not to suggest that if Crompton had received £200 he would have been adequately recompensed. What sum would have been adequate recompense? No one, in 1780, could have fully realised the importance of invention as only the future could reveal it. Had the subscription been considerably larger Crompton’s grievance might have been lessened though not averted.

[374] Kennedy, ibid., p. 321.

[375] French, ibid., p. 67.

[376] Kennedy, ibid., p. 330. In 1788 the writer of a pamphlet estimated that there were at work 550 mule machines of ninety spindles each, and 20,070 hand-jennies of eighty spindles. Aikin, Manchester, p. 179.

[377] Kennedy, ibid., p. 326.

[378] Kennedy, ibid., 325. Arkwright claimed that he got his first hint of the use of rollers for spinning by seeing a red-hot iron bar elongated by them. Ure, ibid., i., p. 271.

[379] Kennedy, Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. iii., second series (1815), p. 127.

[380] Kennedy, Brief Memoir, p. 335.

[381] Kennedy, Brief Memoir, pp. 335-336.

[382] Ibid., pp. 332-333.

[383] Ibid., 333-334.

[384] Ibid., p. 331.

[385] Kennedy, ibid., pp. 331-332.

[386] Ibid., p. 330. According to Guest, at the time he wrote (1828) the jenny was used in the woollen industry even more extensively than ever it had been in the cotton industry (British Cotton Manufacture, p. 147).

[387] Baines, ibid., p. 198. Evidence of Mr. G. A. Lee before the Committee on Crompton’s petition. Infra, p. 188.

[388] Kennedy, ibid., p. 336.

Autobiography of Robert Owen, i., pp. 25-26: “My three spinners were spinning the cotton yarn on my three mules from rovings. I had no machinery to make rovings, and was obliged to purchase them,—they were the half-made materials to be spun into thread. I had become acquainted with two industrious Scotchmen, of the names of M‘Connel and Kennedy, who had also commenced about the same time as myself to make cotton machinery upon a small scale, and they had now proceeded so far as to make some of the machinery for preparing the cotton for the mule spinning machinery so far as to enable them to make the rovings, which they sold in that state to the spinners at a good profit.... This was in the year 1790.... They could then only make the rovings, without finishing the thread; and I could only finish the thread, without being competent to make the rovings.”

[389] Ibid., pp. 53-59. Baines, ibid., p. 205.

[390] Kennedy, ibid., pp. 337-338.

[391] William Fairbairn in Baines’ Lancashire and Cheshire, VI. clxxii. Roberts is an interesting case of a man being the owner of nearly a hundred patents and yet dying in poverty.

[392] John Kennedy “was the first to introduce the double speed or twisting motion to Crompton’s mule, and he may be considered as the immediate successor of Arkwright and Crompton” (Fairbairn, ibid., cxcvii.).

[393] Kennedy, Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade, pp. 121-122, 126-129. Report on State of Children employed in Manufactories (1816), p. 344.

[394] Kennedy, ibid., p. 16.

[395] Autobiography, p. 22.

[396] Economic Journal, June, 1915.

[397] Banks, The Manchester Man, ch. xxxii. The author was misinformed as to the Christian name of Mr. M‘Connel.

[398] Kennedy, Early Recollections (1849), pp. 9-10.

[399] Report on State of Children employed in Manufactories, pp. 234, 244.

[400] Kennedy, Early Recollections (1849), pp. 9-10. This man evidently gathered round himself a small colony of Scotsmen as there are others mentioned.

[401] Clarke, The New Lancashire Gazetteer, pp. 33-34.

[402] Dobson, Evolution of the Spinning Machine, pp. 108 et seq.

[403] Clarke, Lancashire Gazetteer, p. 4. In the paragraph in which the above information is contained it is stated that in 1782, “after Sir Richard Arkwright’s improvements had furnished an abundant supply of that article (yarn), the manufacture was renewed here by Mr. Oldknow, who realised a large fortune in the production of Balasore handkerchiefs, and jaconet, and japanned muslins.” Cf. Autobiography of Robert Owen, i., p. 25: “The first British muslins were made when I was an apprentice with Mr. M‘Guffog (1781-1784), by a Mr. Oldknow at Stockport ... who must have commenced this branch in 1780, 1781, or 1782.... When I first went to Mr. M‘Guffog, there were no other muslins for sale except those made in the East Indies, and known as East India Muslins; but while I was with him, Mr. Oldknow began to manufacture a fabric which he called, by way of distinction, British Mull Muslin.” Cf. also quotation from Mr. Kennedy on pp. 130-131. Both Owen and Kennedy speak of Oldknow carrying on his manufacture at Stockport. If the information given in the Gazetteer is correct, it appears that he commenced elsewhere. The reference in the Gazetteer to Arkwright’s machinery ought to be, perhaps, to Crompton’s mule. If not, it would appear that Oldknow first began to experiment with yarn produced by the water-frame, and later utilised that produced by the mule.

[404] Infra, p. 190.

[405] “The manufacture of cotton cloth was at its best in India until very recent times, and the fine Indian muslins were in great demand and commanded high prices, both in the Roman Empire and in Mediæval Europe. The industry was one of the main factors in the wealth of ancient India, and the transfer of that industry to England and the United States, and the cheapening of the process by mechanical ginning, spinning and weaving, is perhaps the greatest single factor in the economic history of our own time” (Schoff, The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (1912), p. 71).

[406] In 1815 a small amount of British yarn was sent to India; six years later it had become a regular export, and in 1829 amounted to 3,185,639 lbs. In 1815, 800,000 yards of British cloth were sent, and in 1830, 45,000,000 yards (Ure, ibid., i., p. 118). In 1831 the manufacturers and dealers in Bengal presented a petition regarding the import of British cotton goods (Baines, ibid., pp. 81-82).

[407] Before the outbreak of the European War it was estimated that nearly 80 per cent. of the total value of piece goods produced in the United Kingdom were exported. In 1913, British India took 36 per cent. and China 12 per cent. of the piece goods exported (Report of Committee on Textile Trades (1918), p. 60).

[408] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, pp. 339, 344-345.

Heathcote’s machine was patented about 1809 and soon afterwards he is said to have obtained five guineas a yard for lace which in 1844 could be equalled at eighteenpence a yard (Dodd, Textile Manufactures of Great Britain (1844), pp. 210-211).

[409] Ure, ibid., p. 295.

[410] Economic Journal, June, 1915.

[411] Baines, ibid., pp. 346-347.

[412] Kennedy, ibid., 347.

[413] Hammond, The Cotton Industry (1897), p. 16. Ibid., App. I.

[414] The Origin of Power-Loom Weaving (1828), pp. 61-62.

[415] French, ibid., pp. 115-116. Many lists of wages are given in the reports of various parliamentary committees—e.g. Report on Commerce, Manufactures and Shipping (1833), p. 699. The following are the prices paid for weaving (on the hand-loom) a 6-4ths, 60 reed cambric, 120 picks in one inch. They were taken in June in each year. In 1795-1796 the length was 20 yards and afterwards 24 yards. A weaver working one piece a week was said to be in full employment. The prices are interesting, not only as showing the decline during the period they cover, but also as the fluctuations indicate the state of trade with remarkable accuracy:

Year Price
s. d.
1795 33 3
1796 33 3
1797 29 0
1798 30 0
1799 25 0
1800 25 0
1801 25 0
1802 29 0
1803 24 0
1804 20 0
1805 25 0
1806 22 0
1807 18 0
1808 14 0
1809 16 0
1810 19 6
1811 14 0
1812 14 0
1813 15 0
1814 24 0
1815 14 0
1816 12 0
1817 9 0
1818 9 0
1819 9 6
1820 9 0
1821 8 6
1822 8 6
1823 8 6
1824 8 6
1825 8 6
1826 7 6
1827 6 0
1828 6 0
1829 5 6
1830 5 6
1831 5 6
1832 5 6
1833 5 6

[416] Cf. Warner, Landmarks in English Industrial History (1905), pp. 292-294.

[417] Defoe, A Tour Through Great Britain (1769 edition), iii., pp. 144-145. The passage by Radcliffe runs as follows:—“In the year 1770, the land in our township (Mellor) was occupied by between fifty and sixty farmers; rents, to the best of my recollection, did not exceed 10s per statute acre, and out of these fifty or sixty farmers, there were only six or seven who raised their rents directly from the produce of their farms; all the rest got their rent partly in some branch of trade, such as spinning and weaving woollen, linen, or cotton. The cottagers were employed entirely in this manner, except for a few weeks in the harvest. Being one of those cottagers, and intimately acquainted with all the rest, as well as with every farmer, I am the better able to relate particularly how the change from the old system of hand-labour to the new one of machinery operated in raising the price of land in the subdivision I am speaking of. Cottage rents at that time, with convenient loom-shop and a small garden attached, were from one and a half to two guineas per annum. The father of a family would earn from eight shillings to half-a-guinea at his loom, and his sons, if he had one, two, or three, alongside of him, six or eight shillings each per week; but the great sheet-anchor of all cottages and small farms was the labour attached to the hand-wheel, and when it is considered that it required six to eight hands to prepare and spin yarn, of any of the three materials I have mentioned, sufficient for the consumption of one weaver—this shows clearly the inexhaustible source there was for labour for every person from the age of seven to eighty years (who retained their sight and could move their hands) to earn their bread, say one to three shillings per week, without going to the parish” (pp. 59-60).

[418] Aikin, Manchester, p. 244-246.

[419] Ibid., p. 23.

[420] Reports, etc., 1826-1827, v., p. 5. Quoted by Chapman, Lancashire Cotton Industry, p. 11. Other references are given in the same page.

[421] “The domestic manufacturers resided generally in the outskirts of large towns or at still more remote distances” (Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England (1833), p. 17).

[422] Aikin, ibid., p. 482.

[423] Abstract of Population, Act 41, Geo. III., 1800, p. 59.

[424] French, ibid., p. 9.

[425] Aikin, ibid., p. 47: “On the dairy farms (in Cheshire) one woman servant is kept to every ten cows, who is employed in winter in spinning and other household business, but in milking is assisted by all the other servants of the farm.”

[426] Dr. Gaskell’s views are contained in The Manufacturing Population of England (1833) and Artisans and Machinery (1836), the latter being a reprint of the former with additions.

[427] “The great body of hand-loom weavers had at all times been divided by a well-defined line of demarcation into two very distinct classes. This distinction arose from the circumstance of their being landholders or being entirely dependent upon weaving for their support.” (Manufacturing Population, p. 36).

[428] Manufacturing Population, p. 41.

[429] Ibid., pp. 16, 34.

[430] Ibid., p. 37.

[431] He gives 1806 as the date of the introduction of power looms. It was about this time that, through the efforts of Horrocks, Johnson and Radcliffe, they became practicable. In February, 1807, Robert Owen wrote to M‘Connel and Kennedy inquiring about “the improvements presently in progress in weaving by power.”

[432] Ibid., pp. 34, 38.

[433] Manufacturing Population, pp. 35, 39.

[434] Ibid., pp. 37-38.

[435] Ibid., pp. 41-42.

[436] Manufacturing Population, pp. 43-45. In Artisans and Machinery, p. 33, he mentions Peel, Strutt and others. Cf. Aikin, ante, p. 136.

[437] In the parish of Oldham “there were a considerable number of weavers who worked on their own account and held at the same time small pieces of land” (Butterworth, History of Oldham, p. 101. Quoted by Chapman, ibid., p. 11).

[438] Gaskell, ibid., p. 17.

[439] See infra, p. 197.

[440] Manchester Mercury, 5th October 1779.

[441] Gaskell, ibid., p. 46-47. Report of Committee on Cotton Weavers’, etc., Petitions (1803)., p. 16.

[442] Report of Committee on Cotton Weavers’ Petitions (1808), p. 24.

[443] Some information regarding the state of trade is given in two papers by the present writer on “The Cotton Trade during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars” (Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society, 1916, 1917). The mule-spinners were combined in the early nineties of the eighteenth century, and although they claimed, in answer to the assertion that their combination was illegal, that it existed only to relieve their fellow-labourers in distress, they managed to conduct wages disputes in an efficient manner. The combination continued to exist after the Combination Acts were passed. In 1803 the master spinners in the town and neighbourhood of Manchester resolved to form themselves into an Association and raise a fund of £20,000 by each member contributing in proportion to the number of spindles he employed in order to defeat “this dangerous and unjust combination” (Circular dated 7th October 1803).

[444] There is a striking resemblance between the situation during the Napoleonic War and that during the recent European War. In this country there was the same fear about the food supply and similar efforts were made to conserve and increase it. In 1795 the members of the Houses of Parliament agreed by resolution to restrict the consumption of wheaten bread in their families, and their example was followed by various bodies throughout the country. In The Manchester Mercury numerous recipes appeared for making bread out of ingredients other than wheat. The Board of Agriculture experimented in making bread with substitutes for wheat and publicly exhibited no fewer than eighty different sorts (Curtler, A Short History of English Agriculture (1909), p. 230). The General Enclosure Act avowedly had as its aim an increase in the food supply and was passed during a terrible time of distress. Except that allotments were not regarded with much favour, the agricultural legislation was closely analogous to that of the recent war period. In the political and the industrial spheres the Combination Act took the place of sections of the Munitions Acts and the Defence of the Realm Acts. “Under the shadow of the French Revolution the English governing classes regarded all associations of the common people with the utmost alarm. In this general terror lest insubordination should develop into rebellion were merged both the capitalist’s objection to high wages and the politician’s dislike of Democratic institutions” (Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 64). Necessarily the vast proportion of the national expenditure (including loans to Allies) went to provide war materials of British manufacture, and war services, and there were the same complaints of the agricultural, the merchant, and the tradesmen, classes becoming rich out of war profits. Also, generally speaking, there was a great increase of employment, particularly in connection with the army, the navy, and Government offices. In the industrial sphere periods of intense pressure alternated with periods of great depression when distress was rampant. The great distinction between the two periods is evidently to be attributed to the social and political development which had taken place during the intervening century whereby flagrant class legislation had become impossible. Much information of a reliable character concerning conditions during the Napoleonic War is given by Lowe, in The Present State of England (1822). In the correspondence of M‘Connel and Kennedy to and from their customers in England, Scotland, Ireland and on the Continent, the industrial situation is indicated day by day from 1795 until beyond the conclusion of the war.

[445] French, ibid., p. 90.

[446] Infra, pp. 175, 176, 184, 193.

[447] He was something of a musician, building himself an organ and composing several hymn tunes. French, ibid., pp. 133 et seq. The organ and some of the MSS. of his music are now in Hall-i’-th’-Wood.

[448] Economic Journal, June, 1915.

[449] French, ibid., p. 123. Mr. Lee was manager for Mr. Drinkwater prior to Robert Owen occupying that position. He left to become partner in 1791 in a firm which attained a prominent position in Manchester under the name of Phillips & Lee (Autobiography of Robert Owen, pp. 26-29).

[450] Infra, p. 169.

[451] Infra, p. 167.

[452] French, ibid., p. 124.

[453] Transactions, Manchester Statistical Society, Feb., 1916.

[454] French, p. 125. “In 1803 he supplied the fourth part of a sum raised to build a place of worship for the religious body with which he had connected himself in Bury Street, Little Bolton” (ibid., p. 132).

[455] “And though I pushed on, intending to have a good share in the spinning line, yet I found there was an evil which I had not foreseen, and of much greater magnitude than giving up the machine, viz., that I must be always teaching green hands, employ none, or quit the country; it being believed that if I taught them, they knew their business well. So that for years I had no choice left but to give up spinning, or quit my native land.... But to this day, though it is more than thirty years since my first machine was shown to the public, I am hunted and watched with as much never-ceasing care as if I was the most notorious villain that ever disgraced the human form; and do affirm, that if I were to go to a smithy to get a common nail made, if opportunity offered to the bystanders, they would examine it most minutely to see if it was anything but a nail” (Letter quoted by Brown, The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims, p. 30).

[456] French, ibid., pp. 125-126.

[457] Brown, ibid., pp. 23-25.

[458] The whole matter is discussed at length by French, ibid., ch. xii.

[459] French, ibid., p. 158.

[460] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, p. 322.

[461] Transactions, Manchester Statistical Society, 1917.

[462] French, ibid., p. 166. Infra, p. 174.

[463] Journals of the House of Commons, lxvii., p. 175. Hansard, xxi., p. 1174.

[464] J.H.C., lxvii., p. 207.

[465] J.H.C., lxvii., pp. 838-839.

[466] Infra, pp. 179-182, 189-191.

[467] Hansard, xxii. 94.

[468] Infra, pp. 192-194. Also in letters quoted by Brown, ibid., pp. 35-38.

[469] French, ibid., p. 189. Infra, p. 192.

[470] Infra, p. 172.

[471] J.H.C., lxvii., pp. 468, 476. Hansard, xxiii., 747-748.

[472] French, ibid., pp. 188-189. Infra, pp. 176, 182.

[473] Infra, p. 192.

[474] French, ibid., pp. 187-188.

[475] French, ibid., pp. 196-198.

[476] Kennedy, ibid., p. 323.

[477] French, ibid., pp. 199-200.

[478] Kennedy, ibid., pp. 323-324. Messrs. Hicks & Rothwell along with men like Isaac and Benjamin Dobson, of the famous engineering firm, used to meet at “The Sign of the Black Horse” in Bolton, where they had formed a “prosecution” club in 1801. Crompton belonged to this club, his name appearing in 1810, and as a member of the Committee in 1819. The scheme of an annuity appears to have originated and have been carried through by this group of men along with Mr. Kennedy and others. The minutes of the club are preserved in the Chadwick Museum, Bolton. In Manchester also there was a “prosecution” society known by the name of “The Society for the Prosecution of Felons.” In both cases the society appears to have come into existence to check the small thefts and the pilfering of materials used in the businesses of the members. Cf. Dobson, Evolution of the Spinning Machine, p. 115.

[479] French, ibid., pp. 218-222.

[480] On 24th January 1861 (A Chronological History of Bolton to 1875).

[481] Author of The Cotton Trade of Lancashire (1870) and other similar publications.

[482] Account of the ceremony at Hall-i’-th’-Wood.

[483] Chronological History of Bolton, 6th October 1862. See infra, p. 197.

[484] The place was purchased in 1899 by Mr. W. H. Lever (now Lord Leverhulme) and presented by him, with a sum of money for its restoration, to the Corporation of Bolton. It is now open to the public as a museum, and contains, among other interesting things, many Crompton relics.

[485] Aikin, ibid., p. 261.

[486] Bigwood, Cotton (1918), p. 185. The figures refer to 1916.

[487] Dobson, ibid., p. 112.

[488] It was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the self-actor mule entirely displaced the hand-mule (Chapman, ibid., pp. 69-70).

[489] Report of the Tenth International Cotton Congress, pp. 591, 600, 610, 717.

[490] In this connection, of course, Great Britain really means the United Kingdom.

[491] They are discussed in Ellison, Cotton Trade of Great Britain, pp. 33-35.

[492] Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, pp. 27-28.

[493] ... suggested, if you should agree, that a little more time should be allowed, before you published your circular letter, in order to call a meeting....

[494] Brown, The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims, pp. 32-33.

[495] J.H.C., lxvii., p. 175.

[496] Crompton always spelled Mr. Perceval’s name as in this letter.

[497] Crompton’s son.

[498] In the margin opposite this answer the words “The Billy” are written. Ante, p. 123.

[499] A comparison of these questions and answers with the evidence given by Mr. Ainsworth before the Committee, which sat some time later, will show that one is largely a repetition of the other.

[500] J.H.C., lxvii., pp. 838-839.