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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]
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]]