John Evelyn describes “a maiden of primitive life, the daughter of a poore labouring man, who had sustain’d her parents (some time since dead) by her labour, and has for many years refus’d marriage, or to receive any assistance from the parish, besides yᵉ little hermitage my lady gives her rent free: she lives on fourepence a day, which she gets by spinning; says she abounds and can give almes to others, living in greate humility and content, without any apparent affectation or singularity; she is continualy working, praying, or reading, gives a good account of her knowledge in religion, visites the sick; is not in the least given to talke; very modest, of a simple not unseemly behaviour, of a comely countenance, clad very plaine, but cleane and tight. In sum she appeares a saint of an extraordinary sort, in so religious a life as is seldom met with in villages now-a-daies.”[[225]]
It is probable that the wages for spinning were advanced soon after this date, for Defoe writes in 1728 that “the rate for spinning, weaving and all other Manufactory-work, I mean in Wool, is so risen, that the Poor all over England can now earn or gain near twice as much in a Day, and in some Places, more than twice as much as they could get for the same work two or three Years ago ... the poor women now get 12d. to 15d. a Day for spinning, the men more in proportion, and are full of work.”[[226]] “The Wenches ... wont go to service at 12d. or 18d. a week while they can get 7s. to 8s. a Week at spinning; the Men won’t drudge at the Plow and Cart &c., and perhaps get £6 a year ... when they can sit still and dry within Doors, and get 9s. or 10s. a Week at Wool-combing or at Carding.”[[227]] “Would the poor Maid-Servants who choose rather to spin, while they can gain 9s. per Week by their Labour than go to Service at 12d. a week to the Farmers Houses as before; I say would they sit close to their work, live near and close, as labouring and poor People ought to do, and by their Frugality lay up six or seven shillings per Week, none could object or blame them for their Choice.”[[228]] Defoe’s statement as to the high rate of wages for spinning is supported by an account of the workhouse at Colchester where the children’s “Work is Carding & Spinning Wool for the Baymakers; some of them will earn 6d. or 7d. a Day.”[[229]] But there is no sign of these higher wages in the seventeenth century.
Continual recriminations took place between clothiers and spinsters, who accused one another of dishonesty in their dealings. A petition of the Worsted Weavers of Norwich and Norfolk, and the Bayes and Sayes makers of Essex and Suffolk, to the Council proposes: “That no spinster shall winde or reele theire yarne upon shorter reeles (nor fewer thriddes) than have bene accustomed, nor ymbessell away their masters’ goodes to be punished by the next Justices of the Peace.”[[230]]
And again in 1622 the Justices of the Peace of Essex inform the Council: “Moreover wee understand that the clothiers who put forthe their woolle to spinne doe much complaine of the spinsters that they use great deceit by reason they doe wynde their yarne into knottes upon shorter reeles and fewer threedes by a fifth part than hath beene accustomed. The which reeles ought to be two yardes about and the knottes to containe fowerscore threedes apeece.”[[231]]
On the other hand in Wiltshire the weavers, spinners and others complained that they “are not able by their diligent labours to gett their livinges, by reason that the Clothiers at their will have made their workes extreme hard, and abated wages what they please. And some of them make such their workfolkes to doe their houshold businesses, to trudge in their errands, spoole their chains, twist their list, doe every command without giving them bread, drinke or money for many days labours.”[[232]]
Report was made to the Council in 1631-2 that the reele-staffe in the Eastern Counties “was enlarged by a fift or sixt part longer than have bene accustomed and the poores wages never the more encreased.” Whereupon the magistrates in Cambridge agreed “that all spinsters shall have for the spinning and reeling of six duble knots on the duble reele or 12 on the single reele, a penny, which is more by 2d. in the shilling than they have had, and all labourers and other artificers have the like increase. Essex and Suffolk are ready to make the same increase provided that the same reel and rate of increase is used in all other counties where the trade of clothing and yarn-making is made, otherwise one county will undersell another to the ruin of the clothiers and the poor dependent on them. Therefore the Council order that a proportional increase of wages is paid according to the increase of the reel and the officers employed for keeping a constant reel to give their accounts to the Justices of the Assize.”[[233]]
Other complaints were made of clothiers who forced their workpeople to take goods instead of money in payment of wages. At Southampton in 1666 thirty-two clothiers, beginning with Joseph Delamot, Alderman, were presented for forcing their spinners “to take goods for their work whereby the poor were much wronged, being contrary to the statute, for all which they were amerced severally.” The records however do not state that the fine was exacted.[[234]]
Low as were the spinster’s wages even in seasons of prosperity, they, in common with the better-paid weavers endured the seasons of depression, which were characteristic of the woollen industry. The English community was as helpless before a period of trade depression as before a season of drought or flood. Employment ceased, the masters who had no sale for their goods, gave out no material to their workers, and men and women alike, who were without land as a resource in this time of need, were faced with starvation and despair.[[235]] The utmost social demoralisation ensued, and family life with all its valuable traditions was in many cases destroyed.
Complaints from the clothing counties state “That the Poor’s Rates are doubled, and in some Places trebbled by the Multitude of Poor Perishing and Starving Women and Children being come to the Parishes, while their Husbands and Fathers not able to bear the cries which they could not relieve, are fled into France ... to seek their Bread.”[[236]]
These conditions caused grave anxiety to the Government who attempted to force the clothiers to provide for their workpeople.[[237]]