This zest for teaching spinning was partly due to the fact that the clothiers were represented on the local authorities, and often the extending of their business was hampered by the shortage of spinsters. But the flaw in all these arrangements was the fact that spinning remained in most cases a grant in aid, and could not, owing to the low wages paid, maintain a family, scarcely even an individual, on the level of independence.
Children could not live on 6d. a week, or grown women on 1s. or 1s. 8d. a week. And so the women, when they depended wholly upon spinning flax for their living, became paupers, suffering the degradation and loss of power by malnutrition which that condition implies.
In a few cases this unsatisfactory aspect of spinning was perceived by those who were charged with relieving the poor. Thus, when a workhouse was opened in Bristol in 1654, the spinning scheme was soon abandoned as unprofitable.[[272]] Later, when girls were again taught spinning, the managers of the school “soon found that the great cause of begging did proceed from the low wages for Labour; for after about eight months time our children could not get half so much as we expended in their provisions. The manufacturers ... were always complaining the Yarn was spun couarse, but would not advance above eightpence per pound for spinning, and we must either take this or have no work.” Finally the Governor took pains therefore to teach them to produce a finer yarn at 2s. to 3s. 6d. per pound. This paid better, and would have been more profitable still if the girls as they grew older had not been sent to service or put into the kitchen.[[273]]
Thomas Firmin, after a prolonged effort to help the poor in London, came to a similar conclusion. He explains that “the Poor of this Parish, tho’ many, are yet not so many as in some others; yet, even here there are many poor people, who receive Flax to spin, tho’ they are not all Pensioners to the Parish, nor, I hope, ever will be, it being my design to prevent that as much as may be; ... there are above 500 more out of other Parishes in and about the City of London; some of which do constantly follow this Employment, and others only when they have no better; As, suppose a poor Woman that goes three dayes a Week to Wash or Scoure abroad, or one that is employed in Nurse-keeping three or four Months in a Year, or a poor Market-woman, who attends three or four Mornings in a Week with her Basket, and all the rest of the time these folks have little or nothing to do; but by means of this spinning are not only kept within doors ... but made much more happy and chearful.”[[274]]
Firmin began his benevolent work in an optimistic spirit, “had you seen, as I have done many a time, with what joy and satisfaction, many Poor People have brought home their Work, and received their money for it, you would think no Charity in the World like unto it. Do not imagine that all the Poor People in England, are like unto those Vagrants you find up and down in the Streets. No, there are many Thousands whose necessities are very great, and yet do what they can by their Honest Labour to help themselves; and many times they would do more than they do but for want of Employment. Several that I have now working to me do spin, some fifteen, some sixteen, hours in four and twenty, and had much rather do it than be idle.”[[275]]
The work developed until “He employed in this manufacture some times 1600, some times 1700 Spinners, besides Dressers of flax, Weavers and others. Because he found that his Poor must work sixteen hours in the day to earn sixpence, and thought their necessities and labour were not sufficiently supplied or recompensed by these earnings; therefore he was wont to distribute Charity among them ... without which Charity some of them had perished for want, when either they or their children fell ill.... Whoever of the Spinners brought in two pound of Yarn might take away with ’em a Peck of Coals. Because they soiled themselves by carrying away Coals in their Aprons or Skirts ... he gave ’em canvass bags. By the assistance and order of his Friends he gave to Men, Women and Children 3,000 Shirts and Shifts in two years.”[[276]]
“In above £4000, laid out the last Year, reckning House-rent, Servants wages, Loss by Learners, with the interest of the Money, there was not above £200 lost, one chief reason of which was the kindness of several Persons, who took off good quantities ... at the price they cost me to spin and weave ... and ... the East India Co., gave encouragement to make their bags.” But the loss increased as time went on.... “In 1690 his design of employing the poor to spin flax was taken up by the Patentees of the Linen Manufacture, who made the Poor and others, whom they employed, to work cheaper; yet that was not sufficient to encourage them to continue the manufacture.... The poor spinners, being thus deserted, Mr. Firmin returned to ’em again; and managed that trade as he was wont; But so, that he made it bear almost its own Charges. But that their smaller Wages might be comfortable to them he was more Charitable to ’em, and begged for ’em of almost all Persons of Rank with whom he had intimacy, or so much as Friendship. He would also carry his Cloth to divers, with whom he scarce had any acquaintance, telling ’em it was the Poor’s cloth, which in conscience they ought to buy at the Price it could be afforded.”[[277]] ... Finally, “he was persuaded by some, to make trial of the Woollen Manufacture; because at this, the Poor might make better wages, than at Linen-work. But the price of wool advancing very much, and the London-Spinsters being almost wholly unskilful at Drawing a Woollen-Thread, after a considerable loss ... and 29 months trial he gave off the project.”[[278]]
Firmin’s experiment, corroborating as it does the results of other efforts at poor relief, shows that at this time women could not maintain themselves by the wages of flax spinning; still less could they, when widows, provide for their children by this means.
But though the spinster, when working for wages received so small a return for her labour, it must not be forgotten that flax spinning was chiefly a domestic art, in which the whole value of the woman’s labour was secured to her family, unaffected by the rate of wages. Therefore the value of women’s labour in spinning flax must not be judged only according to the wages which they received, but was more truly represented by the quantity of linen which they produced for household use.