There seems here no clue to explain the transition from a monopoly of gentlewomen conducting a profitable business on the lines of Family Industry to a disorganised Capitalistic Trade, resting on the basis of women’s sweated labour. The earlier monopoly was, however, probably favoured by the expensive nature of the materials used, and the necessity for keeping in touch with the merchants who imported them, while social customs secured an equitable distribution of the profits. With the destruction of these social customs and traditions, competition asserted its sway unchecked, till it appeared as though there might even be a relation between the costliness of the material and the wretchedness of the women employed in its manufacture; for the women who span gold and silver thread were in the same stage of misery.
Formerly women had been mistresses in this class of business as well as in the Silk Trade, but a Proclamation of June 11th, 1622, forbade the exercise of the craft by all except members of the Company of Gold Wire Drawers.
Under this proclamation the Silver thread of one Anne Twiseltor was confiscated by Thomas Stockwood, a constable, who entered her house and found her and others spinning gold and silver thread. “The said Anne being since married to one John Bagshawe hath arrested Stockwood for the said silver upon an action of £10, on the Saboth day going from Church, and still prosecuteth the suite against him in Guild Hall with much clamor.”[[289]] Bagshawe and his wife maintained that the silver was sterling, and therefore not contrary to the Proclamation. Stockwood refused to return it unless he might have some of it. Therefore they commenced the suit against him.
Probably few, if any, women became members of the Company of Gold Wire Drawers, and henceforward they were employed only as spinners. Their poverty is shown by the frequency with which they are mentioned as inmates of tenement houses, which through overcrowding became dangerous to the public health. It was reported to the Council for example, that Katherine Barnaby “entertayns in her house in Great Wood Streate, divers women kinde silver spinners.”[[290]]
These poor women worked in the spinning sheds of their masters, and thus the factory system prevailed already in this branch of the textile industry; the costliness of the fabrics produced forbade any great expansion of the trade, and therefore the Masters were not obliged to seek for labour outside the pauper class.
The Curate, Churchwardens, Overseers and Vestrymen of the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, drew up the following statement: “There are in the said Parish, eighty five sheds for the spinning Gilt and Silver Thread, in which are 255 pair of wheels.”
| The Masters with their Families amount unto | 581 |
| These imploy poor Parish-Boys and Girls to the number of | 1275 |
| There are 118 master Wire-Drawers, who with their wives, Children and Apprentices, make | 826 |
| Master weavers of Gold and Silver Lace and Fringes | 106 |
| Their Wives, Children, Apprentices and Journey Men amount unto | 2120 |
| Silver and Gold Bone-Lace makers, and Silver and Gold Button makers with their Families | 1000 |
| Windsters, Flatters of Gold and Silver and Engine Spinners with their Families | 300 |
| ──── | |
| Total | 6208 |
They continue: “The Poor’s Rate of the Parish amounts to near Four Thousand Pounds per annum.... The Parish ... at this present are indebted One Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Pounds. Persons are daily removing out of the Parish, by Reason of this heavy Burthen, empty Houses increasing. If a Duty be laid on the manufacture of Gold and Silver wyres the Poor must necessarily be increased.”[[291]]
Such a statement is in itself proof that Gold and Silver Thread making ranked among the pauper trades in which the wages paid must needs be supplemented out of the poor rates.