CHAPTER I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COTTON MANUFACTURE
I
At the present time the British cotton industry, which is almost entirely localised in Lancashire and in the adjoining parts of Cheshire and Yorkshire, is the largest of the world’s textile industries.[24] The year 1770, immediately after Arkwright obtained his first patent, marks a well-defined division in its history. From this date expansion became conspicuous and the industry became definitely organised on the lines of the factory system. Previously expansion had been comparatively slow, and the domestic system of organisation had prevailed. The expansion of the cotton industry, therefore, is an outstanding example of the transition which is now known as the Industrial Revolution—a movement which, it is not too much to say, found its centre within the area in which the cotton industry is now concentrated, and from thence has spread to all the economically advanced countries of the world. In the following pages we shall be mainly concerned with the earlier period and with some aspects of the transition, and it is hoped that some light will be thrown upon the question as to what the transition involved, particularly as regards the organisation of the cotton industry, and the economic relationships of the classes engaged therein.
At what date cotton was first used in the manufacture of cloth in England is somewhat obscure. When Baines wrote his History of the Cotton Manufacture he had found only two references to the import of cotton-wool from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth centuries,[25] and it has generally been assumed that, during this period, it was imported only in small quantities, and used for minor purposes, such as candle-wicks. It has recently been shown, however, that, throughout the intervening centuries, cotton was a common article of import, figuring in the customs at many English ports,[26] and while as yet there is little evidence as to its uses, the knowledge of its regular import suggests that it may have been put to more important uses than that just mentioned.
Cotton cloth, or cloth partly made of cotton, had been imported long before the sixteenth century, and, in the early years of that century, there is ample evidence of its import, as well as an increasing amount of evidence of the import of the raw material.[27] About the same time the word “cottons” as the name of a cloth manufactured in Lancashire becomes conspicuous. In 1514, in a statute regulating the manufacture of cloth, cottons are mentioned, but are excluded from its provisions, as they are from the provisions of a similar statute twenty years later.[28] Also Hakluyt records the fact that, between the years 1511 and 1534, cottons were included among the cloth exports of the country,[29] and about the year 1538 we get Leland’s reference: “Bolton upon Moore Market stondith most by cottons and cowrse yarne. Divers villages in the Mores about Bolton do make cottons.”[30]
Until the middle of the century it appears that the manufacture of cottons was unregulated, but in 1551 a comprehensive statute was passed relating to the manufacture of cloth throughout the country, and “all and everie cottonnes called Manchester Lancashire and Cheshire Cottonnes” and “all cloths called Manchester Rugges otherwise named Friezes” were included within its scope.[31] By the regulations of this statute, the lengths, breadths and weights of these cloths were fixed, and also the amount of stretching to which they could be subjected. After this time the regulations were continued and modified in numerous statutes enacted during the remainder of the sixteenth century and in the early seventeenth century.
The next important statute affecting the Lancashire cloth industry, however, was the Weavers’ Act of 1555.[32] The main purpose of this Act was to prevent the increase of clothiers outside corporate towns, and, to secure this end, country clothiers were forbidden to have more than one loom each in their possession, while country weavers were limited to two looms, and also to two apprentices. Every weaver had to serve a seven years’ apprenticeship, and no person not already engaged in weaving or in causing to be woven any kind of broad white woollen cloth was allowed to begin, except in towns or in places where such cloth had been commonly made for the last ten years.
When the Act was passed, York, Cumberland, Northumberland and Westmorland were exempted from its provisions, but Lancashire was included. At this time the county was still largely a country district with a cloth industry that had not yet become famous, though there is much evidence that it was expanding. Consequently, had the Act remained unmodified, the development of the county and the expansion of its industry might have been seriously checked. Two years after its enactment, however, several additional counties were exempted from its provisions, except as regards apprenticeship, and Lancashire and Cheshire were included among them.[33]
From the beginning, considerable difficulty was experienced in regulating the manufacture of cloth in Lancashire. In the 1551 Act, the breadth allowed for Manchester cottons and friezes was narrower than for ordinary cloths, and when the Weavers’ Act was modified a provision was introduced which allowed them to be made in half-pieces. By 1566 more serious difficulties had been revealed. In an Act passed in that year,[34] it was stated that clothiers “inordinately seeking their own singular gains” were accustomed to carry away divers cottons, friezes, and rugs, and sell them before the Aulnager had fixed the Queen’s seal on them, and in some instances they had even counterfeited the seal. To meet these difficulties it was enacted that deputy Aulnagers should be appointed, to be situated at Manchester, Rochdale, Bolton, Blackburn and Bury. In view of the fact that, about this time, in addition to these places, the cloths were mentioned in connection with Salford, Leigh and Radcliffe,[35] it is probable that their manufacture was so extensive that, even if the clothiers had been more willing to conform to the regulations, the task of the Aulnager was too large to be efficiently performed.
But there were other difficulties. The clothiers protested that it was impossible for them to conform to the lengths, breadths, and weights laid down in the statutes without the undoing of great numbers of poor people commonly engaged in making the cloths, and further alterations had to be made. The alterations were mainly in the direction of allowing the cloths to be made considerably lighter, but ten years later a writer condemned all kinds of northern cloths for false dyeing, for shortness of weight and for stretching.[36]