[174] Manchester Mercury, 3rd April 1759.
[175] History of Trade Unionism (1911), p. 44.
[176] Ibid., p. 28. The first instances given by Mr. and Mrs. Webb from The Journals of the House of Commons of combinations in this district are in 1717. Earlier instances appear in 1706 from Taunton and Bristol. In the Taunton petition it is stated “that within 4 or 5 years” weavers in most towns where woollen manufactures are made have formed themselves into clubs (J.H.C., xv., p. 312).
[177] Industrial Organisation in the XVIth and the XVIIth Centuries, pp. 51, 58-61, 123, 135, 198-199, 208-210, 229-234.
[178] Manchester Mercury, 7th August 1781.
[179] Ibid., 11th September 1781.
[180] Manchester Mercury, 2nd October 1781. In addition to the smallware weavers there is evidence of organisation in the following trades before 1790: silk weavers, hatters, calico and fustian printers, cotton-spinners, and paper-makers. The hatters were presented with the “document” as early as 11th February 1777 (Manchester Mercury).
[181] For “putting-out” system, see Radcliffe, Origin of Power Loom Weaving (1828), pp. 13, 16, 68. Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England Anterior to the Application of Steam (1833), p. 17.
[182] In Mr. Percival’s Letter to a Friend the following passage appears which is none the less informative because it is satirical: “Another objection against me in common with other gentlemen, is, that we envy these check-makers; really, sir, I wonder what any country gentleman can be supposed to envy them for! Is it their houses? What country gentleman has reason to envy the possessor of a house of four, five, or six rooms of a floor with warehouses under and warping rooms over?... Is it their furniture? See one room drest out like a baby house.... Is it their equipages? Surely no, when one sees their chariots or post-chaises, with a pair of callender tits, and the callender lad for coachman, it must set any spectator a-laughing at the grotesque, did not the honest horses by hanging down their heads shew that they were ashamed of their employment. Is it their cookery? Here indeed I am almost at a stand to find a reason, which a Manchester check-maker will allow for a good one, why the country gentlemen do not envy their cookery; but on recollection I have one; they must allow it as a maxim, that the heart grieves not at what the eye sees not; and no country gentleman that I have ever heard of, could ever yet certify what was for dinner in the house of a Manchester check-maker. The reason their good wives believe we envy them their cookery, is, that when they move into the country for some weeks in the summer, the cook is too covetous to move his shop after them, and, as they know not how to get in their own families, anything more than plain boiled or roast, they are wise enough to believe nobody knows more, and because they are half starved whilst they are out of the town of Manchester, imagine there is no good livelihood anywhere else. Is it their fine clothes? Upon my honour I know many country gentlemen better dressed. Is it their handsome perriwigs? to comfort us country folks, I know few with worse heads ...” (pp. 9-10).
[183] Infra, p. 61.