From the year 1770 to 1788[327] a complete change had gradually been effected in the spinning of yarns. That of wool had disappeared altogether, and that of linen was also nearly gone; cotton, cotton, cotton, was become the almost universal material for employment. The hand-wheels, with the exception of one establishment, were all thrown into lumber-rooms, the yarn was all spun on common jennies, the carding for all numbers, up to 40 hanks in the pound, was done on carding engines; but the finer numbers of 60 to 80 were still carded by hand, it being a general opinion at that time that machine-carding would never answer for fine numbers. In weaving no great alteration had taken place during these eighteen years, save the introduction of the fly-shuttle, a change in the woollen looms to fustians and calico, and the linen nearly gone, except the few fabrics in which there was a mixture of cotton. To the best of my recollection there was no increase of looms during this period,—but rather a decrease.
I shall confine myself to the families in my own neighbourhood.[328] These families, up to the time I have been speaking of, whether as cottagers or small farmers, had supported themselves by the different occupations I have mentioned in spinning and manufacturing, as their progenitors from the earliest institutions of society had done before them. But the mule-twist now coming into vogue, for the warp, as well as weft, added to the water-twist and common jenny yarns, with an increasing demand for every fabric the loom could produce, put all hands in request of every age and description. The fabrics made from wool or linen vanished, while the old loomshops being insufficient, every lumber-room, even old barns, cart-houses, and outbuildings of any description were repaired, windows broke through the old blank walls, and all fitted up for loomshops. This source of making room being at length exhausted, new weavers' cottages with loomshops rose up in every direction; all immediately filled, and when in full work the weekly circulation of money, as the price of labour only, rose to five times the amount ever before experienced in this subdivision, every family bringing home weekly 40, 60, 80, 100, or even 120 shillings per week!!!
[322] Ibid. pp. 15-16.
[323] Radcliffe and his partner Ross.
[324] Ibid. pp. 20-21.
[325] Ibid. p. 41.
[326] Ibid. pp. 59-60.
[327] Ibid. pp. 61-62.
[328] Ibid. p. 65.