Judicial Procedure
As of 1679, no man could be held in prison but on a charge or conviction of crime or for debt. Every prisoner on a criminal charge could demand as a right from the Court of the King's Bench the issue of a writ of "habeas corpus" which bound his gaoler to produce the prisoner and the warrant on which he was imprisoned for review as to legality. This forced trials to be speedy, which they had not hitherto been. Now it was impossible for the Crown to detain a person for political reasons in defiance of both Parliament and the courts, as Charles I had done. The writ was suspended in times of war and domestic unrest: 1689,1696, 1708.
In 1670, William Penn was arrested for sedition for delivering a sermon in London, contrary to the statute that only the Church of England could conduct meetings for worship. The jurors would not convict him, so were gaoled and fined by the justices. The jurors filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Court of Common Pleas, which held in their favor. Thereafter the English jury had full independence to decide to verdicts. By court decision of 1679, jurors were held not to be responsible to the justice for their verdict.
After 1688, hearsay was inadmissible as evidence, which Coke had recommended. The old system of original writs was abandoned, and the general concept or a wrong to person or property took its place.
A person who was sergeant at law, counselor at law, barrister, advocate, attorney, solicitor, proctor, clerk, or notary in the courts had to take the required oaths of allegiance and supremacy.
As of 1692, persons outlawed could appear by attorney as well as in person to argue reversal of such outlawry, except in cases of treason and felony.
As of 1696, persons accused of high treason where there might be corruption of the blood or for misprison [concealing knowledge] of such treason had to be taken before a grand jury for indictment within three years of the offense. Those indicted or outlawed for such were given a copy of the whole indictment, but not the names of witnesses, at least five days before trial in order to prepare their defense. They could have a copy of the panel of jurors at least two days before trial. They could be represented in their defense by not more than two counsel learned in the law and assigned by the court. Their counsel had free access to them at all reasonable hours. They could make proof through lawful witnesses under oath. In a trial of commoners for their lives, a jury of twelve freeholders had to all agree on acquittal or conviction. In a trial of a peer, the others peers in Parliament determined the outcome by a majority vote.
Jurors were required to have at least 20 pounds income from freehold land or rents in fee, fee tail, or for life. This increase in the quality of the jury enabled it to better discern the issues in dispute.
Jury sympathy was determined by the sheriff who chose the jury. So if a sheriff was popularly elected, as in London, he chose jurors who favored individual and corporate liberty. If the king selected the sheriff, he chose tories, who supported the Crown.
Issues of bastardy or lawfulness of marriage had to be tried by a jury.
The civil suit of trespass on the case has now branched into assumpsit, trover, deceit, negligence, and libel and slander. The latter supplements bad words punished by the local courts and defamation punished by the church courts. Trover becomes the normal mode of trying the title to moveable goods as the courts oblige the defendant to answer the charge of conversion without permitting him to dispute the loss and finding of the goods by the plaintiff.
This is an example of the initiation of a suit by a writ for trespass on the case: The King to the sheriff &c. as in Trespass to show: wherefore (e.g.:___) he fixed piles across the water of Plim along which, between the Humber and Gaunt, there is a common passage for ships and boats, whereby a certain ship, with thirty quarters of malt of him the said A, was sunk under water, and twenty quarters of the malt of the price of one hundred shillings perished; and other wrongs &c. as in trespass.
This is an example of a writ for trespass on the case in assumpsit: The King to the sheriff greeting &c. as in Trespass to show: wherefore whereas he the Said X undertook well and competently to cure the right eye of the Said A, which was accidentally injured, for a certain sum of money beforehand received, he the same X so negligently and carelessly applied his cure to the said eye, that the said A by the fault of him the said X totally lost the sight of the said eye, to the damage of him the said A of twenty pounds, as he saith, and have there &c. wherefore whereas he the said X undertook to make and build three carriages for conveying victuals of him the said A to parts beyond the sea for a certain sum of money beforehand received, within a certain term between them agreed; he the said X did not take care to make and build the carriages aforesaid within the term aforesaid, by which he the said A hath wholly lost divers his goods and chattels, to the value of one hundred marks, which ought to have been conveyed in the carriages aforesaid, for want thereof to the great damage of him the said A as it is said: and have there &c.
This is an example of a writ for case on indebitatus assumpsit: The King to the sheriff &c. as in Trespass to show: for that, whereas the said X heretofore, to wit (date and place) was indebted to the said A in the sum of for divers goods wares and merchandises by the said A before that time sold and delivered to the said X at his special instance and request, and being so indebted, he the said X in consideration thereof afterwards to wit (date and place aforesaid) undertook and faithfully promised the said A to pay him the said sum of money when he the said X should be thereto afterwards requested. Yet the said X, not regarding his said promise and undertaking but contriving and fraudulently intending craftily and subtly to deceive and defraud the said A in this behalf, hath not yet paid the said sum of money or any part thereof to the said A (although oftentimes afterwards requested). But the said X to pay the same or any part thereof hath hitherto wholly refused and still refuses, to the damage of the said A of ------ pounds as it is said. And have you there &c.
This is an example of a writ for case for trover: The King to the sheriff greeting &c. as in Trespass to show: for that, whereas the said A heretofore to wit [date and place] was lawfully possessed as of his own property, of certain goods and chattels to wit, twenty tables and twenty chairs of great value to wit of the value of ___ pounds of lawful money of great Britain; and, being so possessed thereof he the said A afterwards, to wit (date and place aforesaid) casually lost the said goods and chattels out of his possession: and the same afterward, to wit (date and place aforesaid) came into the possession of the said X by finding; Yet the said X well knowing the said goods and chattels to be the property of the said A and of right to belong and appertain to him, but, contriving and fraudulently intending craftily and subtly to deceive and defraud the said A in this behalf, hath not as yet delivered the said goods and chattels, or any part thereof, to the said A (although often requested so to do) but so to do hath hitherto wholly refused and still refuses; and afterwards to wit (date and place aforesaid) converted and disposed of the said goods and chattels to his the said X's own use, to the damage of the said A of ____ pounds as it is said; and have you there &c.
The rigid writs with specific forms of action for common law cases started to fall into disuse. Later, trespass on the case bifurcates into misdemeanor and the tort of trespass.
Persons in prison on suspicion of treason could not be released on bail as of 1688.
If one of several defendants of a case was acquitted, all defendants recovered their costs from the plaintiffs. A person found guilty of malicious prosecution recovered his costs from his accuser.
Mercantile cases were decided in light of mercantile custom rather than according to the strict rules of the common law.
Merchants and traders could settle their trade disputes by arbitration, which decision could be enforced by court order.
After the Restoration, all legal decisions of the Commonwealth and Protectorate were confirmed subject to a right of appeal.
The Star Chamber was not restored, and Parliament assumed its control of the press. The King's Bench succeeded to most of the Star Chamber's jurisdiction. No longer could the Privy Council influence criminal cases and the general supervision of legal processes through the Star Chamber.
The High Commission court was not restored, but church courts were, but with depleted powers. They accepted subordination to the common law courts. Because the church's administration was inefficient and corrupt and its punishments inadequate, they gradually lost their power to the common law justices and Justices of the Peace. They had virtually no authority over laymen. They could still punish heresy, but lost jurisdiction over the law of libel and slander, which then were transformed by the civil courts, and over prostitution and scandalous lewdness. Local ordinances for suppression of brothels, which were run by madams, were founded on breach of the peace. In 1678, the death sentence was taken away from the church courts. In 1697, church sanctuary was abolished.
The county courts faded into insignificance, as the Justices of the Peace took on more jurisdiction.
In 1668, new justices were issued patents with "at pleasure" instead of "during good behavior" describing their tenure. Charles II and James II frequently dismissed justices not favorably disposed to the Crown. In 1697, they were to have fixed salaries instead of the profits of justice. By statute of 1701, justices' commissions were to be made with an established salary determined by Parliament and a tenure to last during good behavior. They could be removed only by the address of both Houses of Parliament. This gave them independence from the king. Their tenure lasted for the life of the monarch.
The chief justice could empower persons by commission to take affidavits from people in the country for court proceedings in Westminster.
Judgments were docketed so they could easily be found e.g. by heirs, executors, administrators, purchasers, and mortgagees.
Court judgments and fines could be challenged for error only within twenty years.
Court decisions were still appealable to the House of Lords. In 1668, Skinner v. East India Company held that the House of Lords could not exercise original jurisdiction in civil cases between commoners as it had claimed, but retained its appellate jurisdiction. In 1675, the House of Lords acquired the new judicial function of hearing appeals from the Chancery Court by virtue of the case of Shirley vs. Fagg.
Any gaol keeper allowing a prisoner to escape in return for money lost his office forever and had to forfeit 500 pounds.
The last burning of a woman as a penalty for an offense, which had been only occasional, was in 1688.
The last bill of attainder, which condemned a person to death, occurred in 1697.
The pillory was still in use.
Benefit of clergy was taken away from those who stole cloth or woolen manufactures from their drying racks or who embezzled military stores or ammunition worth at least 20s, or stole goods of over 5s. value from a dwelling house with a person therein put in fear, a dwelling house in daytime with a person therein, or by day or night a shop or warehouse.
A statute of 1661 gave jurisdiction to naval courts-martial to decide cases at sea, e.g. insubordination; failure to fight the enemy, a pirate, or rebels; not assisting a friend, mutiny, drunkenness, creating a disturbance to protest the quality of the food, quarreling, sleeping on watch, sodomy, murder, robbery, theft, and misdemeanors. Usually the penalty was to be determined by the courts-martial, but sometimes death was decreed.
In the American colonies, judges were still appointed by the royal governors and paid by the local legislatures. They still served at the pleasure of the king.
Chapter 18
The Times: 1702-1776
Dress was plainer than before. Gentlemen wore white linen shirts; waistcoats fitted at the waist and covering the trunk at least; long lawn ties wound around the throat and tied in front with the tails tucked in, knee-length coats that were wide in the skirts and in the sleeve cuffs and having large gold, silver, or bronze buttons which didn't reach to the buttonholes on the other side of the coat; knee breeches of cloth, knitted wool, thread, and silk; and silk stockings rolled up at the knee. Some shoes had metal buckles. Gold fobs with watches or seals hung from the breeches pocket. The clothes were made of silk, satin, or velvet and often in colors such as yellow, orange, scarlet, blue, violet, pink, and dull slate, and decorated with gold and silver trimmings. A slender sword was worn on the side. Short wigs, often powdered with heavily scented white or gray wheat flour, with rolls over the ears with hair tied at the back, were worn for formal occasions. Wigs were made of human, horse, goat, or cow hair, or mohair, worsted, silk, or wire. Sometimes feathers and cork were also used. The hat was three-cornered, and usually of beaver or dark felt. There was often a rosette or such to show one's political opinion. There were new colors and cuts of dress for every season. By 1750, wearing a sword was just a symbol of gentility. Gentlemen often had valets to help them dress. Ladies wore fitted full-length dresses held out by hoops with shoulders hidden, sometimes with a laced bodice with stays, and lace at the neck. The waistline fashion fluctuated high and low and in tightness. The dress could be brocade, satin, velvet, silk, etc. Some put jewels in their hair and had high elaborate hats with wide brims tilted forward. Hair was in ringlets at the side or dressed close to the head with a small top knot covered with a laced cap. They also wore wigs when dressing up, decorated with ribbons and artificial flowers. Hooded cloaks were used outdoors and hoods were used for sun or wind. They carried leather purses with gloves at elbow length. Both gentlemen and ladies wore cosmetics and face patches and used tooth powders, breath sweeteners, lip salves, and choice perfume. Some had false teeth of bone or ivory wired into place. They both had accessories such as fans, handkerchiefs, head scratchers, and elaborately designed snuff boxes, patch boxes, and perfume containers. Both men and women sniffed tobacco snuff but only men smoked. They walked with tall, elegant canes, and women also carried parasols. Hats were made of wool and hair of beaver, rabbit, or camel. Straw hats were worn in the summer. There were ready-made clothes and shoes, especially for children. Night gowns and night caps were worn to bed. About 1714, umbrellas for rain were introduced. They were made of waxed silk or taffeta. All but the poorest wore silk and lace. A prosperous countryman wore riding clothes consisting of breeches and boots, cut-away coat, and low top hat.
The highest class were the peers and peeresses of the House of Lords and their spouses and families. They were the nobility and held the high political offices, the high ranks in the army and navy, and owned large estates, usually scattered over the country. Some were lawyers or merchants. There was much intermarriage among these families. Indeed, many a noble family had salvaged its fortunes by marriage to a London merchant. The richest people in London were international merchants. These high class families lived in mansions with four or five living rooms, two to five acre gardens, and stables.
The next class were the gentry. Their family heads had land and were often Justices of the Peace. They were sometimes members of the House of Commons. The oldest son took over from his father, while the other had to find a living such as in the church, law, medicine, or trade. They usually lived in mansions.
The old yeoman class was disappearing due to their selling their land to larger landowners. Farming on a large scale was more productive.
The next class were the "middling sort". In this class were merchants, lawyers, substantial tenant farmers, smaller freeholders, millers, innkeepers, in town traders, shopkeepers (who now kept their wares inside and lived on the second floor), middlemen, clothiers, ironmongers, goldsmiths, grocers, linen drapers, apothecaries, school masters, clerks and civil servants, and customs and excise men. The town people lived in town houses of two stories plus an attic.
The last class were the manual workers. These were wage earners or independent craftsmen, farriers, rural smiths (who shod horses and made stair rails, window-bars, torch extinguishers, lamp irons, bells, bolts, hinges, locks, and fire-grates), sawyers, carpenters, joiners, wheelwrights, nail makers, brick makers, plumbers (made lead cisterns, kitchen sinks, rainwater heads, drain pipes and lead flats for houses and ornaments), thatchers, spinners (silk, flax, hemp, wool, hair), dyers, wool combers, weavers, shoemakers, hat makers, belt and buckle makers, dressmakers, milliners (hats, caps, bonnets, cloaks, hoods, muffs), feather workers, button makers, lace makers, steel pin makers, brewers, cutlery makers, soap makers, candle makers (made from beeswax, tallow, mutton-fat, or beef-drippings), comb makers, barber/hairdressers (shaved, cut hair, made wigs and braids, and let blood), curriers, leather workers, carpet weavers, paper makers, tin-plate makers, printers, enamel workers, braziers and coppersmiths (made kettles, saucepans, canisters, milk pails, lanterns, candle boxes, candle sticks, and lamp lighters), basket makers, jewelers (made rings, perfumes, match boxes, buckles, and tops of canes), watch and clock makers, type founders, letter cutters, trunk and chest makers, cabinet makers, saddlers, coach body builders, coach carriage makers, shipwrights, rope makers, and sail makers. These workers typically worked in their stone or brick houses in a rural setting, with gardens, a cow, a horse, pigs, and poultry around them on 2-6 acres. They now ate wheaten bread instead of rye bread, much meat and cheese, and drank tea. These people also worked in the harvesting of grain. Some consolidation of work was starting. For instance, the weaver, who had furnished himself with warp and weft, worked it up, and brought it to market himself was being displaced by weavers who worked under supervision for one merchant in a town on looms the merchant had acquired. Many women and children were so employed. It was not unusual for a man to work 13 hours a day for 6 days a week. Real wages were higher than at any time since the mid-1400s. The wage earners were well above the subsistence level as long as trade was good. Working men could now afford leather shoes and white bread. But eventually, as the employer came to realize how dependent the weaver had become on him, wages tended to fall. In 1757 a Gloucester weaver, with his wife to help him, could earn, when work was good, from 13s. to 18s. a week. A few years later, he could only earn about 11s. A woman spinner earned 10-15d. a day in 1764, but 3-5d. in 1780. In the same period, men's wages fell from 17d. to 10d. a day. Only certain workers, whose special occupation needed greater skill, e.g. the wool-combers, whose wool was longer and of better quality than carded wool, and shearers, were better paid. In 1770, wool combers made 13s. a week; their wage was about the same all over the country because they traveled form town to town in search of work and always supported each other. Also in 1770, Newcastle miners earned 15s. a week, Sheffield cutlers 13s.6d. a week, a Rotherham blacksmith 13s. a week, a furnace keeper at Horsehay about 12s. a week, a Staffordshire potter from 8-12s., a Witney blanket weaver or a Wilton carpet weaver 11s. or more a week, a Manchester cotton weaver from 7-10s. a week, and a Leeds cloth weaver about 8s. In this class also were ploughmen, cowmen, dairymaids of the bigger farms. They had cottages of wood, clay, and straw, with clay floors and low ceilings, and a divided ground floor. A few had homes built of stone, covered with slate or thatch.
Wages of industry were higher than those of agriculture. In 1770, a day laborer earned 5-6s. a week in winter and 7-9s. in summer (without board or lodging). In the short harvest time, he could earn 12s. a week.
Lastly were the mass of the population of London: hordes of laborers who depended on casual employment and could be dismissed at will.
About half the population had no resources but their labor, which was usually unskilled and lowly paid. In good times they had just enough to feed themselves.
The gap between rich and poor became greater. Marriage remained a main way to wealth. Also, one trained in the law could aspire to have a successful career in high political office, which also brought wealth. But there was less social mobility than in the previous century and many landed families were consolidating their position. They expected their oldest son to take and preserve the family estate. Industrialists who had made a fortune for example in steel, cotton, coal mining, porcelain, and merchants who wanted to turn themselves into landed gentlemen found it very difficult to buy such estates. Old dissenter families, Quakers in particular, who were highly esteemed as businessmen, as industrialists, and as model employers were excluded from the Anglican landowning society. Rich tradesmen, artists, actors, and writers found it difficult to buy substantial houses in the small market towns and countryside because of an entrenched hierarchical atmosphere there that didn't exist in London. The only gentlemen who were in household service were librarians, tutors, or chaplains. They ate with the family and did not consider themselves servants. Servants were kept more at a distance. By the 1750s the servant class was clearly defined. Their quarters were moved to the basement of the house and they ate together in the kitchen. But some householders still had special occasions when everyone would eat together in the dining room, with the servants at one end of the table. In 1767 about one tenth of the population in London had servants. Even bricklayers and milk sellers had a servant. Most families had just one servant. Most wives employed some other woman or child to help in washing and scouring or in the minding of the children.
London had grown beyond the locations of its walls around the City. London stretched ten miles along the Thames, and was three miles wide in the center. On the east of the City was the port and industry. The west side ended at Hyde Park and Regent's Park and was residential. In 1710 it was still possible to shoot woodcock in Regent Street. In 1750, Westminster Bridge was opened. In 1760, the City walls were taken down to ease congestion. The typical London house, usually brick, was on a rectangular plan and had a basement to utilize all the space possible. Walls were now more covered with hung damask, brocade, silk, and wallpaper or plain paint rather than by wood wainscoting. There were pictures on them. On the first floor was a front hall or parlor and a back parlor. One of these parlor rooms was the most important room, where the family entertained or spent leisure time. In it were sofas, armchairs, and stools of mahogany or white gilded wood. They were upholstered with damask or needlework. Imported mahogany was replacing the favorite walnut that had replaced oak. Much wood was inlaid with a variety of other types of woods. There was also a carved tripod table, china table, card table, and perhaps bookcases and/or tea-table. Furniture with original designs made by the cabinet-maker Chippendale was available. His genius was in combining various motifs into one harmonious design. Cabinet makers had to keep abreast of his standards and to imitate them to conform with their customers' orders. Cabriole legs with claw and ball feet came into fashion with Queen Anne about 1712. Between windows were tall mirrors. There were pictures on the walls. From 1760, glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling to reflect candlelight coming from standing candlesticks or glazed hanging lanterns with brass frames. The fireplace had an elaborate mantel. The fire was kept going all day. It was lit by a tender box, which was unreliable. An iron fireback was behind the fire. The firewood was placed on andirons. Fire grates were used from about 1712. At a corner of the building was added a closet. On the second floor was a dining room, continuation of the closet below, and a drawing room, dressing room, or bedroom, and perhaps a study or music room with harpsichord. The dining room had a fireplace, curtains over the windows looped up at the cornices, one or more mahogany tables, a set of mahogany chairs with leather or hair- cloth seats fixed with brass nails (perhaps with some sort of metal springing), two mahogany sideboards with marble tops, cupboards or shelves or cabinets with displays of china porcelain, a wine-cooler, a dumb-waiter, and a folding leather screen. The china, which was displayed, was mostly imported, but there was some English china. Later, there was famous Wedgwood stoneware and pottery with bright, unfading glaze, or with dull black and red surfaces, biscuit ware of pale green, blue or purple, upon which white designs stood out like cameos. They came from the pottery factory at Staffordshire founded by potter Josiah Wedgwood in 1769. There were silver and pewter plates and serving pieces, silver candlesticks, and silver knives, spoons, and two and three pronged forks, glass saltcellars from 1724, and fingerbowls from which one rinsed one's mouth or cleaned one's fingers after dinner which were made of glass from about 1760. On the third floor were bedrooms and a nursery. In the bedrooms, there was a high bed with curtains, canopies, piles of blankets and pillows, and steps up to it; wardrobe; chairs; a hand wash stand; chests of drawers; writing bureau; dressing table with a couple drawers and a mirror; swing standing mirror; tin rush candle canister; and night commode. Children and servants slept on low wooden bedsteads. Walls were stucco, a form of cement that could be sculpted, or paneled or hung with silk and printed paper. Servants, such as the page and footmen, slept in the attic and perhaps in the kitchen or cellar. There was a wood staircase for the family and a back staircase for the servants. The floors and stairs were protected with carpeting. Servants had no right to free time or to holidays. The kitchen was in the basement or in a covered shed in the back. It had an open fire and a tin oven. The cold water tap over the stone sink could supply cold water from a cistern in the basement or hand-pumped to a roof cistern through wooden pipes at very low pressure at stated hours for a fee. There was a wash shed in back. Water pumped from the Thames into underground pipes was thus distributed to householders three times a week. Some water came from a well or spring, rain, and street water sellers. Water carriers were still employed at set fees. Water was kept in lead cisterns. The wealthy had basement cisterns filled by a commercial company. The free public conduits of water were out of use by 1750. The pollution of the Thames River grew, but it was still a salmon river. The front door of the house had two strong bolts on the inside and a heavy chain. The windows could be shuttered and barred. There were sash windows with cords and brass pulleys. At the back of the house was a garden and perhaps a coach house or stables. The latrine was usually not in the house, but somewhere in the back garden area. Under it was a brick drain leading to a public sewer or to a cesspool. Smelly gases arose from it. Sometimes people gathered such waste up to sell to farmers returning home in an otherwise empty wagon. In 1760, patented inside toilets began to be used. A watchmaker named Alexander Cummings patented in 1775 the water-closet, which had a stink trap u-bend behind which, after flushing, water resided and prevented the backflow of noxious sewer gas. Its pans and overhead cisterns were made of pottery. They were supported by wood structures. There were better cements for building. Chinese porcelain, embroidery, and lacquer work were popular. Landscaping to reproduce an idealized country scene replaced formal gardens. Furniture and landscaped gardens were often done in a Chinese style. Foreign trees were imported.
Many of the well-to-do now lived in districts without as well as within the city limits. Many streets east of the City were named after the governing families whose estates were there. Their mansions had interior columns, archways, marble halls and fireplaces, carving, gilding, rich colors, and high ornamented ceilings. They each had a picture gallery, a library, stables with coachmen, grooms, and stableboys, and a still-room for concocting liquors and cordials such as cherry brandy, sloe gin, and elderberry wine. Medicine and scents were also developed in the still-room. Hands were washed in bowls held up by wooden stands. There were built-in bathtubs, but they usually lacked hot and cold running water, so hot water usually had to carried up to them. In these mansions, there were many private parties and balls. The standard for politeness here was high and gentlemen were expected to keep their tempers. This came about because impoliteness could easily lead to a quarrel and then a duel. The pistol was replacing the sword as the weapon of choice for duels. Good manners developed for all occasions, with much less swearing and less rudeness. By gentlemen's agreements, men did favors for each other without a monetary price, but with the expectancy of a favor in return. The love of one man for another was recognized as the highest and noblest of human passions. People of high social standing left their country estates to spend the winter season in their townhouses in London with its many recreations such as receptions, routs, levies, masquerades, balls, dinner parties, clubs, pleasure gardens, theaters, shops, shows, taverns, and chocolate and coffee houses. Coffee houses provided Turkish coffee, West Indian sugar and cocoa, Chinese tea, Virginia tobacco, and newspapers. They were frequented by learned scholars and wits, dandies, politicians, and professional newsmongers. Men of fashion often engaged in wagers and gambling at their clubs and coffee houses. There were wagers on such matters as the longevity of friends and prominent people, fertility of female friends, wartime actions, and political matters. Carriage by sedan-chair was common. Gentlemen often had valets. In 1776, Buckingham House was bought as a palace for the royal couple.
People from different parts of London differed in ways of thinking, conversation, customs, manners, and interests. For instance there were sections where sailors lived, and where weavers, watchmakers, and cow keepers each lived and worked. There were many specialized craftsmen who worked with their own tools in their own shops or houses, for some superior who had contact with the market and who supervised the final processes of manufacture. These included the goldsmiths, upholsterers, coach makers, saddlers, and watchmakers, all of whom had many dependents. The watchmakers had specialists making wheels, pinions, springs, hands, dials, chains, keys, caps, and studs in their own houses. The type of industrial organization most common in London was that in which work was given out to be done in the homes of the workers: the putting out system. Some industries, such as watchmaking, silk weaving, and shoemaking were on both a putting out system and a system of an apprenticeship to journeymen working on piece work. Shoes were made to order and ready made. The customer was measured in a shop, the clicker cut out the upper leathers, which were given to the closer to be closed, and then to the maker for the sole and heel to be put on. Another class of shoemaker worked alone or with an apprentice in a garret, cellar, or stall, using pieces of leather cut out for him by the currier or leather cutter. London industries included the making of bread, beer, spirits, and vinegar; sugar refining; tobacco refining and snuffmaking; spinning and/or weaving of woolens, worsteds, silk ribbons, tape, and cloth; and making printed calico, clothes, linens, laces, tassels, fancy embroidery, stays, stockings, hats, shoes, leather goods (boots, shoes, hats, gloves, harnesses, and saddles), jewelry, glass, candles, tapestry, musical instruments, cutlery, furniture, paint, varnish, paper, tools, swords, guns, heavy artillery, ships, sails, rope, carriages, precious and base metalwares such as brass and pewter ware, and printer's ink and glue; printing; and publishing. Surgical instruments made included straight and curved knives and probes, lancets, scissors, spatulas, trepans (for cutting bone), and cupping cases. Optical instruments made included eyeglasses, telescopes, and microscopes. In 1727 eyeglasses were held in place by frames that went over the ears, which replaced unreliable cords over the ears and leather straps tied behind one's head. Also made were nautical instruments, quadrants, sundials, sectors, globes, scales, orrerys [model solar systems], and air pumps.
In London, the old distinction between craftsmen and laborers was blurred by the existence of trades which employed workmen under a skilled foreman instead of journeymen who had served an apprenticeship. These trades were, on a large scale, new. Among the most important of these trades were the distillers and brewers of liquors, the tobacconists and snuff makers, the sugar refiners and soap boilers, the vinegar makers, and makers of varnish, of glue, of printers' ink, and of colors. The latest chemical theories and the chemical explanation of dying brought about the invention of new colors and new processes in dying cloth. Workers in these trades were considered as laborers, but their wages were high and their positions relatively secure. They learned their jobs by doing them. The older trades of a similar character, such as tallow melters and chandlers, wax chandlers, fellmongers, and the tanners, employed journeymen.
There were buildings for boiling and distilling turpentine, for casting brass or iron, and for making glass for chemical works for sale.
The skilled artisan who worked at home and either made goods for a master or sold to the trade verged into the shop keeping class. On the other hand, the lowest type of shopkeeper, the chandler, the dealer in old iron, the tripe shop, the milk retailer, the keeper of a cook shop or a green cellar belonged to the class of casual and unskilled labor. The lowly chimney sweep, paid 6d. a day, served an apprenticeship as a boy, and then was his own master.
The watermen and lightermen, by virtue of their fellowship and their apprenticeship and often the ownership of a boat, belonged to the class of skilled laborers. Craftsmen in the building trades and paviours had their laborers as smiths had their hammermen to do the heavy work at laborers' pay. The street ragpickers, the ballad sellers, and the match sellers belonged to the class of beggars.
Working women in London in 1750 were employed in domestic service: 25%, nursing and midwifery: 12%, cleaning and laundry: 10%, vitiating: 9%, shopkeeping: 8%, hawking: 6%, and textiles: 5%. Those employed in domestic service were mostly young women who later married. Some women were schoolteachers, innkeepers, or manufacturers, which were middle-class employments. Many women in the realm engaged in a variety of occupations from fanmaking and hairdressing to catering, and, as widows, often carried on their husband's trade, including bookselling, hatmaking, building or ironmongery.
Although shops still had small frontages of about 15 feet and the windows had small panes of bottle glass which partly obscured the view of the goods, there were magnificent shops with large windows displaying fine goods, bookshops, and print shops with prints of political satire with caricatures. The shops were generally open six days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and years later to 10 p.m. In 1675 Josiah Wedgwood opened a showroom in London for his high quality pottery from Staffordshire. Consumption was on a mass scale, many people buying what they wanted instead of just what they needed. There were circulating libraries, public concert halls, and professional boxing matches. At coffee houses, chocolate houses, and taverns, people played at dice and cards, gambled, talked politics and read daily newspapers, in which there was advertising, reports of marriages and deaths, grain prices, and book reviews. Different professions and classes and groups, such as the whigs, the tories, classical scholars, scientists, clergymen, intellectuals, actors, writers, and journeymen of particular crafts, had their favorite meeting places. Coffee houses reflected the character of their neighborhoods. They acted as postal centers, lost property offices, business addresses, physicians' consulting rooms, lawyers' and merchants' business transactions, matrimonial agencies, masonic lodges, auction rooms, and gambling dens. Some retained a supply of prostitutes. Many taverns had a rentable private room for the better-off to drink wine, have meals, meet friends, gamble, do business, and hold meetings of societies and clubs, especially political clubs. From this beginning sprang private clubs such as the Blue Stocking Club in 1750 and the Literary Club in 1764; Lloyd's for sale and insurance of ships in 1771; and the stock exchange in 1773. The Blue stocking Club was established by women who organized conversational parties with guests of intellect and wit. There was opera, playhouses, concerts usually with Georg Handel's oratorios such as The Messiah or the foreigners Bach and Haydn, tea-gardens, fire works, balls, masquerades, wax works, beer shops, and bawdy houses, except on Sunday. There were straight plays, comic operas, and melodramas. Three-dimensional sets replaced the two- dimensional backdrop. Plays containing thinly veiled satires on politicians were becoming popular. Some plays had crude and licentious material. Theaters still shared a close association with brothels. Unlicensed theaters were closed down by a statute of 1737, but most came to acquire patronage to get a license. This shaped the development of drama in London for a century.
The Beggar's Opera depicting an immoral society unable to master its bandits was written by John Gay as a powerful attack on a government which most of London hated. With its many ballads it became very popular. One such ballad goes:
"Through all the employments of life
Each neighbor abuses his brother;
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife;
All professions be-rogue one another.
The Priest calls the Lawyer a cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine;
And the Statesman, because he's so great,
Thinks his trade as honest as mine."
Another is:
"A Fox may steal your hens, sir,
A Whore your health and pence, sir,
Your daughter rob your chest, sir,
Your wife may steal your rest, sir,
A thief your goods and plate.
But this is all but picking,
With rest, pence, chest and chicken,
It ever was decreed, sir,
If Lawyer's hand is fee'd, sir,
He steals your whole estate."
The Thames was crowded with sailing boats and with a line of boats waiting to unload. Foreign and native ships lined the river banks in rows. Theft of cargo from docked ships was still a problem and pirates were still executed at low tide on gallows. Londoners went to the bridges across the Thames to breathe fresh air. London air was so smoky and polluted by coal-burning in kitchens and factories that it gave a cough to newcomers. The river was so polluted by the sewers by 1760 that all the swans and most of the fish had disappeared. A Mansion House was built for the Mayor in 1753. The king's zoo had ten lions, one panther, two tigers, and four leopards. Deer hunting in Hyde Park was now confined to its northwest corner, which was enclosed for the king, who occasionally hunted here. Elsewhere in the park were laid out walks and fountains. Gardens were now natural instead of formal. The streets were usually crowded with people and traffic. Many people traveled by sedan chair. On the streets were barrows with goods such as lace, threads, fruits, and chickens; beggars, ballad singers, musicians, bands, street dancers, apple women, piemen, muffin men, fruit sellers, nut sellers, pudding sellers, milk maids selling milk from buckets, milk sold directly from the cow, vendors of asses' milk, hawkers, newspaper boys, scavengers with carts, postal collectors, lamplighters on their ladders, wenches, chimney sweeps, rat catchers, pick pockets, swaggering bravados, strolling strumpets, brawling watermen, card sharps, overdressed beaux, dancing dogs, and acrobatic monkeys. Each trade had it own call. Billingsgate open-air market was now exclusively for the sale of fish. Small tradesmen such as dairymen, butchers, bakers, fishmongers, and chandlers delivered to regular customers food bought from distributing centers. Workers by necessity lived near their place of work because there was no cheap transport and walking through the streets after dark was unpleasant and dangerous. Hours of work for most craftsmen was from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., six days a week.
It was common for working class families in London to live in a single room of their house and rent the rest, furnished, to people of different degrees of prosperity and even of different social grades. Servants and apprentices slept in the kitchen, the shop, or the garret. The very poor, such as casual laborers and street sellers, silk winders, charwomen, usually lived in damp cellars subject to floods from excessive rain, or in cold and windy garrets. Tenancy was usually on a weekly basis because of the general uncertainty of life and trade. Conditions were so cramped that cabinet makers made beds which masqueraded in the day time as tables, bureaus, cupboards, or bookcases. The very poor slept in common lodging houses, sleeping uncovered on the floor, twenty to a room. Some poor families slept in small hovels made of mud and straw with their pigs, domestic fowl, dogs, and even asses and horses. Homeless children slept on the streets. All classes lived so much at coffee houses, alehouses or clubs, which they often used as their addresses, that house room was a secondary consideration. There was an alehouse on almost every street in London to provide cheap food and beer, lodging, employment information, credit, newspapers, tobacco, and meeting places for tradesmen. Some alehouses were recognized employment agencies for certain trades, such as the hatters, smiths, carpenters, weavers, boot and shoe makers, metal workers, bakers, tailors, plumbers, painter and glaziers, and bookbinders. They were often run by one of the trade, retired or otherwise. Some alehouses catered to criminals and prostitutes. For cheap and simple eating there were chophouses, cookshops, and beef steak houses.
There were about 10,000 English immigrants a year to London in the 1700s. They were mostly young people. London needed many immigrants because of its high death rate. Over twenty London people a week died from starvation alone; they were mostly women. Only about one-fourth of London's population had been born in London. Especially welcome were sturdy country people for heavy manual labor, the better educated boys from the north for shops and offices, and the honest country people, as contrasted with London's poor, for domestic service. Girls mostly looked for domestic service, but were sometimes made the mistress of the housekeeper or steered into prostitution as soon as they entered the city. An ambitious young man would seek an apprentice job, work hard, flatter his master, and try to marry his master's daughter. It was easier to find a place to live in London than in the villages, though there was much overcrowding. Many shopkeepers and workshop owners in London were involved in leasing, purchases, and contracts.
Queen Anne was authorized by Parliament to build about 50 more churches in London and Westminster and their suburbs, to be paid for by a coal tax on imports into the port of London. Churches in London were to be rebuilt with money paid by funeral rates, rates for tolling the bells, and rates for the use of palls [altar cloths]. Queen Anne also appropriated all her revenues from the first fruits and tenths of ecclesiastical benefices: 16,500 pounds, to the clerical poor in 1704.
There were fewer quarrels among passersby on the London streets; men were less likely to wear their swords. But there were fist fights by common men which gathered crowds and occasioned betting. Most crime was petty theft, but mobs and riots were frequent, as there were no police. Watchmen and constables were often old and physically incapacitated. The watchmen were householders taking their turn. This duty of householders watching the streets had evolved from the ancient obligation of wards to provide men to guard the walls at night. But few wanted these jobs by which they could offend their neighbors. Many citizens paid a rate to be excused from watch and ward duty. Constables were often tavern keepers. Many riots were started when penal laws against the Catholics were repealed. They began with the cries of "no popery", but then targeted rich men's houses. Mobs sacked and pillaged at will, burned houses, and flung open the prisons to increase their numbers. There were political riots between Tories and Whigs. Working men still used violence to protect their livelihoods, such as destroying the lodgings and public houses of cheap immigrant labor such as the Irish. The stocking-knitters destroyed stocking-knitting frames so that the number of apprentices who could be employed would not reach the limit specified by its guild's regulations. Parish workhouse children also provided a cheap supply of labor which forced down the wages of the stocking knitters. In 1720 a statute banned wearing of calico after mobs tore calico garments off women. In 1765, thousands marched on Parliament and persuaded it to ban foreign silk imports. But when a mob destroyed engine-looms, the army was used against the rioters and two of them were hanged. This was the last major mob action. Around the Tower, there were still demagogues standing on upturned carts haranguing passing crowds. The Tower area was a favorite place for demonstrators, and for unemployed and dissatisfied workmen, particularly coal heavers and underpaid seamen protesting their low pay and poor living conditions. There was more crime, especially at night, now with organized bands of men or gangs of children. Bounty hunters made a lot of money catching offenders. In 1736, to deter the frequent robberies, burglaries, and other felonies at night, many glass lamps were set up in places determined by the mayor. They had to burn from sunset to sunrise. In 1736, a lighting rate was imposed by the City to pay for all night lighting all year by hired lamplighters. Anyone breaking or damaging the lights of London would forfeit 40s. for the first offense, 50s. for the second offense, and 3 pounds for the third offense. The aldermen had to contract to pay for lighting, trimming, snuffing, cleaning, supplying, maintaining, and repairing them. To pay for this system, citizens paid according to the amount of rent their holdings were worth. If they didn't pay, they could not vote.
Bad areas of thieves and prostitutes and the slums east of the City were gradually being replaced by warehouses and offices. In 1757, London Bridge was widened and the houses were cleared off it. There were lanes for carriages in the middle and for pedestrians on each side. Its arches were also widened to make the passage of vessels underneath easier. Lights were put on it to be lit all night. And watchmen were put on it for protection and safety of passengers. (This was paid for by tolls of 1/2 d. per horse, 1d. per carriage, and 2d.-1s. for vessels with goods passing underneath.) About 1762, a body of enterprising citizens secured private acts of Parliament which allowed them to levy a house tax in return for providing paving and lighting, which then greatly improved, as did sanitation. Sidewalks were raised between the street proper and the buildings, replacing the protective posts which had lined the roads. Flat stones were put in place of the pebbles on the roadway. Signs hanging in from of stores, which had blocked the sunlight, were placed flat in front of the buildings. This also made the streets more airy. The buildings were given numbered addresses and street names were placed on buildings. Loading and unloading could not exceed one hour. Nuisances like empty carts could be removed. Cranes used in warehouses had to be stored in unobtrusive places. One who drove on the foot pavement had to forfeit 10s. for the first offense, 20s. for the second offense, and 40s. for other offenses. Wells were dug and pumps erected for watering the streets. Pavements were to be repaired on complaint. Dust boxes and dust holes were built and had to be used for refuse awaiting pickup by the raker or else forfeit 10s. In 1762, the system of having every man responsible for cleaning the street in front of his door, which occasioned piles of rubbish in the central troughs of the streets waiting for the next rain to be washed away, was abandoned. But house occupants were required to keep the sidewalk in front of their house clean or else forfeit 2s. If one broke a light, he had to pay damages if it was accidental, and also 20s. if willful. Wards were to choose substantial inhabitants to be collectors for a year at a time to collect the rates, which were not to exceed 1s.6d. per pound of rents. If one declined to be a collector, he had to forfeit 50 pounds. There were special stands for hackney coaches, which were 12s.6d. for a day of twelve hours. Their regulations were extended to Sundays.
In London, the normal system of building was for builders to buy up leases, put up a new building, and sell it before the lease became due. The rules for party walls between buildings were made more stringent: 2 1/2 bricks thick in cellar, 2 bricks thick to the garret floor, and 1 1/2 bricks above the roofs or gutters. They had to be made of brick or stone. In 1772, rain water from roofs had to be carried to the streets in lead or other pipes that were affixed against the side of the building. In 1774, iron, copper, or other pipe or funnel for conveying smoke or steam were not to be near any inside timber, or in front of most any building or next to any public street, square, or court.
In the 1720s firefighters had to fill a tank on a wagon by hand with buckets. On top of the tank was a hose that could spray water high. London parishes were authorized to place upon the water pipes underground stop-blocks of wood with a plug and firecocks to go into such pipe at various distances so that there would be no loss in time in digging down to the pipes to get water to fight fires. Parishes were required to keep at known places, ladders and a large engine and a hand engine to throw up water to extinguish fires including one leather hose with socket fitting the plug or firecock, so that buckets would not be needed. The Sun Insurance Company was incorporated for fire insurance in 1711. Insurance offices were authorized to employ watermen with poles, hooks, and hatchets to be always ready at a call to extinguish fires.
No more than 12 sacks of meal, 12 quarters of malt, 750 bricks, or 1 chalder of coal per load on wagons or carts with wheels bound with [narrow] iron tire are allowed within ten miles of London or Westminster, or else forfeit one horse. This is to prevent decay of the roads.
For every wagon and cart in London, there must be a person on foot to guide it to prevent the maiming, wounding, and killing of people, especially the old and children, when drivers ride on their wagons and carts. Later, it was required that carts must display the name of the owner and be registered. Still later, there was a penalty of 10s. for not having a person on foot to guide any cart. Later still, in 1757, if a new owner of a cart did not put his name thereon, he had to forfeit 40s., and the cart and horse could be seized and sold to pay the forfeiture. Persons willfully obstructing passage on streets with empty carts or barrels or pipes shall forfeit 5-12s. or do hard labor up to one month. The justices of London assessed rates and made regulations for carriage of goods. Certain houses and buildings were bought and pulled down to widen several streets, lanes, and passages.
In 1774, persons driving cattle in London, whose negligence or improper treatment of such cattle cause them to do mischief shall forfeit 5-20s. or else go to a House of Correction for up to one month or be publicly whipped.
The roads around London were neither very attractive nor very safe. Along them was land covered with water from drains and refuse and dung heaps. Hogs were kept in large numbers on the outskirts and fed on the garbage of the town. Smoking brick kilns surrounded a great part of London. In the brickyards vagrants lived and slept, cooking their food at the kilns.
Queen Anne's drinking of tea made it a popular drink, but it was still expensive. This habit improved health because to make tea, the water had to be boiled before drunk. Breakfast included tea and bread and butter, and later toast with melted butter. The rich also had coffee and chocolate. The morning newspaper was often read at breakfast. The chief dinner dishes were roast beef, roast mutton, boiled beef or pork, with puddings and vegetables. Roast meat was still the basic diet of town and country gentlemen. There were also fowls, tripes, rabbits, hares, pigeons, and venison. Many elaborate sauces were made. The national dish was the pudding, a compound of steak, kidney, larks, and oyster. Drinks included ginger beer, lemonade, barley water, coffee, chocolate, tea, and foreign wine. Port from Portugal was introduced about 1703, and rum about 1714. Rum, made from sugar, first became popular as a medicine, well-whisked with butter. Beer was drunk by the poorer and middle classes. The poor could afford very little meat now, unlike 200 years ago. Their standard fare was cheese, bread, and tea, the latter of which was usually from used tea leaves bought from rich houses.
Households were smaller; a peer had a household of about 25-50. The proportion of women grew to one-third to one-half. Dinner guests sat and were served in order of rank, with gentlemen on one side of the table and ladies on the other. Later, a fashion came in to sit alternately by sex. Dinner was in several courses and lasted a few hours. Toasts might be made. It was bad manners to put one's elbows on the table, to sniff the food, to eat too slowly or too quickly, to scratch, spit, or blow one's nose at the table, or to pick one's teeth with a toothpick before the dishes were removed. After dinner, the men drank, smoked, and talked at the table. There was a chamber pot under the sideboard for their use. Politics was a popular subject. The women talked together in the drawing room. Later, the men joined the women for tea and coffee. The evening often finished with card games, reading newspapers, verse-making, fortune-telling, walks in the garden, impromptu dancing, perhaps gambling, and supper.
The nobility and gentry became more mobile and now mixed together at parties. At these afternoon parties, there were a variety of simultaneous activities, instead of everyone participating in the same activities together as a group. Guests could choose to engage in conversation, news, cards, tea-drinking, music, dancing, and even go into supper at different times. Sometimes a man other than her husband escorted a lady to a party. Having lovers outside marriage was socially accepted if discrete.
Single women were discouraged from thinking of their independent status as desirable. Their single status was to be regarded as unfortunate. Weddings were taking place in public in church instead of privately. Brides wore a white silk or satin dress with a train. Over one third of brides who were capable of having children were already pregnant when they married. In 1753 a marriage statute required licenses to marry, the consent of parents or guardians for minors to marry, the calling of banns [advance announcement so that anyone could give a reason why the marriage should not take place], and four weeks residence in the parish where the license was given by bishop or other authority. These requirements addressed the problems of the kidnapping of heiresses, prostitutes trapping unwary youths after getting them drunk, and priests performing marriages clandestinely and not in church, which required banns. Two witnesses to the marriage were required to sign a certificate of marriage, which was then to be registered in the parish books. Manufactured goods relieved ladies from baking of bread, brewing, and spinning. So they often visited with friends, wrote letters, embroidered, and supervised the servants.
Funerals ceremonies started with socializing at the house with refreshments, then going in a procession to the church for burial, and finally returning to the house for more socializing.
It was possible for a woman-covert to be seized of land in fee simple or in tail general or special to her separate use, free from control or intermeddling of her husband.
Houses were warmed in winter by burning coal. Furniture was still sparse. Moderate homes had tent-beds in use, with which cloth was hung on all four sides of the bed from a light iron framework above the bed. The beds were warmed with a warming pan heated in a fire before use. There were often bed bugs and fleas. Everyone wore nightcaps to bed. Pewter tableware was used, but the poor used tinware instead. Copper, brass, and iron pots and pans were increasingly common.
Most towns had a regular market once or twice a week. In them, street cleaning was still a responsibility of individual householders. Water was still obtained from wells and pumps. There was no municipal government as such. Public works were done by special commissions set up for particular purposes, such as lighting, cleaning and paving the streets, night watchmen, traffic regulation, removing nuisances, and improving local amenities. Large towns had hospitals for the poor. In the larger manufacturing towns, there were literary and philosophical societies for debates and discussions. These put together libraries for use of their members. Also in these large towns, there were booksellers' shops, printing houses, weekly newspapers, playhouses, concerts, and horseracing courses, the latter of which was mostly patronized by gentlemen. Some private citizens of various towns followed the example of London and obtained from Parliament the right to levy a house rate for paving and lighting. Physicians and lawyers lived in two-story brick mansions with attics and sash windows that could be lifted up and down with the help of a pulley. They had rectangular wood panes each with a sheet of glass cut from a circle of blown glass. The old blown glass was not regular, but had a wrinkled appearance. The center of each pane of glass was thicker with a knot in the middle left from the blow pipe. In front of the house were railings which supported two lanterns at the doorway.
Towns tended to be known for certain specialties, such as seaside holiday resorts, spas like Bath, cathedral towns, fashionable shopping for gentry, and towns with certain industries like glass and china manufacture, pinmaking, pottery, tanning, manufacture of linen, silk, cotton, and the knitting trade. Certain towns were famous for certain varieties of wool cloth. Before 1750, a town with more than 5,000 inhabitants was considered a large town. Shop keeping was supplanting fairs and markets. Certain industries were done on a large scale and required workers to be at the same site, e.g. brewing and distilling; building ships; printing fustians; making paper, soap (from animal fat) or candles; coal mining, iron production, mining and smelting of tin and copper, refining of salt, and digging of clay. Certain other industries also required some kind of power or team work for their production, e.g. refining sugar; finishing cloth; making bricks; glassmaking; manufacture of ropes and sails, and processing of copper and brass into rods and sheets. Often the manufacturer's house was surrounded by the many cottages of his workers. There the wife and children usually were busy carding and spinning. Putting out work and subcontracting were widespread and created many small-scale capitalists. Workers' hours were typically 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Drovers bought cattle in the countryside, drove them to big towns, and sold them to fattening graziers or fatted them themselves. Then they were driven into town and sold to the wholesale butcher, who sold the carcass to the retail butcher, the hides to the tanner, and the bones to the glue maker. Flocks of geese were also driven into towns, after their feet were given a protective covering of tar. There were also middlemen wholesalers for cheese, butter, cloth, and iron.
There was a rage of distemper among the cattle so serious that to prevent its spread, the king was authorized by Parliament to make regulations for prohibiting the removal or sale of cattle and for the burial of distempered cattle. Later, the king was authorized to prohibit the killing of cow calves. No one was to sell any ox, bull, cow, calf, steer, or heifer until he had possession of such for forty days or else forfeit ten pounds, Later, the king was authorized to regulate the movement of cattle from one place to another.
The main industry of the country was still agriculture. In the countryside, about half the arable land was under the open field system, in which land was cultivated in common. Enclosures of land were still taking place. The enclosures were now done by statutory commissions to ensure equitable allotments.
Agricultural improvements came first to enclosed land, which comprised about half of the agricultural land. In the 1733, Jethro Tull published a book about his 1701 invention of the seed-drill to first pulverize the soil for cultivation without manure and then to deposit seed at a uniform depth in regulated quantities and in rows instead of being thrown haphazardly. Also explained was the horse-hoe to stir the soil about the roots of the plants to preserve moisture, promote aeration, admit warmth, and destroy weeds. There were more horses than oxen in use now in the fields. The horse-hoe was first used by large independent farmers on enclosed land. Also invented was a threshing machine with a set of sticks to replace hand threshing with flails. Under-drainage as well as irrigation was practiced. Lord Townshend alternated turnips, grasses, and grain in his fields, and thus provided winter food for his cattle. The old forms of crop rotation with fallow periods were often displaced by legume-rotation field-grass agriculture. Independent farming gave rise to the improvement of breeds of livestock by selective breeding.
Enclosed land produced 26 bushels of grain compared to 18 bushels for common field land. It produced 9 pounds of sheep fleece compared to 3 1/2 pounds for common field land. Overall, soils were improved by being treated with clay, chalk, or lime. Artificial pasture was extended and there was increased use of clover, sainfoin, and rye-grass. Grain productivity was four times that of 1200. A fatted ox was 800 pounds compared to the former 400 pounds which it weighed from the 1300s to the 1600s. The fleece of sheep increased fourfold.
By statute of 1756, persons having rights of common in certain land may, by the major part in number and in value of each's tenement, enclose such land for planting and growth of timber or underwood.
Every village had a smith, carpenter, and miller. The larger villages also had a potter, a turner, a malster, a weaver, a tanner, and perhaps a mercer or grocer middleman. Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and wagons. Ploughs had one, two, or no wheels. Poor farming families took up extra work in the villages such as making gloves, knitting stockings, or spinning yarn. Craftsmen still helped farmers at harvest time.
Much of the rural population was now dispersed over the countryside instead of being concentrated in villages because so many small holders had sold out due to enclosures of farm land, especially of common land and waste land. The rural working class lived in two room cottages, with low ceilings, small windows, and an earth floor. Patience was required for those willing to wait for an existing cottage in a village to be vacated. Most laborers did not marry unless and until they found a cottage. Ancient custom that a person could build a home for himself on waste land if he did it in one night was ceasing to be respected. Farmers usually preferred employing day-laborers than keeping servants. There were many migrant workers, mainly from Ireland, for the busy summer haymaking and harvesting.
The children of laborers and of small farmers had little schooling because they were needed for work. They scared the birds, weeded the fields, picked the stones, tended the poultry, set beans, combed the wool, and collected the rushes and dipped them in the tallow [sheep fat].
Farm people relied on well water or rain water collected in lead cisterns. A farmhouse fireplace had pots hung from iron rods. Saucepans sat on iron stands, which were stored above the mantel when not in use. Spits were rotated by pulleys powered by the upward current of hot air or by a mechanical device. Bacon was smoked in the chimney accessible by a staircase or upper floor.
There still existed customary freeholders, who owned their land subject to certain customary obligations to the lord of a manor.
The people displaced by enclosure became laborers dependent on wages or paupers. Their discontent was expressed in this poem:
"They hang the man and flog the woman
That steals a goose from off the common
But leave the greater criminal loose
That steals the common from the goose."
Eventually there was some relief given to the poor workers. By statute of 1773, wastes, commons, and fields having several owners with different interests may by three-quarters vote in number and in value of the occupiers cultivate such for up to six years. However, cottagers and those with certain sheep walks, or cattle pasture, may not be excluded from their rights of common. By statute of 1776, the Elizabethan statute restricting locations where cottages could be erected and their inhabitants was repealed because the industrious poor were under great difficulties to procure habitations.
Land could be rented out at ten times the original value. Land was typically rented out for 7, 14, or 21 years. Great fortunes were made by large landowners who built grand country estates. The manufacturers and merchants made much money, but agriculture was still the basis of the national wealth. As the population grew, the number of people in the manufacturing classes was almost that of the agriculturalists, but they had at least twice the income of the agriculturalists.
The greatest industry after agriculture was cloth. Most of this activity took places in the homes, but families could earn more if each family member was willing to exchange the informality of domestic work for the long hours and harsh discipline of the factory or workshop. More wool was made into cloth in the country. Dyed and finished wool cloth and less raw wool and unfinished broadcloth, was exported. Bleaching was done by protracted washing and open-air drying in "bleach fields". There were great advances in the technology of making cloth.
Thomas Lombe, the son of a weaver, became a mercer and merchant in London. He went to Italy to discover their secret in manufacturing silk so inexpensively. He not only found his way in to see their silk machines, but made some drawings and sent them to England hidden in pieces of silk. He got a patent in 1718 and he and his brother set up a mill using water power to twist together the silk fibers from the cocoons into thread [thrown silk] in 1719. His factory was five hundred feet long and about five stories high. One water wheel worked the vast number of parts on the machines. The machines inside were very tall, cylindrical in shape, and rotated on vertical axes. Several rows of bobbins, set on the circumference, received the threads, and by a rapid rotary movement gave them the necessary twist. At the top the thrown silk was automatically wound on a winder, all ready to be made into hanks for sale. The workman's chief task was to reknot the threads whenever they broke. Each man was in charge of sixty threads. There were three hundred workmen. Lombe made a fortune of 120,000 pounds and was knighted and made an alderman of London. After his patent expired in 1732, his mill became the prototype for later cotton and wool spinning mills in the later 1700s. There were many woolen manufacture towns. Clothiers might employ up to three thousand workers. At these, the spinning was done by unskilled labor, especially women and children in villages and towns. Weaving, wool combing, and carding were skilled occupations.
In 1733, clockmaker and weaver John Kay invented a flying shuttle for weaving. It was fitted with small wheels and set in a kind of wooden groove. On either side there were two wooden hammers hung on horizontal rods to give the shuttle and to and fro action. The two hammers were bound together by two strings attached to a single handle, so that with one hand the shuttle could be driven either way. With a sharp tap by the weaver, first one and then the other hammer moved on its rod. It hit the shuttle, which slid along its groove. At the end of each rod there was a spring to stop the hammer and replace it in position. It doubled the weavers' output. Now the broadest cloth could be woven by one man instead of two. This shuttle was used in a machine for cotton. But the manufacturers who used the flying shuttle combined together and refused to pay royalties to Kay, who was ruined by legal expenses. Now the price of thread rose because of increased demand for it. The weavers, who had to pay the spinners, then found it hard to make a living. But the process of spinning was soon to catch up.
In 1738, John Wyatt, a ship's carpenter who also invented the harpoon shot from a gun, patented a spinning machine whereby carded wool or cotton was joined together to make a long and narrow mass. One end of this mass was drawn in between a pair of rotating rollers, of which one surface was smooth and the other rough, indented, or covered with leather, cloth, shagg, hair, brushes, or points of metal. From here, the mass went between another set of rollers, which were moving faster than the first pair. This stretched the mass and drew it into any degree of fineness of thread by adjusting the speed of the second pair of rollers. Then the thread went by a flier, which twisted it. After this the thread was wound off onto spindles or bobbins, whose rotation was regulated by the faster pair of rollers. Or the mass could be drawn by rotating spindles directly from one pair of rollers. This machine was worked by two donkeys and was tended by ten female workers. Because of bankruptcy in 1742, the invention was sold to Edward Cave, the editor of "Gentleman's Magazine". He set up a workshop with five machines, each fitted with fifty spindles and worked by water wheels. Carding was done by cylindrical carding machines invented by Lewis Paul.
In 1764, the plant was bought by carpenter and weaver James Hargreaves. He was watching his wife spin when the spinning wheel tipped over onto its side. It continued to revolve, while the thread, held between two fingers, seemed to be spinning itself, even though the spindle was in a vertical instead of a horizontal position. It occurred to him that a large number of vertical spindles arranged side by side could be turned by the same wheel and that, therefore, many threads could be spun at once. He named his machine the "the Jenny" after his wife. This "spinning Jenny" could spin a hundred threads at a time. He patented it about 1770. The machine consisted of a rectangular frame on four legs. At one end was a row of vertical spindles. Across the frame were two parallel wooden rails, lying close together, which were mounted on a sort of carriage and slid backwards and forwards as desired. The cotton, which had been previously carded, stretched, and twisted passed between the two rails and then was wound on spindles. With one hand the spinner worked the carriage backwards and forwards, and with the other he turned the handle which worked the spindles. In this way, the thread was drawn and twisted at the same time. The jenny did the work of about 30 spinning wheels. No longer did it take ten spinners to keep one weaver busy. But manufacturers refused to pay him royalties for his invention. He was offered 3,000 pounds for his rights in the jenny, but refused it. The courts held that the model of his jenny had been used in industry before it was patented and any rights he may have had were declared to have lapsed. Nevertheless, he made over 4,000 pounds. The spinning jenny was used in many homes.
Richard Arkwright came from a poor family and was taught to read by an uncle. He became a barber and made wigs. He taught himself crafts necessary to invent and patent in 1769 a spinning frame worked by a water wheel, which he called a "water frame". He strengthened cotton thread by adding rollers to the spinning process which were able to strengthen the cotton thread and make it of even thickness so that it could be used instead of costly linen as the warp. With capital from two rich hosiers, he set up a workshop next to a swift and powerful river running down a narrow gorge. Then he turned his attention to weaving this thread with multiple spinning wheels in the first practical cotton mill factory. In 1773, he set up weaving workshops making pure cotton calicoes which were as good as Indian calicoes. He confronted the problem of a statute of 1721 which proscribed wearing or using printed, painted, stained or dyed calicoes e.g. in apparel, bed, chair, cushion, window curtain, and furniture, except those dyed all in blue, or else forfeit 20 pounds by a seller, 5 pounds by a wearer, and 20 pounds by other users. The purpose was to provide wool-working jobs to the poor, whose numbers had been increasing excessively because of lack of work. Arkwright argued that the statute should not include printed or painted cloth made in Great Britain in its ancient tradition of fustians with an all linen warp (for strength) and a cotton weft (for fineness). This statute was so "clarified" in 1735. When wool-weavers had expressed their opposition to imported printed cottons and calicoes by tearing them off people, a statute of 1720 provided that any one who willfully and maliciously assaulted a person in the public streets or highways with an intent to tear, spoil, cut, burn, or deface the garments or clothes of such person and carried this out was guilty of felony punishable by transportation for seven years. The prohibition against the manufacture and wearing and using of pure cotton fabrics came to an end in 1774 on arguments of Arkwright made to Parliament that his pure cottons would bleach, print, wash and wear better than fustians. This was the first all-cotton cloth made in England.
In 1775, Arkwright added machines to do work prefatory to spinning. Raw cotton was first fed by a sloping hose to a feeder that was perpetually revolving. From here it went a carding machine of three rollers of different diameters covered with bent metal teeth. The first, with teeth bent in the direction of its revolution, caught up the cotton fibers. The second, revolving in the same direction but much faster, carded the fibers into the requisite fineness by contact with the third, whose teeth and motion were in the opposite direction. Next, a crank and comb detached the carded cotton so that it came off as a continuous ribbon. Then the ribbon went into a revolving cone, which twisted it on itself. Eventually Arkwright became rich from his creation of the modern factory, which was widely imitated. He established discipline in his mills and he made his presence felt everywhere there, watching his men and obtaining from them the steadiest and most careful work. He provided housing and services to attract workers.