The early English cotton industry

I

“One writeth that about Anno 1520 there were three famous clothiers living in the North Countrey viz. Cuthbert of Kendal, Hodgkins of Halifax, and Martin Brian, some say Byrom of Manchester. Every one of these kept a greate number of servants at worke, Spinners, Carders, Fullers, Dyers, Shearemen, &c., to the greate admiration of all that came to beehould them.”[114] This reference, and another in a statute of 1543, contain all the information we possess of the organisation of the Lancashire cloth industry, either on its industrial or commercial side, in the first half of the sixteenth century. From the reference in the statute, it appears that Manchester, in the middle of the sixteenth century, was not particularly noted for its wealth, though it was noted for the “good order strayte and true dealing of the inhabitantes.” Consequently “many strangers, as wel of Ireland as of other places within this realme, haue resorted to the saide towne with lynnen yarne, woolles, and other necessary wares for makinge of clothes, to be sold there, and haue used to credit & truste the poor inhabitantes of the same towne, which were not able and had not redy money to paye in hande for the saide yarnes woolles and wares vnto such time the saide credites with their industry labour and peynes myght make clothes of the said wolles yarns and other necessary wares, and solde the same, to contente and paye their creditours, wherein hath consisted much of the common wealth of the saide towne, and many poore folkes had lyunge, and children and seruants there vertuously brought up in honest and true labour, out of all ydlenes.”[115]

In 1577 some clothiers of Lancashire presented a petition praying that a statute passed in the reign of Edward VI.,[116] which imposed restrictions on middlemen buying and selling wool, should not be enforced. Under the terms of the statute, wool-growers were only allowed to sell their product either to a merchant of the staple or to persons actually engaged in its manufacture. This arrangement was unsuitable to the petitioners as they were “poore cotegers whose habylitye wyll not stretche neyther to buye any substance of woolles to mayntayne worke and labor, nor yet to fetche the same (the growyth of wolles being foure or fyve score myles at the leaste distant)” and they feared that if the statute were enforced “the trade will be driven into a fewe riche men’s hands, so that the poore shall not be paid for their worke, but as it pleaseth the riche.”[117]

Judging from this reference, it would appear that the conditions described as existing in Manchester more than thirty years before were still typical of Lancashire. Possibly this may have been the case in some parts of the county, but it is clear that, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, and in the early years of the next century, there were many men of means resident in the Manchester district engaged in the cloth industry.

Especially prominent at this time were the Tippings, the Mosleys and the Chethams, and there were also others.[118] These men were variously described as clothiers, linen drapers, chapmen, silk weavers, mercers and glovers.[119] In 1607 Anthony Mosley of Manchester, clothier, third son of Edward Mosley, Gentleman, and younger son of Sir Nicholas Mosley, Lord of the Manor of Manchester, left a considerable fortune, and out of it bequeathed £500 for the building of an alms-house in the town, and for the purchasing of lands to belong to it, for the maintenance of the aged and the impotent, on condition that £1500 more were raised within a year.[120] At least two of this man’s sons became clothiers, one of them who died in 1628 leaving £5 to be distributed to the poor of Manchester at his funeral.[121] The bequeathing of money for charitable purposes was a frequent occurrence with the men engaged in the cloth industry in Manchester at this time. In 1621 William Mosier, chapman, left £10 to the churchwardens in trust for the use, maintenance and relief of the aged and impotent poor in the town,[122] and these benefactions reached their culmination in the monumental bequest of Humphrey Chetham, founder of Chetham’s Hospital and Library.

Some idea of the extent to which Anthony Mosley was engaged in the cloth trade may be gathered from the facts that at home he had cloth to the value of £247, and abroad (evidently in the hands of traders and finishers) to the value of £224.[123] He had debts owing to him to the extent of nearly £1300, of which sum £850 had been put into stock “with Francis Locker by indentures.” To what extent the other portion was owing for cloth is not clear, but the fact that a debt was owing by a mercer suggests that some of it was.

It is in connection with the Chethams, however, and particularly with Humphrey Chetham, whose life covered the period from 1580 to 1653,[124] that we get the most valuable information concerning the organisation of the cloth industry in the Manchester district in the seventeenth century. Besides Humphrey, three of his brothers were engaged in “Manchester trade.”[125] In 1597 he was apprenticed to Mr. Samuel Tipping, a Manchester linendraper, to whom his eldest brother, James, was also apprenticed, while another brother, George, was apprenticed to Mr. George Tipping, the younger brother of Samuel, who again was a “grosser and linen draper.”[126] About 1605 George and Humphrey Chetham entered into a partnership which was renewed and continued until the death of the former at the end of 1626, though after 1619, rather than to extend their mercantile business, they invested their capital in land.[127]

Their concern consisted of two branches, one in Manchester and the other in London, where George was a citizen and a member of the Merchant Taylors’ Company.[128] In 1619, when a new deed of partnership was drawn up, Humphrey was described as a “chapman” and his brother as a “grocer,” and their business was said to consist “in the trade of buying and selling fustians and other wares and merchandises.” George had to manage “the factory and business of the joint-trade in and about the city of London,” and Humphrey had to do the same in and about Manchester, and in any other parts of England. At this time they had a joint stock of about £10,000.[129]

When Fuller wrote his account of Humphrey Chetham he stated that three brothers of the family were engaged in the Manchester trade, and that they dealt chiefly in fustians purchased in the Bolton market, which they sent to London, and from this account it has been generally deduced that they were simply dealers in fustians. With the publication of an authentic life of Humphrey Chetham it has become apparent that he was more than this. In the Manchester district he bought “friezes, fustians, coattons, and haberdasherye,” which he not only sent in large quantities to the London market, but sold them by retail in Manchester. He was a general merchant who purchased a large variety of goods in all parts of the Manchester district. In addition he was a “manufacturer” employing people over an extensive area in spinning yarn, and in weaving and finishing cloth, and other members of the family were similarly engaged.[130]

In 1626 his accounts reveal several significant facts[131]:

From these accounts it is evident that Chetham dealt in cotton (Cypress wool) and also in linen yarn (Irish yarn), the two principal materials for the manufacture of fustians. The next fact has reference to the economic relationships which existed between him and those who worked the materials. A popular view is that in Lancashire up to the coming of the factory, in the latter years of the eighteenth century, the majority of the workpeople were more or less independent producers who usually bought their materials, and after working them into cloth sold it to traders such as Chetham. That this was not generally the case in the first half of the eighteenth century is certain, and that it obtained as a general rule in the previous century is seriously open to question. As already mentioned, Chetham employed spinners and weavers, and the above accounts suggest that when he sold cotton and yarn, much of it was sold in small quantities, and also that it was sold on credit. This means that Chetham, if he did not employ the buyers in the ordinary sense, financed them to the extent of the cost of their raw materials, and if so to this extent they were economically dependent upon him, as they probably were for the disposal of the product. The probability is that, in his day, Chetham’s position in the economic organisation was little different, if any, from that of the typical capitalist “clothier” of the domestic system who gave out work to workpeople, and paid them for their labour when its product was returned to him.[132]

This does not necessarily mean that, at this time, there were no small semi-independent producers in the rising cotton industry. Probably there were, and for a long time afterwards, but it is extremely doubtful whether they should be regarded as the typical workpeople. Rather, the evidence points to the contrary. In 1702 a petition was presented from the West Country clothing district complaining of the master weavers paying their workpeople in truck, instead of in money, and the allegations of the petition were found to be true,[133] with the result that a Bill was ordered to deal with the matter, which in the same year became an Act.[134] In the Act provision was made to restrain workpeople from embezzling materials delivered to them by clothiers and others, and within the scope of the Act those engaged in the cotton and fustian manufactures were included. At first the Act was a temporary measure, and referred only to the woollen, fustian, cotton, and iron manufactures of the kingdom. In 1710 it was made perpetual,[135] and in 1740 the leather manufacture was included.[136] In 1749 the scope of the Act was extended to the fur, hemp, flax, mohair and silk manufactures, and a provision was inserted for preventing unlawful combinations of all persons employed in all the trades mentioned.[137] None of the petitions presented from Lancashire in the first part of the eighteenth century gives the slightest reason for thinking that the system of organisation implied in the provisions of the 1702 Act did not generally obtain in the county during the first half of the eighteenth century. In the check and smallware branches of Manchester trade it certainly did, and it is extremely probable that long before 1770 the same can be said of the fustian branch.

In considering the position in this branch, it must be borne in mind that, at first, it was probably not carried on in and immediately about Manchester to the same extent as the other two. Taking Ogden as our authority he speaks of Manchester chapmen going to Bolton and other markets to buy fustian pieces from the weavers, “every weaver then procuring yarn or cotton as they could” as the original system.[138] When this original system was general he does not state, but the general impression he gives is that it was not later than the early years of the eighteenth century. In any case, the system was not sufficient to meet the demands of the traders, and “To remedy this inconvenience, some of them furnished warps and wool to the weavers and employed persons to put warps out to weaving by commission; and encouraged many weavers to fetch them from Manchester, endeavouring to secure the honesty and care of their workmen, upon bringing in the piece, by the force of good usage and prompt payment; but reserving to themselves a power of abatement, for deficiency in the spinning and workmanship.”[139]

The next quotation carries us to the sixties, when the jenny was introduced for spinning. “From the time that the original system was changed in the fustian branch, of buying pieces in the grey from the weavers, by delivering them out work, the custom of giving them out weft in the cops, which obtained for a while grew into disuse, as there was no detecting the knavery of spinners till a piece came in woven; so that the practice was changed, and wool given with warps, the weaver answering for the spinning; and the weavers, in a scarcity of spinning, have been paid less for the weft than they gave the spinner, but durst not complain, much less abate the spinner lest their looms should stand unemployed: but when jennies were introduced, and children could work on them, the case was altered, and many who had been insolent before, were glad to be employed in carding and slubbing for these engines.”[140] It will be noticed that the change mentioned in this quotation did not mean a reversion to the original system—the giving out of work continued—but the weaver was made responsible for the spinning as well as for the weaving. This change is easily understood and may well have taken place owing to the friction that would arise through abatements for bad work.

But during the period covered by the two quotations, another change had taken place which is referred to by Guest. He informs us that it was in 1740 that “the Manchester merchants began to give out warps and raw cotton to the weavers, receiving them back in cloth and paying for the carding, roving, spinning and weaving”[141] and that about 1750 there arose, chiefly in the country districts, a class of “second-rate merchants called fustian-masters,” who “gave out a warp and raw cotton to the weaver, paying the weaver for the weaving and spinning.”[142]

In view of the legislation just referred to, it is evident that the first date mentioned by Guest cannot be taken as marking the beginning of the system of giving out work in the fustian trade, and perhaps the second date relating to the appearance of country fustian masters should not be strictly regarded. With these reservations, however, there is much evidence that Guest’s statements were based upon facts which belong to the first part of the eighteenth century. The increased prominence of printed fustians and the proceedings which led to the Act of 1736 indicate that the fustian trade was expanding. About the same time, changes were taking place in commercial organisation, and it is exceedingly probable that the number of fustian manufacturers was increasing with accompanying changes in industrial organisation. In 1772, when we get definite evidence, it is certain that a large number of fustian manufacturers existed in the country districts, and altogether their number was far greater than either check or smallware manufacturers.[143] The conclusion that may be drawn from the statements of both Ogden and Guest, and from other evidence, is that even if it be true that before the first part of the eighteenth century the greater proportion of fustian weavers were semi-independent producers, who themselves bought their raw materials, and sold their product to traders, by the middle of the century they were certainly the workpeople of capitalist employers, as probably many of them were long before that time.

II

Fortunately, there is ample evidence of the organisation of the check and smallware trades in the fifties of the eighteenth century, and this evidence is important in that it shows clearly the relations which existed between the employers and the workpeople engaged in these trades at that time. In both trades the relations were exceedingly strained, and in both the workpeople attempted, through combination, to maintain and advance their economic position. As a matter of fact, the worsted smallware weavers had had some form of combination for some years. In 1756 their articles contained regulations concerning their trade which dated back to 1747. The articles show that there were two main classes engaged in the trade: first, the manufacturers, who were the real employers; second, the undertakers, journeymen, and apprentices. Their aim was to protect the interests of the latter class, particularly of the undertakers. The difficulties they were intended to meet are revealed in The Worsted Smallware Weavers’ Apology issued in 1756,[144] and the Apology also throws light on the development of the trade during the preceding thirty years.

Before that time the work had been performed in a single loom, but, about that time, this loom was displaced by a Dutch loom,[145] which, instead of weaving one piece at a time wove twelve or fourteen, and also improvement took place in the character of the product. In 1756, the weavers asserted, there were three times as many Dutch looms in use in Manchester as there ever had been single looms. As a consequence of the improvements, the scope of employment had widened and many of the poorer sort of people had entered the trade, while the generality of manufacturers had acquired such large fortunes as enabled them to vie with some of the best gentlemen in the county. With the weavers the case was different, owing, they asserted, to their own conduct in taking too many apprentices on any terms, and for any length of time, and also, for a small sum of money, taking persons into the trade who were immediately recognised as journeymen. As a result, the trade had become overcrowded with labour, and many who had entered it had gone back to their old occupations, while others had turned to day labouring in the summer and returned to the loom only in the winter, when they were content to work on any terms, which soon became the general rule. Moreover, men who had served only a year or two lowered the standard of workmanship, as in such a short time they were unable to learn the theory of the trade.

The first article, dated 1747, laid down that no undertaker should take apprentices for less than seven years, unless they were fifteen years of age, when they might be taken for six years. Masters taking apprentices had to enter them in the weavers’ register-book, twopence to be paid on entry, and, when an apprentice had served his time, a blank had to be taken out for which fourpence had to be paid. Afterwards the apprentice was free to work either as a journeyman or as an undertaker. In a later article it was agreed that if any member went to work, or undertook work, for any master that had never made goods before 1st January 1753, “the same shall not be accounted one of us.” Later in the year, it was agreed that no undertaker should take more than three apprentices, and, in the next year, it was further agreed that every undertaker should demand a blank from any journeymen or journeywomen when they came to work with him, and if an undertaker failed to comply with this regulation he must forfeit five shillings to the box. In the last article, dated 11th August 1753, it was agreed that any undertaker bringing up his sons or daughters to the trade should enter them in the register at twenty years of age, when they should receive a blank which would enable them to work as journeymen or undertakers for any master in the trade.

There are several points of interest in these articles. In the first place, it is evident that the master manufacturers as well as the weavers took apprentices, and that the weavers wished to bring them under their control. In the second place, it appears that women were recognised in the trade as subject to the same conditions as men. Thirdly, the increasing stringency of the articles suggests either that the combination was developing, or that the articles were not attaining the end in view. Probably both suggestions are correct.

In 1756 the problem of remuneration had become acute, and the organisation was evidently on the point of taking an active interest in the matter. This increased activity was the beginning of trouble which culminated at the Lancaster Lent Assizes in 1760. To understand the position during these years it will be advisable to glance at the general situation in the country.

As early as 1753 there had been serious disturbances consequent upon a rise in the price of food. At Bristol it had been necessary to call out the military to prevent the plundering of corn vessels in the harbour, and similar measures had been adopted to maintain the peace at Manchester and Leeds, which was only accomplished with loss of life.[146] At the beginning of the year the price of wheat in Manchester ranged from 18s. to 20s. per load—20 Winchester pecks—and other cereals in proportion. Then there began a rise which in August had brought the average price of wheat to 25s. to 26s., which continued throughout 1754.[147] Early in 1755 the prices had come down, and remained almost without change at 21s. to 22s. for more than twelve months. From about May, 1756, prices began to rise again. In June they stood at 27s. to 28s., in December at 34s. to 36s., in February, 1757, at 39s. to 40s., and in July at 43s. to 45s. Then they began to fall, reaching 30s. to 31s. in December, and in October, 1758, the old price of 21s. to 22s. had been regained.

Reports of rioting in every part of the country began in the autumn of 1756, and were constantly repeated until the end of the following year,[148] and the distress extended to Scotland and Ireland, the King subscribing £20,000 for relief in the latter country.[149] At Liverpool in November, 1756, it was decided to buy several thousand pounds’ worth of grain, at the expense of the town, to be retailed to the poor at cost price, and a subscription list was opened at Manchester in the following month for a similar purpose, when between £700 and £800 were immediately subscribed.[150]

In the view of the populace the evil was due to the action of trading middlemen engrossing and holding back supplies, and in Manchester, as in other places, when a riot broke out, in which a number of colliers from Clifton took part, the object of attack was certain corn dealers, who vainly protested that, instead of engrossing, they had imported corn from remote parts of the kingdom and thus lowered prices.[151] A proclamation of the King against the forestalling, regrating and engrossing of corn was issued in Manchester,[152] and apparently in every other town in the country, while threats of prosecution, of which the gentlemen of the town were prepared to bear the expense, were issued against the guilty persons, could they be discovered.[153]

It was in these circumstances that the worsted smallware weavers of Manchester began to show a greater activity than hitherto, and issued their Apology. They complained of the rise in the prices of provisions and asserted that, eighteen or twenty years before, undertakers could have kept five apprentices for what it now cost to keep three. In 1756 they had commenced to hold meetings once a month. The hands employed by each manufacturer were regarded as a “shop.” Each shop appointed a person to represent the whole shop, and when the representatives met once a month they formed the trade society.[154] Already the manufacturers suspected that the proceedings were to their detriment, and the weavers were aware that they were likely to meet with a great deal of censure and scornful sneers, but they consoled themselves with the thought that they were as the Nazarenes, and those who held them in contempt were as the Jews.

The next evidence of the existence of the society appears in January, 1759, when the following notice was issued in The Manchester Mercury[155]:—“Whereas all combinations and meetings among Weavers or other handicraft workmen or servants to consult how to raise wages, or make other rules or orders among themselves that have a tendency to ruin and destroy the trade in which they are employed is contrary to the Laws of the Kingdom. And whereas there is at this time in and about this town an unlawful combination among the Worsted smallware weavers, under the name of being members or being connected with or payers to a Box. This is to give notice that all persons who are in any ways concerned in those unlawful combinations, or are in any ways aiding or assisting thereto, will be prosecuted to the utmost rigour of the law; and that no weavers will be taken to work that are in any ways concerned in those unlawful combinations.”

The next important act in the life of this association was performed at Lancaster Assizes in the following year, when a number of worsted smallware weavers answered to an indictment for a combination to raise wages. The prosecution was not proceeded with as the defendants handed in the following submission, which was read in the open court, and afterwards signed by them. “We do hereby, each for himself, and as far as we can for the other weavers of the same Trade agree to work for the prices already agreed upon with our respective masters, or such other wages as the circumstances of the Trade make reasonable for the time being. We hereby promise and engage, each for himself that we will never enter into, or promote, or encourage any Combination whatsoever, for the raising wages, or any other unlawful purpose whatsoever. And we declare against, and will oppose, any agreement or Combination ... or that any money shall be applied ... to the support of any person, or persons, who shall refuse to work for reasonable, or the usual wages, being able and requested so to do, or in any wise whatsoever towards the forming or supporting any combination to raise wages or other unlawful purpose whatsoever. That the Box or contribution may be permitted till the debt already incurred be discharged and the defendants promise to produce the Box and show their accounts therein, to any of the Masters in any part of Manchester upon a reasonable notice for that purpose, and that when the Debt is discharged, the contribution shall cease and the Box be destroyed, and in the meantime, the Indentures shall be delivered to the Parties thereto if they desire it.”[156]

The combination of the worsted smallware weavers was not the only one in the Manchester district in the late fifties of the eighteenth century. As already mentioned, the check-weavers had also combined. So acute had the position become that at the Autumn Assizes held at Lancaster in 1758 Lord Mansfield “had been informed of great disturbances in Lancashire, occasioned by several thousands having left their work and entered into combinations for raising their wages, and appointed meetings at stated times, formed themselves into a committee at such meetings, and established Boxes and fixed stewards in every Township for collecting money for supporting such weavers as should by their Committee be ordered to leave their masters, and made other dangerous and illegal regulations; that they had insulted and abused several weavers who had refused to join in their schemes and continued to work; and had dropt incendiary letters, with threats to masters that had opposed their designs; his Lordship sensible of the pernicious consequences of such illegal proceedings as being not only destructive of Trade and Manufactures, but of the Peace of the Public adapted his charge to the occasion, and strongly urged to the Jury the necessity of suppressing all such combinations and conspiracies on any pretence whatsoever; gave them an account of all the attempts of the like nature that had been made at different times and in different parts of the kingdom, and told them that an active and vigilant execution of the Laws in being, had always been sufficient to suppress such attempts, and, if properly executed, would have the same effect upon the present that it had always met with on similar occasions.” As the judge had spoken without notes, he could not oblige the Grand Jury with this charge in writing, as they requested, but he issued a warrant for the apprehension of nineteen stewards concerned in the combination, and prosecutions were recommended against others as being equally culpable.[157]

The judge’s charge was intended, no doubt, to be of general application, but it appears that it had particular reference to the check-weavers. The story of their combination can be gathered from the pages of The Manchester Mercury, supplemented by A Letter to a Friend: occasioned by the late Disputes betwixt the Check-makers of Manchester and their Weavers, written by Thomas Percival[158] in 1759. Mr. Percival had been mentioned to the judge as one who had assisted the weavers in their efforts to combine,[159] and his letter was a pungent reply to the charges. It appears that originally there were two main points of dispute between the check manufacturers and the weavers: first, the question of a standard length of cloth for weaving, and second, the question of “unfair weavers.”[160] Ultimately these questions led to a combination and a turn-out of several weeks in which the weavers in Manchester and for many miles around were involved.

According to Mr. Percival’s account, he was approached by some of his neighbours, check-weavers, about a year before he wrote his letter, when they informed him that they had been solicited to enter a Box to oppose the unlawful practices of their masters. At the time he advised them not to do so, but some of them became members and later the dispute became an open breach.[161]

In April, 1758, a notice was issued in The Manchester Mercury drawing attention to the fact that “Weavers employed in manufactures carried on in Manchester and neighbouring towns, had formed themselves into unlawful clubs and societies, and had entered into combinations and subscriptions,” and that anyone who would not enter, or would withdraw, would be protected and employed.[162] This notice had not the desired effect, and it seems probable that the turn-out began in May or at the beginning of June. Early in July the situation had become acute and the weavers of Ashton sent to ask Mr. Percival whether they were doing right, to which he replied that “if they were doing what the world said, they were doing excessive wrong.”[163]

About this time the weavers met at Manchester, and put forward a set of proposals for a settlement of the dispute, which was followed by two other sets, one drawn up at Ashton, and the other by Mr. Percival himself.

In the first, the weavers proposed that a statute length of eighty yards should be fixed for check, and of sixty yards for cotton hollands, cotton linen and similar articles, and that, if the length was different, the price paid for weaving should vary in proportion. Also, that the masters should not employ unfair weavers, so called because they would not subscribe to the charity stock to assist poor weavers and to prosecute offenders. The weavers insisted that they had no other object in view but to support and maintain their trade with experienced and honest workmen, and to bring it under the statute 5 Eliz.[164]

It appears that, about this time, a suggestion was made that the dispute should be referred to the country gentlemen for settlement, or to Mr. Percival alone, and also that he saw the above proposals, and that he disapproved of them.[165]

In any case, a second set of proposals was addressed to him from Ashton by the weavers, with the request that, if he thought proper, he would put them into form and make such alterations as he might find necessary for bringing about an accommodation between the parties.[166] In these proposals, it was suggested that seven men should be appointed by each side, including one or two magistrates, and that the magistrates should choose (presumably from among those who had been thus appointed) four persons who had been in the trade, but who had no present connection with it, to settle the differences. Cases of spoiled work, which the master and weaver concerned could not settle, were to be referred to two persons chosen by them, both parties to submit to their decision. The masters were to allow the weavers to keep a charity box, and the weavers were to have liberty to take two or more apprentices, but not for a shorter period than seven years, and no person was to be acknowledged as a weaver unless he or she had served that time, although all weavers then engaged in the trade were to be recognised. The weavers still asked that a standard length of eighty yards should be fixed for certain kinds of goods, but the length of other kinds was to be fixed by the committee, and wages were to be agreeable to the times as heretofore.[167]

Evidently Mr. Percival did not consider that these proposals would effect a settlement, and proceeded to draw up a set of his own. Generally, his proposals did not differ from the proposals from Ashton, except in the vital point of the “box.” He proposed that a box should be kept up for the relief of poor weavers, and for the prosecution of offenders, but that the funds should not be used to the detriment of the masters. To disarm the suspicion of the masters, he proposed that they should become contributors to the box, and that no money should be taken out of it (except for the relief of the poor) without the knowledge of at least two of them, which arrangement the weavers thought very hard, and Mr. Percival himself was afraid that they would not agree to it, but they did so.[168] A further proposal made by him was that an Act of Parliament should be moved for, on the joint-petition and at the joint-expense of the masters and weavers, to fix the lengths and breadths of cloth, and to enforce a seven years’ apprenticeship in the trade.[169]

Mr. Percival’s proposal as regards the box, and also the proposals from Ashton, will be best understood by noticing the masters’ case as it was stated in a letter addressed to him by one of them. In this letter it was claimed that it was impossible with justice to fix a standard length of cloth as the weavers proposed, but that the masters were willing to agree upon a length “as near as possible.” Further, it was insisted that the weavers must give up their combination, and sign a paper to that effect, and that the masters must not be obliged to turn off unfair weavers. Apparently, the master who wrote this letter was an extremist, as Mr. Percival expressly excepts from his indictment some masters who did not take up this attitude concerning the combination.[170]

The paper which the weavers were required to sign appeared in The Manchester Mercury on the same date as the letter sent to Mr. Percival, and ran as follows:—

“We whose names are hereunto subscribed being members of the Weavers Society, and contributed or promised to contribute to their Box, do hereby engage that we will quit the said Box; and neither by ourselves or (sic) any person for us, pay towards supporting it, nor have any further concern therein.”[171] In the following month the charge already referred to was delivered by Lord Mansfield, and in October a notice was published setting forth that “The Manufacturers in the Check Trade having found on Enquiry that the principal Boxes are destroyed, and the collections or contributions ceased, Work will now be delivered throughout the Town, and the Weavers may apply where they choose as usual.”[172]

In the meantime, however, it appears that the threatened apprehensions had been effected, and at the Lancaster Spring Assizes in 1759 thirteen check-weavers from Manchester, two from Pendleton, two from Salford, and one from Rusholme, were charged with “having unlawfully met and assembled together and illegally and unjustly combined and confederated that they would not work at less than 2s. the piece above the usual wage or price of eighty yards check.”[173] At the trial a plea for lenity was put in, and, as the weavers conducted themselves in a correct manner, the only penalty imposed was a fine of 1s. each. In his address to them, Lord Mansfield suggested that they had been drawn into the combination by designing men, and pointed out the danger of combinations in raising wages above what had been customary and what the trade would bear, thus driving capital away. His remarks on the apprenticeship clauses of the Elizabethan Act deserve notice, seeing that they were made more than half-a-century before the clauses were repealed: “If none must employ, or be employed, in any branch of trade, but who have served a limited number of years to that branch, the particular trade will be lodged in few hands, to the danger of the public, and the liberty of setting up trades, and the foundations of the present flourishing condition of Manchester will be destroyed. In the infancy of trade, the Act of Queen Elizabeth might be well calculated for public weal, but now when it is grown to that perfection we see it, it might perhaps be of utility to have those laws repealed, as tending to cramp and tie down that knowledge it was first necessary to obtain by rule.” In conclusion, the Judge admonished the check-weavers to “Go home and sin no more lest a worse thing happen unto you.”[174]

This account of these two combinations in Manchester and district in the fifties of the eighteenth century is of considerable interest in several respects. Mr. and Mrs. Webb have drawn attention to the fact that, in these years, we get the final breakdown of the mediæval authoritative system of regulation of industrial relationships, and the above account supports their view.[175] Also they have shown that from the early years of the century combinations of wage-earners were coming into existence in various trades. Such combinations were especially prominent among the West of England textile workers[176]: it is evident that the textile workers in Lancashire were proceeding on similar lines. But even more interesting is the link which these Manchester combinations provide between the older forms of association on the one hand and the modern trade union on the other. The proposals put forward by Mr. Percival, which the check-weavers reluctantly accepted, would have involved almost exactly the same arrangements as those described by Professor Unwin as existing between the members of the Yeomanry Organisations and the members of the Livery Companies.[177] As the arm of the law intervened, it is not likely the proposals came to anything, but this does not necessarily mean that the law quashed the combinations. Judging from the later history of the smallware weavers, it appears that they gained in strength. The next glimpse we get of their combination is in 1781, when a dispute was in existence which certainly continued for more than two months. The first evidence of it is a notice which the weavers delivered to their employers, in which it was stated that the whole trade had unanimously resolved that if they did not set their men to work, agreeable to a list of prices accompanying the notice, no smallware weaver in Lancashire would ever work for them again.[178] On their side, the masters asserted that they were willing to adjust wages, but insisted that the real difficulty was that the weavers had adopted the “extraordinary” step of “swearing two masters out of the trade,”[179] which, they claimed, was contrary to all law and equity. Ultimately the masters delivered the following proposals to the weavers, which are interesting not only as an indication of the respectful way in which the weavers had to be dealt with, but also as the reference to the “shop” suggests that even if there had been a break in the life of their combination, re-establishment had taken place on the same basis of organisation as that of twenty-five years before: “It is hereby mutually agreed between the smallware manufacturers and their weavers (the masters and one of each shop having subscribed the same) that all differences are settled and adjusted, and that all the said weavers look upon and esteem all their said employers as fair and upon an equal footing in the Trade, notwithstanding whatever may have been inconsiderately said or done during our late difference or dispute; and we the said weavers on behalf of the whole trade consider every workman at full liberty to take work for any of the said employers without exception.” Apparently these proposals were not altogether satisfactory to the weavers, who replied that it had been unanimously determined by the whole trade that no other notice except one that they transmitted should be published: “By mutual agreement betwixt the Smallware Manufacturers and their Weavers the differences respecting prices subsisting between them are amicably settled to the satisfaction of both parties.”[180] The masters seem to have been equally reluctant to accept this notice, but as no others appear we may assume that the dispute was near its end.

Sometimes it is implied, particularly in popular writings, that the transition from the domestic system, as it existed in the early eighteenth century, to the factory system involved a great change in economic relationships, almost that it marked the emergence of capitalist employers. If disproof of this view were required, this account of the disputes in the smallware and the check trades in Manchester, a generation before factories definitely appeared in the district, would do something to supply it. The fact is, of course, that the domestic system was a system of capitalist employers, and the typical workpeople were in every essential respect related to these employers in the same way as after the factory made its appearance. In the domestic system the employer’s capital was mainly embodied in the materials that were given out to workpeople, and they received a wage remuneration from him for the operations they performed upon them. Between the journeymen and apprentices, and the employer, there frequently intervened persons such as the “undertakers” mentioned in connection with the smallware trade, but these men were essentially employees, even though in many cases, no doubt, they might own three or four looms. In the factory, the workpeople, who previously had been scattered over a more or less wide area, were drawn together under one roof, and their operations supervised by foremen and managers; the capital of the employers was now embodied in materials, buildings, plant and machinery; the least change was seen in the economic relationships between employers and workpeople. If it is true that labour became more dependent upon capital, it is equally true that capital became more dependent upon labour—on both sides the dependence involved was one of a greater co-operation in the processes of production.

But there was an important social change, closely connected with the decay of authoritative regulations which had been proceeding from the seventeenth century. As these regulations disappeared, the way was opened for the workpeople to begin to organise themselves as a new social class. Along with the development of the system of organisation which became dominant from the eighteenth century, the modern trade union movement was born, and through the greater part of the century it was also developing. Unfortunately, before the end of the century, under the stress of conditions consequent upon the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, its natural growth was checked, and it did not begin to thrive again until these conditions had passed away.

III

To complete this brief account of the organisation of the Lancashire textile industry before the coming of the factory and the rise of the new cotton manufacture, it is necessary to say something of the ways in which the manufacturers were connected with their workpeople, and also of their connections with the markets for raw materials and for finished products.

As regards the first point, it must be borne in mind that, while Manchester was the centre where the greater number of manufacturers were situated, a large number, particularly in the fustian branch, lived in the surrounding smaller towns and country districts. A glance at the following tables and the accompanying map will show that the country fustian manufacturers formed an outer semicircle of Manchester, with three outstanding points at Leigh, Bolton and Oldham. The country check-makers formed an inner circle, while the crofters (bleachers) were distributed in another circle, with a tendency to concentrate in the neighbourhood of the town.

Owing to this distribution of manufacturers, it is evident that most of the workpeople would be within easy reach of an employer, and probably the most usual thing was for them to fetch their materials from his house, or warehouse, and after working upon them, to return the product. The smaller manufacturers no doubt performed the “putting-out” function themselves, but the larger manufacturers employed men for this purpose, as the frequent advertisements for “putters-out” show. Also we can gather from the same source that in some cases “putters-out” for the town manufacturers lived in the country, and that country manufacturers sometimes worked on commission for men in the towns.[181] That some of the manufacturers were men of considerable wealth may be surmised from the frequent mention of their marriages into prominent families, and to ladies possessing “genteel fortunes.” In this way it is not unlikely that much capital found its way into the Lancashire textile industry, and proved useful in enabling the manufacturers to extend their concerns.[182]

In the seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries, as at the present day, little of the raw material used in the Lancashire textile industry was produced in the county; one way in which wool reached the worsted manufacturers is given in a quotation below.[183] But more important than wool were linen-yarn and cotton. Until the West Indian colonies and South America became important sources of the supply of cotton, it was chiefly imported through London, indeed it was not until cotton-growing had developed in the United States that London lost its position to Liverpool as the chief port of entry.[184] Early in the eighteenth century, however, much was imported by Liverpool merchants, and it was also imported through Whitehaven and Lancaster, both these ports having an important trade with the West Indies in the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth.[185]

Of the linen-yarn used, some was spun in this country, and Scotland also contributed to the supply, and, as already noticed, in the reign of Henry VIII., merchants from Ireland carried on a trade in linen-yarn with Manchester, which they sold to the inhabitants on credit.[186] In the eighteenth century, that country with the Continental towns of Hamburg, Bremen, Dantzig, and Königsberg had become the important sources of supply, so far as the Manchester district was concerned, where English and Scotch yarn were little used.[187] The finest quality was Irish web-yarn, which was used in the Blackburn manufacture, Drogheda yarn and Sligo yarn occupying the second and third places, with Hamburg and Bremen yarn as substitutes; fine Sligo yarn was also used as weft for African goods and for handkerchiefs.[188] The yarn from Dantzig and Königsberg (known as Ermland yarn from the bishopric of Ermland) was used in the manufacture of sheeting, and this yarn and Derry tow yarn were also made into checks and other goods for exportation.[189]

Both cotton and yarn reached the manufacturers through cotton merchants and yarn merchants, of whom there were many in Manchester.[190] Trading connections with Germany were maintained through travellers who sought orders from Manchester merchants and manufacturers, and German houses had branches in the town; also, Manchester tradesmen went to Germany themselves.[191] In addition, both cotton and yarn were sold by Manchester shopkeepers, who advertised these commodities along with such incongruous articles of merchandise as Dr. Daffey’s elixir, Anderson’s pills, tea, toys, jewellery, fiddle-strings, etc.[192]

As the raw materials reached the manufacturers through Manchester merchants, so did the finished products reach their markets.[193] In the case of the Chethams at the beginning of the seventeenth century, as we have seen, one part of their establishment was in Manchester and the other in London, and the same system was in vogue with firms in the eighteenth century. The Chethams appear to have confined themselves to home trade, mainly to that with the London market, although they had dealings with Irish manufacturers and sent goods to the Irish markets.[194] In the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, however, Manchester goods were exported to foreign countries, and during the first part of the next century considerable progress appears to have been made particularly in trade to the British Plantations.[195]

The statement of Aikin that in the first decades of the eighteenth century the trade was carried on through wholesale dealers at London, Bristol, and other ports, is probably correct, and there is also evidence of the accuracy of his later statement that, during the twenty or thirty years before he wrote (1795), “the increase of foreign trade has caused many of the Manchester manufacturers to travel abroad, and agents and partners to be fixed for a considerable time on the continent, as well as foreigners to reside in Manchester.”[196] The fact that, in 1770, a group of Manchester merchants were sufficiently interested in the effects of a destructive fire at Antigua Island to open a subscription for the relief of the sufferers, suggests important trading connections with the West Indies, and in considering how these connections were maintained, an announcement in the previous year of the death of a Manchester merchant at Jamaica is significant.[197]

As already noticed, cotton goods were manufactured for the African trade about the middle of the eighteenth century, and Guest informs us that about that time fustians began to be exported in considerable quantities to Italy, Germany and North America.[198] Writing of the time prior to the great changes in the cotton industry, Radcliffe states that the Manchester manufacturing merchants either themselves, or through merchants at London, Bristol, or Hull, carried on a large trade with the Levant, sending goods as “adventures” to the fairs of Asiatic Turkey which afterwards reached the markets in the interior of Asia. But, according to Radcliffe, the most important trade, particularly in fustians, “the old staple, by which these manufacturing merchants were raised to their princely rank,” was that with the North of China, carried on through Russia, a portion being “sent up the Black Sea, or overland from Smyrna by the Turkey Company,” and “another portion found its way, in modern times, through Leipsic to Moscow, and down the Volga to the Caspian Sea.”[199]

An indication of how Manchester goods were distributed about the country at the beginning of the eighteenth century is given in two petitions presented to the House of Commons from some of the inhabitants of Manchester and Stockport in 1704.[200] The petitioners protested against their being regarded as hawkers and pedlars under an Act passed a few years previously, whereas in reality they were wholesale dealers who distributed goods to many parts of the kingdom by means of horse carriage. Aikin’s account of the position at this time supplements their statement: “When the Manchester trade began to extend, the chapmen used to keep gangs of pack-horses, and accompany them to the principal towns with goods in packs, which they opened and sold to shopkeepers, lodging what was unsold in small stores at the inns. The pack-horses brought back sheep’s wool which was bought on the journey and sold to the makers of worsted yarn at Manchester, or to the clothiers at Rochdale, Saddleworth, and the West Riding of Yorkshire.”[201]

The pack-horse method of carriage was not peculiar to Manchester trade, but obtained generally. The system of travelling merchants was, however, especially characteristic of the Lancashire and Yorkshire cloth area, and these merchants were known as “Manchester men.”[202] In view of the fact that they were frequently men of considerable wealth, it is easy to understand why they disliked being regarded as hawkers and pedlars subject to duties on account of their particular kind of trade. From Leeds these “‘Manchester men’ used to go with Droves of Pack-horses loaden with ... goods to all the fairs and Market-towns almost all over the Island, not to sell by Retale, but to the shops by Wholesale, giving large credit. It was ordinary for one of these men to carry a thousand pounds worth of Cloth with him at a Time; and, having sold that, to send his Horses back for as much more; and this very often in a Summer.”[203] In all probability the description is generally true of Manchester in the early eighteenth century. But, at this time, the public carrier was beginning to displace the pack-horse,[204] and consequent upon his emergence, the particular class of merchants referred to ceased to travel with their goods, instead, they carried patterns and solicited orders, and afterwards dispatched the goods by the carriers. Thus there arose a class of men known as “riders-out,” and after the middle of the century advertisements for them become very frequent in The Manchester Mercury. “It was during the forty years from 1730 to 1770 that (Manchester) trade was greatly pushed by sending these riders all over the kingdom.”[205]

But this system could not develop fully until improvements in communications had been effected. So far as Lancashire was concerned, a start was made in 1720 with the Mersey and Irwell Navigation Act, though the contemplated scheme for a navigable waterway between Manchester and Liverpool was not completed until nearly twenty years later.[206] In the early fifties, road improvements were attracting much attention in Manchester, and the next twenty years witnessed a great advance in this direction in all parts of the country.[207] This development in road communication was accompanied by further development in water communication, the Act for the construction of the canal from Worsley to Manchester in 1759 marking a new starting-point. In 1762 the Act was passed for the canal from Manchester to Runcorn, where it joined the Mersey to Liverpool, and when it was completed the two towns were doubly linked by the old and the new navigations. The extent to which Manchester was connected with the rest of the country by road in 1772 may be seen from the number and the destination of the regular carriers in the town at that time.[208]

With these developments the system of travelling about the country with goods, although it had changed its character somewhat, had not lost its importance, nor did it lose it for a long time. It was carried on by “petty chapmen,” and it was to such men that the terms hawkers and pedlars now applied. In the eighties of the eighteenth century a controversy arose, or rather one that had been simmering through the century reached the boiling point, which shows that men, thus designated, were still of great importance in inland trade.

As a result of the Seven Years’ War, and the American War of Independence,[209] the country was faced with a financial crisis out of which the egregious “Sinking Fund” emerged, and many new taxes were levied to raise the required revenue. None raised such opposition in Manchester as the “fustian-tax” and the successful efforts to obtain its repeal were celebrated by an annual dinner for many years afterwards.[210] But the agitation against this tax was local, compared with that which arose in 1785 in connection with a tax on shops, and a proposal to repeal the licences of hawkers and pedlars, which was intended to make the shop-tax palatable. The proposal was carried into effect to the extent that additional duties were levied on hawkers and pedlars and their trade was regulated.

Before the proposal had taken the form of a Bill the manufacturers of Manchester entered a vigorous protest against it, as they did on other occasions after the Bill had become an Act.[211] For four years petitions and counter-petitions rained upon the House of Commons from all parts of the country, occupying a considerable portion of its Journals until 1789, when the shop-tax was repealed, and the Act relating to hawkers and pedlars amended.[212] The chief arguments of the shopkeepers against the itinerant tradesmen do not require recapitulation as they are still vigorously maintained. The minor arguments, that they dealt in smuggled and stolen goods and that they corrupted the minds and morals of the younger part of the community, may be attributed to the shopkeepers’ zeal in controversy.[213] What the hawkers and pedlars—or petty chapmen—did, in fact, was to perform the useful function of linking up the country districts with the manufacturing and trading centres. In the first Manchester petition the chapmen were described as carrying goods from house to house in the country villages and districts remote from towns. It also referred to their great number in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Cheshire, and stated that their purchases were more considerable than had been apprehended, which no doubt was true. The manufacturers of Glasgow attributed to the chapmen no small part in the extension of manufactures in England and Scotland, through their introducing goods into places where otherwise they would not have been sent.[214] The best witness to their importance at this time is the multitude of petitions presented in their favour from the manufacturers and traders in every considerable town.

From these petitions the organisation of the trade can be clearly visualised. The custom was for the chapmen to obtain their goods from manufacturers and traders on credit, and then to sell them on credit. In this way a considerable amount of capital was used in the trade. The hawkers and pedlars of Halifax and neighbourhood asserted that they had outstanding debts to the amount of £40,000, and that they again were indebted for large sums to merchants and manufacturers in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Leicester, Nottingham, Carlisle, etc.[215] But there were also capitalist traders in some parts of the country who, apparently, were solely engaged in supplying the chapmen with goods on credit.

This appears to have been the case with a member of “The Society of Travelling Scotchmen of Bridgnorth” who claimed to have £5000 employed in the trade.[216] His method was to buy goods from manufacturers in different parts of Great Britain and Ireland, and to supply them to the chapmen on credit, and, at the time, he had £3000 owing to him, while they had £1500 owing to them. Two members of a similar society at Shrewsbury, who pursued the same method, claimed to have £20,000 in the trade, with outstanding debts to the amount of £16,000, while the chapmen whom they supplied were in a similar position to the amount of £10,000.[217] Even allowing for some exaggeration in the petitions, there can be little doubt of the importance of the trade thus carried on at this time.[218] Possibly it was of more importance than some branches of trade of a more spectacular character, which, for that reason, often attract more attention.