[133] J.H.C., xiv., p. 67.

[134] 1 Anne, c. 18.

[135] 9 Anne, c. 32.

[136] 13 Geo. II., c. 8.

[137] 22 Geo. II., c. 27. Professor Ashley has drawn attention to the significance of these Acts (Economic Organisation of England (1914), p. 145). Cf. J.H.C., xvi., p. 311, 1709: “Petition of divers principal traders and dealers in linen manufactures on behalf of themselves and several thousand workmen employed by them in the said trade in Manchester and adjacent parts.”

[138] Ogden, ibid., pp. 74-88.

[139] Ogden, ibid., p. 74. It will be noticed that the statement regarding wool being given to the weavers means cotton-wool ready spun—weft—as is made clear in the next quotation.

[140] Ibid., p. 88.

[141] Guest, Compendious History of the Cotton Manufacture (1823), p. 9.

[142] Ibid., p. 11.

[143] Infra, pp. 67-69.

[144] Manchester Reference Library, No. 28266.

[145] Cf. Ogden, ibid., p. 82, also Chapman, Lancashire Cotton Industry, pp. 19-22, where the loom is described.

[146] Smollett, History of England (1818 edition), iv., p. 177.

[147] The prices of cereals in Manchester are given weekly in The Manchester Mercury until 1766 and spasmodically afterwards.

[148] In The Manchester Mercury.

[149] Ibid., 21st June 1757.

[150] Ibid., 11th November, 28th December 1756.

[151] Ibid., 14th and 21st June 1757. Rioting took place in Stockport in September. Ibid., 30th September.

[152] Ibid., 14th December 1756.

[153] Ibid., 8th November 1757.

[154] Smallware Weavers’ Apology, p. 9. There is no reason to think the word “shop” referred to a workshop in the ordinary sense. Possibly the place where work was given out and taken in was called a shop.

[155] 9th January.

[156] Manchester Mercury, 25th March 1760.

[157] Manchester Mercury, 5th September 1758. Gentleman’s Magazine, 12th August 1758. Smollett, ibid., v. 439-440.

[158] Mr. Thomas Percival (1719-1762) must not be confused with Dr. Thomas Percival who, later in the century, became prominent in his endeavours to improve the conditions in the cotton factories particularly as regards children. The Thomas Percival referred to in the text lived at Royton, near Oldham. The check manufacturers spoke of him as “a landed proprietor” and as one who was “known to be an enemy of oppression of all kinds.” He was a Justice of Peace, a Whig in politics, and wrote in opposition to the High Church clergy and the non-jurors in Manchester. In his day he was well known as an antiquarian and was elected F.R.S. in 1756 and F.S.A. in 1760 (Dict. of Nat. Biog., xliv., p. 383).

[159] Letter to a Friend, p. 5.

[160] Ibid., App. I.

[161] Ibid., p. 10.

[162] 25th April 1758.

[163] Letter to a Friend, p. 12.

[164] Letter to a Friend, App. I. The Act referred to is the Statute of Apprentices, 1563, and it is evident that the check-weavers were giving to it, as did other workpeople during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, an interpretation which was not in the minds of its originators. The two clauses of the Act upon which they invariably fixed were those relating to the assessment of wages and to apprentices. The original Act, among other things, authorised Justices of the Peace to assess wages, taking into account “the plenty or scarcity of the time.” The wages thus assessed were maxima not minima, and penalties were provided for those who paid or received more than the maxima. In 1603 the statute was re-enacted, and, at this time, so far as the workers in the woollen industry were concerned, the rates fixed were to be minima, but it appears that few assessments were made on this basis—they were made on the “not more” basis, not on the “not less.” In the industrial changes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries workpeople desired the latter, and frequently requested the enforcement of the Act with this object in view, and it figured prominently in the demands of the rising organisations. The clause relating to apprenticeship laid down that after the passing of the Act no one should exercise “any art, mistery, or manual occupation” without first serving a seven years’ apprenticeship, and why the workpeople in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries desired the enforcement of this clause is clearly explained by the same reasons as underlay their desire for the assessment of wages. The Statute of Apprentices cannot be fully understood unless it is read as a whole, with a background given by the conditions in the middle of the sixteenth century. When this is done the statute becomes important not as a great constructive piece of statesmanship, but as indicating the outlook of statesmen on the social and industrial problems of their day, and as a futile attempt to check the operation of forces which for long had been irresistibly making for change. The wages clause was finally repealed in 1813 and the apprenticeship clause in the following year, but long before they had become practically obsolete (Unwin, Industrial Organisation, pp. 137-141, 252; Tawney, The Assessment of Wages in England by Justices of the Peace; Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, pp. 25-44; S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism, chap. i.).

[165] Letter to a Friend, p. 48.

[166] Ibid., p. 13.

[167] Ibid., App. II.

[168] Letter to a Friend, p. 14.

[169] Ibid., App. III.

[170] Ibid., p. 8. As another example of the number of people employed by one concern in the early eighteenth century, it may be noticed that one check-maker stated that he would employ 500 weavers if he had not to turn off unfair men.

[171] 25th June 1758.

[172] Ibid., 17th October 1758.

[173] Letter to a Friend, App. VIII.

[174] Manchester Mercury, 3rd April 1759.

[175] History of Trade Unionism (1911), p. 44.

[176] Ibid., p. 28. The first instances given by Mr. and Mrs. Webb from The Journals of the House of Commons of combinations in this district are in 1717. Earlier instances appear in 1706 from Taunton and Bristol. In the Taunton petition it is stated “that within 4 or 5 years” weavers in most towns where woollen manufactures are made have formed themselves into clubs (J.H.C., xv., p. 312).

[177] Industrial Organisation in the XVIth and the XVIIth Centuries, pp. 51, 58-61, 123, 135, 198-199, 208-210, 229-234.

[178] Manchester Mercury, 7th August 1781.

[179] Ibid., 11th September 1781.

[180] Manchester Mercury, 2nd October 1781. In addition to the smallware weavers there is evidence of organisation in the following trades before 1790: silk weavers, hatters, calico and fustian printers, cotton-spinners, and paper-makers. The hatters were presented with the “document” as early as 11th February 1777 (Manchester Mercury).

[181] For “putting-out” system, see Radcliffe, Origin of Power Loom Weaving (1828), pp. 13, 16, 68. Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England Anterior to the Application of Steam (1833), p. 17.

[182] In Mr. Percival’s Letter to a Friend the following passage appears which is none the less informative because it is satirical: “Another objection against me in common with other gentlemen, is, that we envy these check-makers; really, sir, I wonder what any country gentleman can be supposed to envy them for! Is it their houses? What country gentleman has reason to envy the possessor of a house of four, five, or six rooms of a floor with warehouses under and warping rooms over?... Is it their furniture? See one room drest out like a baby house.... Is it their equipages? Surely no, when one sees their chariots or post-chaises, with a pair of callender tits, and the callender lad for coachman, it must set any spectator a-laughing at the grotesque, did not the honest horses by hanging down their heads shew that they were ashamed of their employment. Is it their cookery? Here indeed I am almost at a stand to find a reason, which a Manchester check-maker will allow for a good one, why the country gentlemen do not envy their cookery; but on recollection I have one; they must allow it as a maxim, that the heart grieves not at what the eye sees not; and no country gentleman that I have ever heard of, could ever yet certify what was for dinner in the house of a Manchester check-maker. The reason their good wives believe we envy them their cookery, is, that when they move into the country for some weeks in the summer, the cook is too covetous to move his shop after them, and, as they know not how to get in their own families, anything more than plain boiled or roast, they are wise enough to believe nobody knows more, and because they are half starved whilst they are out of the town of Manchester, imagine there is no good livelihood anywhere else. Is it their fine clothes? Upon my honour I know many country gentlemen better dressed. Is it their handsome perriwigs? to comfort us country folks, I know few with worse heads ...” (pp. 9-10).

[183] Infra, p. 61.

[184] Treasure of Traffike, p. 32. Ellison, Cotton Trade of Great Britain, p. 170.

[185] J.H.C., xxii., pp. 566-567. Slack, Remarks on Cotton (early nineteenth-century pamphlet). Aikin, England Delineated (1790), pp. 39, 83. Aikin, England Described (1818), pp. 26, 87.

[186] Ante, pp. 30-31. In 1639 the Town Jury of Manchester ordered “that Anne Thorp, widow, shall have the keepinge of the scales and waights usuall for wayinge of Ireish yarne” (Court Leet Records, iii., p. 321). It was stated in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1736 by one witness that he bought linen-yarn, from a person in Northumberland, in one transaction, to the value of £1000 (J.H.C., xxii., pp. 566-567).

[187] Life and Correspondence of Samuel Hibbert Ware (1882), pp. 96-98.

[188] Ibid., p. 98.

[189] Ibid., pp. 97-98.

[190] Infra, p. 68.

[191] Ware, ibid., pp. 17-18. In these pages some memoranda of a commercial traveller for a Dantzig house preserved among Dr. Ware’s papers are given. Manchester Mercury, 3rd March 1772, contains a notice of the funeral of Daniel Kahl, eminent yarn merchant, partner of Delius & Kahl, Bremen.

[192] In every issue of The Manchester Mercury.

[193] While there apparently was a distinction between merchants and manufacturers it should not be drawn too rigidly. Cf. Radcliffe, ibid., p. 131: “All those great merchants were manufacturers with scarcely an exception.”

[194] Raines and Sutton, Life of Humphrey Chetham, pp. 13, 127.

[195] J.H.C., xiv., p. 498; xvi., p. 311; xviii., p. 543; xxiii., pp. 76-78.

[196] Aikin, Manchester, pp. 182-184. Radcliffe, ibid., p. 93.

[197] Manchester Mercury, 29th November 1769; 6th February 1770.

[198] Ante, p. 29, note. Guest, Compendious History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 12. About this time Manchester traders figure in the petitions against the African and the Hudson Bay Companies.

[199] Radcliffe, ibid., pp. 131-133.

[200] J.H.C., xiv., pp. 498, 504.

[201] Aikin, ibid., pp. 183-184.

[202] Smiles, Lives of the Engineers (1862), i., pp. 178-181. Westerfield, Middlemen in English Business (1915), pp. 313-314.

[203] Defoe, A Tour through Great Britain (1769 edition), iii., p. 126.

[204] Westerfield, ibid., pp. 362-363.

[205] Aikin, ibid., p. 184.

[206] Baines, Lancashire and Cheshire, iii., pp. 84-85.

[207] Manchester Mercury, 1752 onwards. Smiles, ibid., p. 206. Between 1760 and 1774 452 Acts were passed for making and repairing highways.

[208] Infra, p. 71.

[209] National Debt, 1756, £72,000,000. End of Seven Years’ War, 1763, £136,600,000. End of American War, 1783, £238,000,000 (Bastable, Public Finance, pp. 632-633).

[210] Life and Correspondence of Samuel Hibbert Ware, pp. 99-101. The Bill was introduced in August, 1784, and was quickly passed. It was resolved to repeal it in June, 1785. For the agitation, see Manchester Mercury and pamphlets published during these months. Details of the tax are given by Baines, ibid., p. 328.

[211] J.H.C., xl., p. 1001; xli., p. 283; xliv., p. 295.

[212] Ibid., xliv., pp. 276, 422.

[213] Ibid., xl., pp. 1107, 1109.

[214] Ibid., p. 1039.

[215] J.H.C., xl., p. 1026.

[216] Ibid., pp. 1017-1018.

[217] Ibid., p. 1020.

[218] The hawkers and pedlars of London and Westminster stated that they composed part of a body which numbered 1400 in England alone (ibid., p. 1007).

[219] The year 1623 marks an important date in this connection. Unwin, ibid., p. 190, also The Gilds and Companies of London, ch. xvii. Professor W. R. Scott’s Joint-Stock Companies to 1720, is a storehouse of fundamental facts relating to the economic history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

[220] One described as dyer and printer.

[221] One described as manufacturer and printer.

[222] Two described as fustian silk and linen manufacturers.

[223] One described as silk and smallware manufacturer, two as silk throwsters, and one as throwster and dyer.

[224] One described as linen merchant.

[225] Two described as linen and fustian dyers.

[226] One described as frieze-maker, one as woollen manufacturer and paper-maker, and one as worsted weaver.

[227] One described as woollen draper and cloth-worker, and one as woollen draper and check manufacturer.

[228] One described as dealer in cotton weft.

[229] One described as hatter and hosier, and one as hat-lining cutter.

[230] One described as dresser and cutter, and one as presser.

[231] One described as twister and dyer, and one as dyer printer and manufacturer.

[232] In this list there are three partnerships.

[233] Ante, p. 40.

[234] Chapman, ibid., p. 21.

[235] John Kay was born near Bury in 1704, but lived at Colchester at the time of the invention. He returned to Bury some time after 1745, and lived there apparently until about 1753 (Espinasse, Lancashire Worthies (1874), pp. 310-318).

[236] Ogden, ibid. (1783), p. 89, states that “the fly shuttle” is “in such estimation here (in Manchester) as to be used generally even on narrow goods.”

[237] Guest, ibid., p. 9. Espinasse, ibid., p. 313.

[238] Espinasse, ibid., pp. 310-318.

[239] Guest, ibid., p. 9.

[240] Espinasse, ibid.

[241] Ogden, ibid., pp. 76-77. This loom was the predecessor of the Jacquard loom. Chapman, ibid., pp. 22-23.

[242] Ante, p. 23. Ogden, ibid., p. 87. Guest, ibid., pp. 11-12.

[243] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. v., Second Series (1831), p. 324. Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, 10th July 1913, pp. 12, 13. The sections on cotton-spinning, and on early cotton machinery, were written by Mr. Thomas Midgley, Curator of Chadwick Museum, Bolton, and contain a clear exposition of the spinning processes. In the museum there is an excellent collection of the early machinery of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton, as well as of more ancient machinery.

[244] Dobson, Evolution of the Spinning Machine (1911), p. 28.

[245] Ibid., pp. 33-35. Kennedy, Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. iii., Second Series (1815), pp. 118-119. Mr. Kennedy states that before the coming of the great inventions the endeavours to find better methods filled the cottages with little improvements, and that the multiplication of instruments was forcing the work out of cottages. “Here,” he says “commences the factory system” (p. 118).

[246] Cole, Some Account of Lewis Paul. Paper read at the meeting of the British Association, 1858. Reproduced by French, Life and Times of Samuel Crompton (1859), App. III. The references are to the pages in French’s book.

[247] For the contrary view, Ure, Cotton Manufacture, i., pp. 237 et seq. The proximity of the date of the patent to that of Kay’s patent and the “Manchester Act” is a fact again worthy of notice.

[248] French, ibid., pp. 269-270. Espinasse, ibid., p. 341.

[249] Ibid., pp. 256, 268.

[250] Baines, ibid., p. 134. Espinasse, ibid., pp. 349-350.

[251] French, ibid., p. 266. Espinasse asserts that it was introduced into at least one Yorkshire workhouse (ibid., p. 355).

[252] French, ibid., p. 269.

[253] Ibid., p. 252.

[254] Ibid., p. 266. It appears, however, that he may have invented this machine as early as 1740 (ibid., 256).

[255] Espinasse, ibid., p. 365.

[256] Dobson, ibid., 36-37.

[257] Dobson, ibid., p. 37.

[258] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, p. 326.

[259] Baines, ibid., pp. 177-179.

[260] Espinasse, ibid., p. 320.

[261] Brown, The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims (reprint, Manchester, 1868), p. 28.

[262] Baines, ibid., p. 156.

[263] Espinasse, ibid., pp. 322, 327.

[264] Ogden, ibid., p. 87.

[265] Guest, British Cotton Manufacture (1828), p. 147. Ogden states that the larger jennies were used for making warps until they were superseded by the water-frame (ibid., p. 91).

[266] Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, pp. 16-17.

[267] Espinasse, ibid., p. 400.

[268] Smiles, Boulton and Watt (1904), p. 111.

[269] Ure, ibid., i., p. 286.

[270] Ogden, ibid., p. 16.

[271] Josiah Wedgwood was an eye-witness of this rising. His account of it is quoted by Espinasse, ibid., pp. 424-426.

[272] Manchester Mercury, 12th October 1779.

[273] J.H.C., xxxvii., p. 926.

[274] It will be borne in mind that the trouble with America began immediately the Seven Years’ War concluded, with the attempt to impose, with increased energy, “the colonial policy” which at once was met by commercial reprisals that greatly dislocated trade and called forth loud protests from British merchants. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce (1805), see under years 1763-1790. Smith, Wars Between England and America (1914).

[275] Meredith, Economic History of England. See Chart B for variations in the amount of wheat which could be purchased with the daily wage of a carpenter and an agricultural labourer. Tooke, History of Prices; Martineau, History of the Peace; Wilks, The Half Century (1852); J. L. and B. Hammond, The Village Labourer; The Town Labourer; The Skilled Labourer.

[276] Manchester Mercury, 9th January 1762.

[277] Ibid., 1st September 1762.

[278] Macpherson, ibid., pp. 391, 406-407.

[279] Macpherson, ibid., pp 438, 452.

[280] Regarding this Assize the following notice, based upon 31 Geo. II., c. 29., was issued in The Manchester Mercury, 18th Nov. 1766:—“In every Assize of Bread respect shall he had to the Market Price of Grain and Meal and Flour making reasonable allowance to the Baker for his Labour and Profit. In order to know the Price of Meal and Flour in proportion to the Price of Wheat, the Magistrates and Justices of Peace are to take notice that the Peck loaf of each sort of Bread is to weigh, when well baken, 17 lbs. 6 ozs. avoirdupois, and the rest in proportion; and that every sack of Meal or Flour is to weigh 2 cwt. 2 qrs. (not 280 lbs.) and that from every sack of Meal or Flour there ought to be produced 20 such Peck loaves of Bread.”

“By this rule from every Manchester load of flour weighing 240 lbs. there ought to be produced 297 lbs. 13 oz. 12 drs., of Bread of each sort well baken. The price of 296 lbs. 7 oz. 8 drs. of Wheaten Bread consisting of 1d. 2d. 6d. 12d. 18d. loaves according to the above Assize is 44s. The Price of a load of Flour is 30s., allowance to Baker is 14s. The Price of 297 lbs. 10 ozs. 15 drs. of Household Bread consisting of such loaves is 32s. 10d. Price of a load of Flour is 27s. 6d. Allowance to Baker is 5s. 4d.”

Assize of Bread for Manchester and Salford
10th November 1766[A]

			lbs.	ozs.	drs.
1d. loaf Wheaten	to	weigh		8	7
Ditto Household	”	”		11	2
2d. loaf Wheaten	”	”	1	0	14
Ditto Household	”	”	1	6	4
6d. loaf Wheaten	”	”	3	2	9
Ditto Household	”	”	4	2	12
12d. loaf Wheaten	”	”	6	5	2
Ditto Household	”	”	8	5	8
18d. loaf Wheaten	”	”	9	7	11
Ditto Household	”	”	12	8	3