[407] Before the outbreak of the European War it was estimated that nearly 80 per cent. of the total value of piece goods produced in the United Kingdom were exported. In 1913, British India took 36 per cent. and China 12 per cent. of the piece goods exported (Report of Committee on Textile Trades (1918), p. 60).
[408] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, pp. 339, 344-345.
Heathcote’s machine was patented about 1809 and soon afterwards he is said to have obtained five guineas a yard for lace which in 1844 could be equalled at eighteenpence a yard (Dodd, Textile Manufactures of Great Britain (1844), pp. 210-211).
[409] Ure, ibid., p. 295.
[410] Economic Journal, June, 1915.
[411] Baines, ibid., pp. 346-347.
[412] Kennedy, ibid., 347.
[413] Hammond, The Cotton Industry (1897), p. 16. Ibid., App. I.
[414] The Origin of Power-Loom Weaving (1828), pp. 61-62.
[415] French, ibid., pp. 115-116. Many lists of wages are given in the reports of various parliamentary committees—e.g. Report on Commerce, Manufactures and Shipping (1833), p. 699. The following are the prices paid for weaving (on the hand-loom) a 6-4ths, 60 reed cambric, 120 picks in one inch. They were taken in June in each year. In 1795-1796 the length was 20 yards and afterwards 24 yards. A weaver working one piece a week was said to be in full employment. The prices are interesting, not only as showing the decline during the period they cover, but also as the fluctuations indicate the state of trade with remarkable accuracy:
| Year | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| s. | d. | |
| 1795 | 33 | 3 |
| 1796 | 33 | 3 |
| 1797 | 29 | 0 |
| 1798 | 30 | 0 |
| 1799 | 25 | 0 |
| 1800 | 25 | 0 |
| 1801 | 25 | 0 |
| 1802 | 29 | 0 |
| 1803 | 24 | 0 |
| 1804 | 20 | 0 |
| 1805 | 25 | 0 |
| 1806 | 22 | 0 |
| 1807 | 18 | 0 |
| 1808 | 14 | 0 |
| 1809 | 16 | 0 |
| 1810 | 19 | 6 |
| 1811 | 14 | 0 |
| 1812 | 14 | 0 |
| 1813 | 15 | 0 |
| 1814 | 24 | 0 |
| 1815 | 14 | 0 |
| 1816 | 12 | 0 |
| 1817 | 9 | 0 |
| 1818 | 9 | 0 |
| 1819 | 9 | 6 |
| 1820 | 9 | 0 |
| 1821 | 8 | 6 |
| 1822 | 8 | 6 |
| 1823 | 8 | 6 |
| 1824 | 8 | 6 |
| 1825 | 8 | 6 |
| 1826 | 7 | 6 |
| 1827 | 6 | 0 |
| 1828 | 6 | 0 |
| 1829 | 5 | 6 |
| 1830 | 5 | 6 |
| 1831 | 5 | 6 |
| 1832 | 5 | 6 |
| 1833 | 5 | 6 |
[416] Cf. Warner, Landmarks in English Industrial History (1905), pp. 292-294.
[417] Defoe, A Tour Through Great Britain (1769 edition), iii., pp. 144-145. The passage by Radcliffe runs as follows:—“In the year 1770, the land in our township (Mellor) was occupied by between fifty and sixty farmers; rents, to the best of my recollection, did not exceed 10s per statute acre, and out of these fifty or sixty farmers, there were only six or seven who raised their rents directly from the produce of their farms; all the rest got their rent partly in some branch of trade, such as spinning and weaving woollen, linen, or cotton. The cottagers were employed entirely in this manner, except for a few weeks in the harvest. Being one of those cottagers, and intimately acquainted with all the rest, as well as with every farmer, I am the better able to relate particularly how the change from the old system of hand-labour to the new one of machinery operated in raising the price of land in the subdivision I am speaking of. Cottage rents at that time, with convenient loom-shop and a small garden attached, were from one and a half to two guineas per annum. The father of a family would earn from eight shillings to half-a-guinea at his loom, and his sons, if he had one, two, or three, alongside of him, six or eight shillings each per week; but the great sheet-anchor of all cottages and small farms was the labour attached to the hand-wheel, and when it is considered that it required six to eight hands to prepare and spin yarn, of any of the three materials I have mentioned, sufficient for the consumption of one weaver—this shows clearly the inexhaustible source there was for labour for every person from the age of seven to eighty years (who retained their sight and could move their hands) to earn their bread, say one to three shillings per week, without going to the parish” (pp. 59-60).
[418] Aikin, Manchester, p. 244-246.
[419] Ibid., p. 23.
[420] Reports, etc., 1826-1827, v., p. 5. Quoted by Chapman, Lancashire Cotton Industry, p. 11. Other references are given in the same page.
[421] “The domestic manufacturers resided generally in the outskirts of large towns or at still more remote distances” (Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England (1833), p. 17).
[422] Aikin, ibid., p. 482.
[423] Abstract of Population, Act 41, Geo. III., 1800, p. 59.
[424] French, ibid., p. 9.
[425] Aikin, ibid., p. 47: “On the dairy farms (in Cheshire) one woman servant is kept to every ten cows, who is employed in winter in spinning and other household business, but in milking is assisted by all the other servants of the farm.”
[426] Dr. Gaskell’s views are contained in The Manufacturing Population of England (1833) and Artisans and Machinery (1836), the latter being a reprint of the former with additions.
[427] “The great body of hand-loom weavers had at all times been divided by a well-defined line of demarcation into two very distinct classes. This distinction arose from the circumstance of their being landholders or being entirely dependent upon weaving for their support.” (Manufacturing Population, p. 36).
[428] Manufacturing Population, p. 41.
[429] Ibid., pp. 16, 34.
[430] Ibid., p. 37.
[431] He gives 1806 as the date of the introduction of power looms. It was about this time that, through the efforts of Horrocks, Johnson and Radcliffe, they became practicable. In February, 1807, Robert Owen wrote to M‘Connel and Kennedy inquiring about “the improvements presently in progress in weaving by power.”
[432] Ibid., pp. 34, 38.
[433] Manufacturing Population, pp. 35, 39.
[434] Ibid., pp. 37-38.
[435] Ibid., pp. 41-42.
[436] Manufacturing Population, pp. 43-45. In Artisans and Machinery, p. 33, he mentions Peel, Strutt and others. Cf. Aikin, ante, p. 136.
[437] In the parish of Oldham “there were a considerable number of weavers who worked on their own account and held at the same time small pieces of land” (Butterworth, History of Oldham, p. 101. Quoted by Chapman, ibid., p. 11).
[438] Gaskell, ibid., p. 17.
[439] See infra, p. 197.
[440] Manchester Mercury, 5th October 1779.
[441] Gaskell, ibid., p. 46-47. Report of Committee on Cotton Weavers’, etc., Petitions (1803)., p. 16.
[442] Report of Committee on Cotton Weavers’ Petitions (1808), p. 24.
[443] Some information regarding the state of trade is given in two papers by the present writer on “The Cotton Trade during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars” (Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society, 1916, 1917). The mule-spinners were combined in the early nineties of the eighteenth century, and although they claimed, in answer to the assertion that their combination was illegal, that it existed only to relieve their fellow-labourers in distress, they managed to conduct wages disputes in an efficient manner. The combination continued to exist after the Combination Acts were passed. In 1803 the master spinners in the town and neighbourhood of Manchester resolved to form themselves into an Association and raise a fund of £20,000 by each member contributing in proportion to the number of spindles he employed in order to defeat “this dangerous and unjust combination” (Circular dated 7th October 1803).
[444] There is a striking resemblance between the situation during the Napoleonic War and that during the recent European War. In this country there was the same fear about the food supply and similar efforts were made to conserve and increase it. In 1795 the members of the Houses of Parliament agreed by resolution to restrict the consumption of wheaten bread in their families, and their example was followed by various bodies throughout the country. In The Manchester Mercury numerous recipes appeared for making bread out of ingredients other than wheat. The Board of Agriculture experimented in making bread with substitutes for wheat and publicly exhibited no fewer than eighty different sorts (Curtler, A Short History of English Agriculture (1909), p. 230). The General Enclosure Act avowedly had as its aim an increase in the food supply and was passed during a terrible time of distress. Except that allotments were not regarded with much favour, the agricultural legislation was closely analogous to that of the recent war period. In the political and the industrial spheres the Combination Act took the place of sections of the Munitions Acts and the Defence of the Realm Acts. “Under the shadow of the French Revolution the English governing classes regarded all associations of the common people with the utmost alarm. In this general terror lest insubordination should develop into rebellion were merged both the capitalist’s objection to high wages and the politician’s dislike of Democratic institutions” (Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 64). Necessarily the vast proportion of the national expenditure (including loans to Allies) went to provide war materials of British manufacture, and war services, and there were the same complaints of the agricultural, the merchant, and the tradesmen, classes becoming rich out of war profits. Also, generally speaking, there was a great increase of employment, particularly in connection with the army, the navy, and Government offices. In the industrial sphere periods of intense pressure alternated with periods of great depression when distress was rampant. The great distinction between the two periods is evidently to be attributed to the social and political development which had taken place during the intervening century whereby flagrant class legislation had become impossible. Much information of a reliable character concerning conditions during the Napoleonic War is given by Lowe, in The Present State of England (1822). In the correspondence of M‘Connel and Kennedy to and from their customers in England, Scotland, Ireland and on the Continent, the industrial situation is indicated day by day from 1795 until beyond the conclusion of the war.
[445] French, ibid., p. 90.
[446] Infra, pp. 175, 176, 184, 193.
[447] He was something of a musician, building himself an organ and composing several hymn tunes. French, ibid., pp. 133 et seq. The organ and some of the MSS. of his music are now in Hall-i’-th’-Wood.
[448] Economic Journal, June, 1915.
[449] French, ibid., p. 123. Mr. Lee was manager for Mr. Drinkwater prior to Robert Owen occupying that position. He left to become partner in 1791 in a firm which attained a prominent position in Manchester under the name of Phillips & Lee (Autobiography of Robert Owen, pp. 26-29).
[450] Infra, p. 169.
[451] Infra, p. 167.
[452] French, ibid., p. 124.
[453] Transactions, Manchester Statistical Society, Feb., 1916.
[454] French, p. 125. “In 1803 he supplied the fourth part of a sum raised to build a place of worship for the religious body with which he had connected himself in Bury Street, Little Bolton” (ibid., p. 132).
[455] “And though I pushed on, intending to have a good share in the spinning line, yet I found there was an evil which I had not foreseen, and of much greater magnitude than giving up the machine, viz., that I must be always teaching green hands, employ none, or quit the country; it being believed that if I taught them, they knew their business well. So that for years I had no choice left but to give up spinning, or quit my native land.... But to this day, though it is more than thirty years since my first machine was shown to the public, I am hunted and watched with as much never-ceasing care as if I was the most notorious villain that ever disgraced the human form; and do affirm, that if I were to go to a smithy to get a common nail made, if opportunity offered to the bystanders, they would examine it most minutely to see if it was anything but a nail” (Letter quoted by Brown, The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims, p. 30).
[456] French, ibid., pp. 125-126.
[457] Brown, ibid., pp. 23-25.
[458] The whole matter is discussed at length by French, ibid., ch. xii.
[459] French, ibid., p. 158.
[460] Kennedy, Brief Memoir of Samuel Crompton, p. 322.
[461] Transactions, Manchester Statistical Society, 1917.
[462] French, ibid., p. 166. Infra, p. 174.
[463] Journals of the House of Commons, lxvii., p. 175. Hansard, xxi., p. 1174.
[464] J.H.C., lxvii., p. 207.
[465] J.H.C., lxvii., pp. 838-839.
[466] Infra, pp. 179-182, 189-191.
[467] Hansard, xxii. 94.
[468] Infra, pp. 192-194. Also in letters quoted by Brown, ibid., pp. 35-38.
[469] French, ibid., p. 189. Infra, p. 192.
[470] Infra, p. 172.
[471] J.H.C., lxvii., pp. 468, 476. Hansard, xxiii., 747-748.
[472] French, ibid., pp. 188-189. Infra, pp. 176, 182.
[473] Infra, p. 192.
[474] French, ibid., pp. 187-188.
[475] French, ibid., pp. 196-198.
[476] Kennedy, ibid., p. 323.
[477] French, ibid., pp. 199-200.
[478] Kennedy, ibid., pp. 323-324. Messrs. Hicks & Rothwell along with men like Isaac and Benjamin Dobson, of the famous engineering firm, used to meet at “The Sign of the Black Horse” in Bolton, where they had formed a “prosecution” club in 1801. Crompton belonged to this club, his name appearing in 1810, and as a member of the Committee in 1819. The scheme of an annuity appears to have originated and have been carried through by this group of men along with Mr. Kennedy and others. The minutes of the club are preserved in the Chadwick Museum, Bolton. In Manchester also there was a “prosecution” society known by the name of “The Society for the Prosecution of Felons.” In both cases the society appears to have come into existence to check the small thefts and the pilfering of materials used in the businesses of the members. Cf. Dobson, Evolution of the Spinning Machine, p. 115.
[479] French, ibid., pp. 218-222.
[480] On 24th January 1861 (A Chronological History of Bolton to 1875).
[481] Author of The Cotton Trade of Lancashire (1870) and other similar publications.
[482] Account of the ceremony at Hall-i’-th’-Wood.
[483] Chronological History of Bolton, 6th October 1862. See infra, p. 197.
[484] The place was purchased in 1899 by Mr. W. H. Lever (now Lord Leverhulme) and presented by him, with a sum of money for its restoration, to the Corporation of Bolton. It is now open to the public as a museum, and contains, among other interesting things, many Crompton relics.
[485] Aikin, ibid., p. 261.
[486] Bigwood, Cotton (1918), p. 185. The figures refer to 1916.
[487] Dobson, ibid., p. 112.
[488] It was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the self-actor mule entirely displaced the hand-mule (Chapman, ibid., pp. 69-70).
[489] Report of the Tenth International Cotton Congress, pp. 591, 600, 610, 717.
[490] In this connection, of course, Great Britain really means the United Kingdom.
[491] They are discussed in Ellison, Cotton Trade of Great Britain, pp. 33-35.
[492] Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton, pp. 27-28.
[493] ... suggested, if you should agree, that a little more time should be allowed, before you published your circular letter, in order to call a meeting....
[494] Brown, The Basis of Mr. Samuel Crompton’s Claims, pp. 32-33.
[495] J.H.C., lxvii., p. 175.
[496] Crompton always spelled Mr. Perceval’s name as in this letter.
[497] Crompton’s son.
[498] In the margin opposite this answer the words “The Billy” are written. Ante, p. 123.
[499] A comparison of these questions and answers with the evidence given by Mr. Ainsworth before the Committee, which sat some time later, will show that one is largely a repetition of the other.
[500] J.H.C., lxvii., pp. 838-839.