262 Textiles and Textile Materials Trader 



The fourth district was Norfolk and Suffolk. It was the earliest 

 manufacturing district and seat of the Flemish and French immi- 

 grants. As has been shown above, this region's demand for wool 

 exceeded the local production and its manufacturing towns, Col- 

 chester, Norwich, Braintree, Coggeshall, and others drew f el-wool 

 from Southwark, long-staple wool through Stourbridge, and Irish 

 wool through London. Further notice of this district's supph- will 

 be taken under the head of "Yarn Merchant." 



Besides Stourbridge and Cirencester, the other great wool-market 

 was at Blackwell Hall, London, and Barnaby Street, Southwark.' 

 One district marketed its wool at London because of the prohibi- 

 tive legislation against "owling" wool to France; the law, though 

 much evaded along the Kentish coast, was very severe, and for- 

 bade the graziers to sell their wool within a certain number of miles 

 from the sea ; so for want of other market the wool-growers sent it 

 to London whence it found its way to Wilts as Kentish wool.-' 



The English woolens manufacturers drew their wool from four 

 sources: (a) the least important source was the African and Turkey 

 coasts of the Mediterranean, known respectively as Barbary and 

 Caramania wool.^ Both were good, had long staple and tine fiber; 

 but the quantity imported was insignificant, (b) Irish wool reached 

 England b>' way of Liverpool into the Northern district, by wa\- of 

 Biddeford, Barnstaple and Minehead into the Western district, and 

 by way of London whence it was carried to Norfolk and Essex.' As 

 it became the settled poHcy of the EngUsh to suppress the wool and 

 woolens industry- in Ireland and to encourage the Hnen industry, the 

 importations from Ireland were limited to a certain few ports and 

 times and never reached the volume the island could have supplied.' 

 (c) Spanish wool was imported in large quantities from Bilbao. It 

 was a fine, short-fiber wool, and was mixed with the coarser nati\-e 

 wool, and made into the finest cloths. The great part (d) of the wool 

 consumed was native wool, which with the exception of the Spanish 

 was superior to the wools of the Continental states or their colonies. 

 Before the immigration of the Hugenots and the Flemish cloth-workers 

 England had exported her fleeces to Flanders, whence she received 

 back in turn her cloth. This exportation ga\e employment to the 



^ See treatment under "Factor," below; iJefoc. Tour, II, 36-7. 



2 Ibid., IT, 36-7. 



3 Defoe, Com. Kng. Tr., II, 187. ISy, 102. 

 "Ibid., 187. 



* See disserlalion on the policy in I'osllcliuva\l, Diet., s. v. British Emi)iri.'. 



