Middlemen in English Business 271 



the realm^ of 1606 and 1609 which were enacted to reduce the frauds 

 of the "spinners of wool within the Countie of Essex that shall receive 

 any wooll to be spun into yarne" for clothiers "dwelling in the townes 

 of Cogshall, Bocking, Braintree, Halstead, Wittam, or Colchester. "- 

 It therefore appears that for two centuries Essex and Suffolk were a 

 spinning district for local and distant clothiers and that opportunity 

 existed for the rise of middlemen handling yarn. 



Round about the Wiltshire clothing district was situated another 

 spinning district. Elsewhere it has been remarked that the wool- 

 staplers of Cirencester put out their wool in the environs of their 

 town and county. To the north, Evasham was described by Pococke 

 as having "a great manufacture of yarn,"^ Camden "a manufacture 

 of spinning thread,"^ Shipton, "a manufacture in combing wool."^ 

 This spinning district extended as far north as Derbyshire where "the 

 number of spinners must have greatly exceeded that of the weavers."^ 

 Early in the fifteenth century the women of this county were accus- 

 tomed to "take wool to spynne of clothe makers and by that meanes 

 have a convenyente l}rvrynge."'' To the west of Wales, 

 Somerset and Devon produced an excess of yarn. Irish yarn could 

 be imported (about 1700) more cheaply than the local yarn makers 

 could produce it by \d. per pound and the importation was extensively 

 carried on.^ Defoe reported that these western clothiers imported 

 twenty-five thousand packs of yarn ready spun from Ireland.^ Cerne 

 and Wine Caunton in Dorset had "a manufacture of spinning thread 

 and woolen yarn."^° Further to the southwest " and west, Porlock 

 yarn had a great reputation among the Wilts clothiers and was eagerly 

 sought after by them through their agents or the yarn-merchants.' ' 

 This yarn was marketed at Dunster in Somerset from the sixteenth 



^ 4 Jas. I, Cap. 2 and 7 Jas. I, Cap. 7. 



^ This occupation was one used to employ the poor by the executors of the poor 

 law and so received the cooperation of the local governments. Leonard, Early 

 Eng. Poor Relief; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. XIV, App. VIIT, 139. 



3 Pococke, II, 277. 



* Ibid., II, 280. 



^Ibid., II, 280. 



6V.C.H., Derby, II, 371. 



' Fitzherbert, Boke of Husbandrie, XIII, 97. 



8 J. C. H., 1697:37. 



9 Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., II, 189, 192. 

 10 Pococke, II, 143, 150. 



'^ Lewis, Topog. Diet. Ill, 556. 



