272 Textiles mid Textile Materials Trades 



century onwards.^ Carhampton also produced much yarn for sale.^ 

 This yarn-spinning was a household industry^ and the spinners were 

 reported to be "very necessary members of the commonwealth."^ 

 The clothiers' wives and children and women servants performed much 

 spinning — -"spullars of yarn," "forcers and cisters of wool."^ On 

 the eastern side of Wilts the spinners divided their output of yarn be- 

 tween Wilts and London. Cricklade manufactured woolen yarn, as 

 did Auburn and other parts of Berks; in 1750 Pococke found that the 

 people "spin cotton for candles, for cotten cloths and stockins; and 

 the carriers go with cotton backward and forward through this place 

 to and from London."^ 



Far up in the north was another spinning district. Great quantities 

 of the wool bought in the Leicester district were carried north, even 

 into remote Westmoreland, to be spun into yarn and be carried back 

 to Norwich and London.' 



It is evident from the data at hand that the trade of spinning was, 

 to a considerable degree, localized. xA.lthough some spinning was done 

 in nearly every home, in some districts it was made a specialty and a 

 surplus of yarn was prepared for the market. The yarn merchant 

 made a living by buying wool, distributing it among the spinners, col- 

 lecting the yarn, and selling it to the clothiers; more commonly, he 

 simply bought and sold yarn. 



Repeated complaints were made to the government against the 

 yarnmen and spinners of yarn. The most familiar was that they made 

 up reels of yarn that were of defective length and were wanting in 

 the proper number of threads.^ The weavers, for example, of Norfolk 

 proposed to hold the yarnmen responsible for such defects and secured 

 an order of the Privy Council specifying the proper length and number 

 of threads and penalizing any defaults by confiscation. This order 

 of 1617 was supplemented in 1621 by efforts to procure an act of 

 Parliament to the same end.'-' 



1 Someis. Arch. Soc. Proc, XXXV, 238; \'. C. H., Somers. II, 407. 

 - Savage, Hist, of Carhampton, 86. 

 ^ Young, Annals of Agric, IX, 308. 

 ^Cal. S. P. Dom. 1634-5, 472. 

 5 Unwin, 85; V. C. H., Worces. II, 289. 

 « Pococke, II, 248, 251. 

 ' See note on pages 260-61 . 



*See statutory regulation of the delivery of wool to spinners and its return, 

 1512, 3 Hen. VIII, Cap. 6. 



9 S. P. Dom., Jas. I, CXL, 82; S. P. Dom., Ch. I, CLIII, Si. 



