Middlemen in English Business 273 



Clothier. 



The clothier was the central figure in the Domestic System of 

 manufacture which characterized increasingly the productions of 

 cloth from the middle of the fifteenth century till the Industrial 

 Revolution. His business was a composite of the middleman's busi- 

 ness and the manufacturer's business, but must be regarded in larger 

 measure that of middlemen. In a restricted sense, he was not a 

 manufacturer since he had ceased to exercise the craft of clothworker; 

 nor was he a pure middleman, for all the wares he handled underwent 

 transformation while under his control and assumed a very different 

 aspect from the time he purchased the raw wool till he sold the finished 

 product. He was an organizer of the manufacture, of the labor and 

 of the distribution of the materials. His shop was a neighborhood, a 

 village and its environs. Not until the closing decades of the period 

 covered by this study did he assume the ownership of the tools of 

 manufacture, and even then they were leased out to the artisans under 

 his employ. Nevertheless, since he did not directly manufacture the 

 materials which he bought and engaged himself exclusi\'ely (a) in the 

 bu\ing of materials and of labor used upon them and outside his 

 supervision and (b) in the selling of the cloth, his middlemen char- 

 acteristics are very obvious, and on the basis of these features his 

 relations to trade are studied here. 



(a) West District. It is deemed best for the purpose of com- 

 parative analysis and definite statement to treat successively the 

 clothing organization of the three manufacturing districts. That of 

 the West of England reached the highest degree of organization and 

 approached the factory system most closely before the Industrial 

 Revolution. It was dominated by the capitalist manufacturer 

 middleman — the clothier. ^ Here the clothier's function as organizer 

 was the most striking phase of the industry. He was a man of capital 

 and credit. Cunningham has shown the rise of capitalistic employers 

 and the division of labor in the clothing industry between 1461 and 

 1485.- During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these clothiers 

 rose to a prominent place in Gloucester life.'^ ,\nd they appear to 



^ It is suggested that the reader compare Defoe, Tour, II, ?)i (1722); Tucker 

 Instructions, 36 (1758); and the Report from the Committee on the Woolen 

 Manufacture of England (1806), and note the small degree of change in organiza- 

 tion during the eighteenth century. 



- Cunningham, Growth, I, 437-8; V. C. H., Glouces. II, 154. 



3 V. C. H., Glouces. II, 159; Ibid., 523-4; Somerset, II, 313;Nashs. Worccs. II, 

 app. CXIV. 



