Middlemen in English Business 291 



(c) East District. The third manufacturing section embraced the 

 east portion of England — the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, 

 Surrey and Kent. This was the oldest manufacture due primarily 

 to its proximity to the Continent. The woolen industry arose here 

 after Edward III in 1336 prohibited the importation of Flemish and 

 French woolens. There had been some immigration of foreign cloth- 

 makers before this time, but Edward accompanied his prohibition of 

 imports with a toleration and encouragement of immigration, and his 

 policy was very effective.^ An act of 1468 mentions the prosperity 

 of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk as due to the "great prolit and good 

 utterance of the said cloths."^ Coggeshall, Colchester, Ipswich and 

 Norwich were the early centers of manufacture. Coggeshall stood 

 second to Colchester during the whole clothing period, and both towns 

 were most prosperous about 1600; between 1710 and 1760 the decline 

 was very rapid.'^ By 1750 Surrey clothing trade was practicalh' 

 ended. The shift of the worsted business to the Yorkshire region 

 spelled the end of it in the east. The "new draperies" that were 

 introduced early in the seventeenth century foimd their three great- 

 est seats in Canterbury, Colchester and Southampton,* but despite 

 their rejuvenating effects the east gradually suffered its trade to decay. 



In another place^ it has been shown that possessors of wool put it 

 out into rural local or distant parts for combing and spinning. Many 

 an evidence might be cited with reference to this region. In 1518 

 Thomas Paycock, a wealthy clothier of Coggeshall willed certain 

 portions of his estate to various of "my kemberS, carders, and spyn- 

 ners," "that have wrought me verey moche work."^ A statute in 

 1609 was passed to regulate "spinners of wool . . . that shall 

 receave any wooU to be spune into yarn for any clothier or maker of 

 bayes . . . dwelling in the townes of Cogshall, Bocking, Brain- 

 tree, Halstead, Wittam, or Colchester."^ This yarn spun in the 

 immediate country districts was usually collected by riders sent out 

 b\- the clothiers and delivered to the weavers.^ Sometimes the yarn- 



1 Morant, Hist, of Colchester, 71; V. C. H., Essex, II, 381, 38.i. 



- 8 Edward I\', Cap. 1 . 



' The origin, rise and decline of clothing manufacture in this district are ver\- 

 extensively described in V. C. H., Essex, II, 381-3, 391, 399-400; Suflolk, II, 257; 

 Hants, V, 486; Surrey, II, 348. 



^ S. P. Dom., Jas. I, LXXX, 13. 



'See "Yam Merchant." 



8 V. C. H., Essex, II, 382. 



"7 Jas. I, Cap. 7; cf. 3 Henr\- VIII, Cap. 6. 



n^ C. H.. Suff., IT, 259. 



