A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



the industry disappeared before 1891. A certain 

 amount of laundry work is sent out from London 

 to the country round Ipswich, 1 and as late as 

 1894 at any rate tailoring was done for London 

 by the villages round Bury. 3 It was perhaps to 

 replace this latter arrangement that the numerous 

 clothing factories which are now to be found all 

 over the eastern counties came into existence. 

 There are very large establishments of this kind 

 at Haverhill and Ipswich, and besides the workers 

 concentrated in the factories there are a great 

 many women employed in branch workshops and 

 in their homes, the total number being between 

 three and four thousand. Corset-making is 

 another Suffolk industry which has attained a 

 first-rate importance during the last thirty years, 

 and now finds employment for considerably over 

 a thousand women. The manufacture of sacks 

 for the corn and coal trade has been carried on 

 in Suffolk for several centuries, and since the 

 hempen cloth of which they were made ceased 

 to be woven in the county, the industry has 

 probably rather increased than diminished. It 

 was formerly to some extent a cottage industry, 3 

 but it is now concentrated chiefly at Ipswich 

 and Stowmarket, the largest manufacturers being 

 Messrs. Rand & Jeckell, of Ipswich. 



Sails and nets must also have been made in 

 the coast towns from the earliest times, but 

 the rapid growth of the fisheries of Lowestoft has 

 given a new impetus to the manufacture of both 

 in that town. 



There remain to be mentioned several indus- 

 tries which do not fall under either of the 

 categories already dealt with. In the first place 

 there are two or three old Suffolk industries of a 

 non-textile character. Brewing is one of these. 

 In the fifteenth century a considerable number 

 of Flemish and Dutch brewers settled in Ipswich, 

 Woodbridge, Lowestoft, and elsewhere, 4 and 

 in the sixteenth century we find beer exported 

 from Ipswich to the Low Countries. The 

 industry still flourishes, but it produces now 

 mainly for local consumption. The production 



of leather was much more extensively carried on 

 in Suffolk in proportion to the population in 

 earlier times than it is now, though there are 

 still tanneries in all the principal towns. In the 

 Ipswich Subsidy Roll of 1282, out of a list of 

 householders numbering less than 300, there 

 are mentioned about a dozen tanners, half-a- 

 dozen skinners, four or five shoemakers, a parch- 

 ment maker, and a glover. In surveys of Suffolk 

 villages of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 

 turies, the mention of barkers is very common. 

 In what the exact calling of the mediaeval 

 barker consisted is not quite clear, though it is 

 generally identified with that of the tanner. In 

 the sixteenth century, however, Suffolk was cer- 

 tainly one of the chief sources of the London 

 leather supply, 6 and tanning remained at Ipswich 

 when the textile industries had left the town. 

 The number of tanners has increased within the 

 last half-century. In 1851, 95 were enumerated 

 in the census ; in 1 90 1, 169 ; but the larger of 

 these numbers does not indicate a very great 

 production. The manufacture of boots and 

 shoes has been carried on at Ipswich, Wood- 

 bridge, and in some of the surrounding villages 

 for a century at least. The census does not 

 enable us to distinguish very clearly between this 

 wholesale production, which is partly carried on 

 as a domestic industry and partly in factories, 

 from the work of the independent craftsman for 

 a purely local consumption. The total number 

 of males and females given as engaged in shoe- 

 making in 1851 was 6,238, and in 1901,2,031. 

 Even with a considerable allowance for the in- 

 creased productivity of machine labour, these 

 figures seem to show a marked decline in the 

 industry in Suffolk. 



Suffolk has continued to benefit of late years 

 by the migration of London industries to the 

 provinces. The growth of the printing trade at 

 Bungay and Beccles, and the transference of the 

 manufacture of xylonite to Brantham, the two 

 most striking examples of this tendency, are to 

 be dealt with later in separate articles. 



WOOLLEN CLOTH— THE OLD DRAPERIES 



The spinning of wool and the weaving of 

 cloth for home wear was no doubt carried on 

 from the earliest times in Suffolk as in most 

 other parts of England and of Europe. The 

 story, therefore, told by Jocelyn of Brakelond, 

 and immortalized by Carlyle, of the old women 



1 J. L. Green, op. cit. III. 



! Re/>. of Labour Com. (1893)011 'Agricultural 

 Labourer,' vol. i, pt. iii, p. 87. 



3 J. L. Green, op. cit. III. 



4 I derive this fact from an unpublished paper by 

 Mr. V. B. Redstone, on ' Alien Immigrants in Suffolk 

 in i486.' 



of Bury rushing out to brandish their distaffs in 

 the faces of the monastic tax-gatherers, does not 

 of itself prove the existence of what can be 

 properly called a cloth industry in the town at 

 that early date. But when Jocelyn goes on to 

 tell us how the cellarer of the abbey 



was accustomed to summon the fullers of the town 

 that they should furnish cloth for his salt ; otherwise 

 he would prohibit them the use of the waters and 

 would seize the webs he found there 6 



5 S.P. Dom. Eliz. ccl, 19. 



6 Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey (Rolls Ser.), i, 

 303 ; Carlyle, Past and Present, bk. ii, chap. 5. 



254 



