INDUSTRIES 



THE NEW DRAPERIES, WOOLCOMBING AND 



SPINNING 



The place left vacant by the decay of the 

 older cloth manufacture of Suffolk was largely 

 occupied by the production of yarn and of the 

 new draperies. These two branches of the 

 woollen industry grew up together, the one 

 supplying the material for the other. Instead of 

 the short carded wool previously used, the new 

 draperies, like worsted, required long wool which 

 must be combed before it was spun. The making 

 of the new draperies, i.e. bays, says, perpetuanas, 

 &c, was introduced by Dutch refugees in the 

 early years of Elizabeth. 1 A great many of the 

 Dutch settled at Colchester, and the industry 

 established itself all along the border of Essex 

 and Suffolk. Sudbury, which was the chief 

 Suffolk centre of it, may almost be considered as 

 an outlying part of the Essex district. The new 

 manufacture was regarded with no friendly eyes 

 by those engaged in the old. It increased the 

 demand for wool, the price of which they con- 

 sidered too high already, and which ought not in 

 their opinion to be wasted on such flimsy wares. 

 The Suffolk clothiers account for the high price 

 of wool to a Royal Commission in 1577, by the 

 facts that bay and say makers engross it, and that 

 the Dutchmen ' convert it into many slight and 

 vain commodities wherein the common people 

 delight, and also into yarn to send beyond sea.' 2 

 The earliest reference to the new industry in 

 Suffolk shows the same spirit of depreciation. 

 Sudbury bays are said to be little better than 

 cotton, and are worth only 20*. to 24.x. a piece. 3 

 On the other hand it was pointed out some fifty 

 years later (16 1 5) that ' those of the new draperies 

 by their great industry and skill do spend a great 

 part of the coarse wools growing in this kingdom, 

 and that at as high a price or higher than the 

 clothiers do the finest wools of this country.' ' 



It was said that the 84 pounds of wool used 

 for a cloth of the old drapery found work for 

 only fourteen people, all servants of the clothier, 

 at small wages, the spinners receiving per cloth, 

 at yd. the pound, 21!., the weavers ioj., and the 

 fullers 2s. 6d. ; while the same quantity of wool 

 used in making stuff and stockings found work 

 for forty or fifty people, the amount earned by 

 labour being: for combing, ioj. ; for spinning 

 and draping noiles and coarse wool, bs.; for spin- 

 ning and twisting of tire wool, ^3 4*. ; for 

 working of two-thirds into stuff and one-third 

 into stockings, ^3. 



All sorts of these people (adds the pamphleteer), are 

 masters in their trade and work for themselves. They 



1 W. J. Ashley, Introd. to Ecort. Hist. pt. ii, 238. 



8 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxiv, 32. 



3 S.P. Dom. Eliz. Addit. ix, 1 1 3. 



buy and sell their materials that they work upon. So 

 that by their merchandise and their honest labour 

 they live very well. They are served of their wools 

 weekly by the wool buyer either merchant or other.* 



This happy condition of independence the 

 majority of the small masters in the industry 

 do not appear to have long maintained. The 

 weavers of Colchester (said to be 2,000 in num- 

 ber) are found complaining throughout the 

 reign of Charles I of having their wages lowered 

 and of being paid in truck, 5 and the little we 

 hear of the same class in Suffolk at a later date 

 gives no reason to suppose that they were in any 

 better position. It seems to have been held that 

 the manufacture of the new draperies, owing to 

 its more recent introduction, did not come under 

 the provisions of the Statute of Apprentices, 6 and 

 complaints were frequently made of the want of 

 regulation, some of which were no doubt motived 

 by hostility to the Dutch and jealousy of a rival 

 industry. 7 Numerous attempts were made to 

 organize the industry on a corporate footing. In 

 1 62 1 the government drafted a scheme which 

 was further elaborated and embodied in letters 

 patent in 1625, with no less an object than that 

 of trusting the principal men of quality in each 

 of thirty-two counties with the oversight and 

 government of the industry. The justices of the 

 peace by name of the county were to be incor- 

 porated by the name of the Governors for the 

 New Draperies of that county, and given power 

 to make ordinances, to choose officers, to raise 

 stock, to inflict punishment on offenders. The 

 body of the corporation was to be all the inhabi- 

 tants of or within the county. Suffolk was the 

 third county on the list. This magnificently 

 impossible scheme was on the point of being 

 tried, when Buckingham's adventures at Rochelle 

 provided an irresistible counter - attraction. 8 

 Separate corporations were, however, set up. 

 The Dutch and the English at Colchester had 

 rival organizations, and their disputes were con- 

 stantly before the Privy Council. 9 A Bill 'was 

 exhibited' to the Parliament of 162 1 by the 

 weavers of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, with the 

 object of extending the regulations already in 

 force in respect to broad cloths and kerseys to 

 the worsteds, bays, says, stuffs and fustians made 



4 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, lxxx, 13. 



5 P.C.R. 10 and 17 May, 1637. S.P. Dom. Chas. I, 

 ccclix, 153. 



6 Tracts on Wool. ' A declaration of the state of 

 clothing,' J. May, ch. 5. 



7 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, xv, 17. 



8 Ibid, cxxi, 36, and S.P. Dom. Chas. I, i, 24. 



9 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, cxiii, 31, and cxv, 28 ; also 

 P.C.R. 14 May and 15 July, 1617, 13 Feb., 1632. 



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