A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



in those counties, especially the insistence on 

 seven years' apprenticeship. The towns were to 

 be empowered to appoint yearly officers to be 

 sworn before the justices of the peace. The Bill 

 was lost by dissolution. Subsequent petitions on 

 the subject were referred to the committee, but 

 nothing appears to have resulted ' except the all- 

 embracing but abortive plan above described. 

 The Norfolk industry, however, carried a mea- 

 sure on its own account after the Restoration. 



Perhaps the failure of Suffolk to secure any 

 share in the corporate organization of the new 

 draperies was due to the fact that, from the first, 

 much of the yarn produced there was for the 

 consumption of other counties. 



Reyce in his Breviary of Suffolk ( 1 6 1 8) after 

 referring in words already quoted to the num- 

 bers employed in the manufacture of cloth, goes 

 on to say, 



Again at this day there is another kind of this trade 

 not long since found out by which many of the poorer 

 sort are much set on work and with far more profit 

 as they say. This trade is commonly called kembing. 

 The artificers hereof do furnish themselves with great 

 store of wools, every one as far as his ability will ex- 

 tend. This wool they sort into many several parties, 

 being washed, scoured, kembed, and trimmed, they 

 put it out to spinning of which they make a fine 

 thread according to the sort of the wool. Of these 

 spinners (for the gain of this work is so advantageable 

 and cleanly in respect of the clothing spinning, which 

 is so unclean, so laboursome and with so small earn- 

 ings) they have more offer themselves than there can 

 at all times work be provided for. Now when their 

 wool is made into yarn they weekly carry it to London, 

 Norwich, and other such places, where it is ever 

 readily sold to those who make thereof all sorts of 

 fringes, stuffs, and many other things which at this 

 day are used and worn.' 



The dependence of the weavers of Norfolk 

 and other counties on Suffolk for a supply of 

 yarn continued down to the end of the eighteenth 

 century, and was the occasion of constant dis- 

 putes. The weavers complained that the spin- 

 ners made up reels of yarn that were of defective 

 length and wanting in the proper number of 

 threads, which the yarnmen, who acted as middle- 

 men, failed to detect. On 26 May, 16 1 7, they 

 obtained an order of the Privy Council that 

 every gross of small wool or worsted yarn taken 

 into Norfolk should contain twelve dozen, and 

 every dozen twelve rollstaves, and every rollstaff 

 fourteen leas, and every lea forty threads, or if 

 not, it might be seized. Later on, in attempting 

 to get this regulation included in the Bill of 

 1621 already referred to, they declared that the 

 order not having been published by proclamation 

 had little or no effect. 3 Nevertheless the combers 

 and yarnmen of Suffolk, Essex, and Cambridge 



1 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, cxl, 82. 



* Reyce, The Breviary of Suffolk (ed. Lord F. 

 Hervey), 26. 



a S.P. Dom. Jas. I, cxl, 82. 



made such complaints in 1629 as to the quanti- 

 ties of yarn seized on the authority of this order 

 that the government appointed a Royal Commis- 

 sion of the knights belonging to the several 

 counties affected to meet at Bury and hear both 

 sides. The yarnmen admitted that defective 

 yarn might occasionally pass through their hands, 

 and were willing to make good the loss if 

 proved. Beyond this, however, they did not 

 think they ought to be held responsible for the 

 yarn they sold. 



Their spinners (they said) were so very many in num- 

 ber, and many false and defective. Themselves, in 

 regard of the multitude they set on work, and their 

 spinners repairing unto them at one instant of time to 

 bring home their work, in regard of their carrying of 

 them to their market at Norwich, are impossibilited 

 to search and look into their several work before the 

 sale. Also their threatening to put them out of work 

 little or nothing prevails with them, they usually 

 answering that if they work not for them they may 

 for other, whereby it likewise plainly appeareth that 

 these people contrary to their former clamours want 

 not occupation. 



An offer made by the yarnmen to sell by the 

 pound weight was not accepted by the other side, 

 and the commissioners found it difficult to devise 

 measures of conciliation. After some hesitation 

 they took the side of the weavers, who had, they 

 considered, a right to have what they paid for, 

 and whose ' sufferances ' and losses were so great 

 that if they continued the estate of Norfolk and 

 Norwich could not subsist. They thought that 

 the established order of selling by length and talc 

 was best, and that the yarnmen had no right to 

 take advantage of the spinners' fraud by their 

 own neglect ' out of the supposed strait of time 

 which themselves may enlarge, and their dili- 

 gence by timely search easily prevent.' * 



Although it is likely enough that the spinners 

 were tempted by their poverty to make up short 

 reels of yarn, there is little reason to trust the 

 account given by the yarnmen of their indepen- 

 dent attitude. The statement to the opposite 

 effect already quoted from Reyce's Breviary is 

 confirmed by other evidence. In 1631 the say- 

 makers of Sudbury reduced the wages both of 

 spinners and weavers. A gentleman of the 

 neighbourhood who pitied the lot of the spinners, 

 and at the same time had a grudge against the 

 clothiers, advised the former to lay their case 

 before the Privy Council. The justices, being 

 directed by the Council to inquire into the 

 matter, were informed by the saymakers that a 

 similar reduction had been made by employers 

 all over the kingdom. The Sudbury masters 

 were willing to agree to an increase of wages if 

 the Council would enforce it elsewhere. On 

 this understanding the justices fixed a new rate 

 of wages and sent it for the Council's approval, 

 ordering it to be paid for a month in the mean- 



1 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, cliii, 53. 



268 



