A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



and it is enacted that none shall in future weave, 

 or cause to be woven, any such cloth unless he 

 shall have served a seven years' apprenticeship to 

 this special branch of weaving. Moreover, no 

 person is to make such cloth of any other stuff 

 than good and sufficient hemp, nor of less length 

 than 33 yards, nor of less breadth than three- 

 quarters of a yard. The stuff is to be well 

 beaten, scoured, and bleached, and the cloth well 

 driven with a brazen or iron shuttle. 1 



By the middle of the seventeenth century the 

 industry appears to have been well established at 

 Ipswich, and it continued to flourish during the 

 Restoration period, when there are numerous 

 references to Suffolk canvas in the navy records. 3 

 A contractor named Waith offers the Navy Com- 

 missioners in 1666 7,000 hammocks of Suffolk 

 sacking received during the heat of the plague, 

 and asks leave to deliver them monthly at Dept- 

 ford. 3 In October, 1670, he writes to them : 



As to providing Suffolk canvas equalling the west 

 country pattern for six months, I have 3,000 yards 

 wrought, and will undertake to make it up to 15,000 

 or 20,000 yards in six months. 



f The claim made as to quality is confirmed by 

 the officials, who inform the commissioners at one 

 time that the best pieces of Suffolk cloth are equal 

 to Holland duck, and at another time declare it 

 to be better than west country cloth. Indeed, a 

 Weymouth contractor complains in 1672 of 

 being required to supply sailcloth in accordance 

 with a Suffolk pattern, 



which may be of a finer spinning and so fair to the 

 eye, because perhaps made most of flax, yet what is 

 made here, being made of fine strong hemp, is much 

 stronger and better for use. 4 



After the seventeenth century the manufacture 

 of sailcloth seems to have migrated to the north. 

 The petitions to Parliament for protection against 

 Russian imports in 1745 come not from Ipswich, 

 but from Warrington, Gainsborough, and other 

 towns. 6 Hempen cloth, however, for other pur- 

 poses continued to be made very extensively in 

 Suffolk, and was one of the main products of 

 workhouse labour. In his survey cf the agri- 

 culture of the county (1804) Arthur Young 

 devotes considerable space to the cultivation of 

 hemp and to the various processes of its manu- 

 facture. It is chiefly grown, he says, in a district 

 about ten miles wide, extending from Eye to 

 Beccles. It is in the hands of both farmers and 

 cottagers, but it is rare to see more than five or 

 six acres in the occupation of one man. It is pulled 



thirteen or fourteen weeks after sowing, and tied up 

 in small bundles called ' baits.' It is then steeped or 

 retted in water for four days, grassed for five weeks, 



1 Stat. 1 Jas. I, cap. 24. 



' Cat. ofS.P. Dom. 1655-6, p. 482. 



3 Ibid. 1665-6, p. 336. 



' Ibid. 1670, p. 480. 



1 Cal. Treat. Bks. and Papers, 1745, p. 717. 



after which it is carted home to be broken. Breaking 

 is done by the stone at is. The breakers earn 15^. 

 or \6d. a day and beer. The offal makes good fuel 

 and sells at id. a stone. It is then marketable, and 

 sold by sample at Diss, Harling, Bungay, and else- 

 where, price 5/. 6d. to 8/. a stone, generally js. 6d. ; 

 in 1795, 10/. ; in 1801, 14/. 



The buyer heckles it, which is done at is. 6d. a 

 stone ; he makes it into two or three sorts — 

 ' long strike,' ' short strike,' and • pull tow.* 

 Women buy it and spin it into yarn, which they 

 carry to market. . . . This the weaver buys, 

 who converts it into cloth, which is sold at market 

 also. 



The spinners earn better and more steady wages than 

 by wool ; a common hand will do two skeins a day, 

 three of which are a ' clue ' at <)d. ; consequently she 

 earns 6d. a day, and will look to her family and do 

 half ' a clue.' Nor is the trade like wool subject to 

 great depressions, there being always more work than 

 hands. . . . They begin to spin at four or five years 

 old ; it is not so difficult to spin hemp as wool ; but 

 best to learn with the ' rock.' . . . About Hoxne 

 the yarn is half-whitened before weaving ; but in 

 other places they weave it brown, which is reckoned 

 better. The weavers of fine cloth can earn 16/. or 

 18/. a week, middling 10/. The fabrics wrought in 

 this county from their own hemp have great merit. 

 They make it to 3/. 6d. and 4/. 6d. a yard, a yard 

 wide for shirts ; and I was shown sheets and table- 

 linen, now quite good after twenty years' wear. 



In addition to this account of his own, Arthur 

 Young quotes at length an interesting letter from 

 a manufacturer at Stowmarket whose supple- 

 mentary details are of importance as showing a 

 development towards a larger organization of the 

 industry under the direction of the capitalist. 

 He has heard that mills are erected for breaking 

 flax, and thinks they might be applied to hemp. 

 He goes on to say that the beating of the hemp 

 by the heckler, which is the next operation after 

 breaking it, was formerly and is still in some 

 places done by hand ; 



but in Suffolk is now always done by a mill which 

 lifts up two and sometimes three heavy beaters 

 alternately that play upon the hemp while it is turned 

 round by a man or boy to receive the beating regu- 

 larly. The mill is sometimes worked by a horse, and 

 sometimes by water; but I think a machine might be 

 contrived to save the expense of either. Many 

 weavers vend their cloth entirely by retail in their 

 neighbourhood ; others to shopkeepers . . . and 

 others at Diss, where there is a hall for the sale of 

 hemp cloth, once a week. . . . The earnings of the 

 journeyman weaver vary . . . from about is. to 

 is. 6d. a day, in extra cases more. . . . Some weavers 

 bleach their own yarn and cloth ; others their cloth 

 only ; others heckle their tow, and put it out to 

 spinners; others buy the tow and put it out ; and a 

 few carry on the whole of the trade themselves. The 

 latter is the plan I pursue, the advantages appearing 

 to me considerable. When the trade is conducted by 

 different persons their interests often clash ; by under- 

 retting the hemp, the grower increases its weight ; by 



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