INDUSTRIES 



sixty-five. It is thought that Wyatt gained his 

 idea of the arrangement of a number of spindles, 

 with bobbins revolving upon them, in a frame, 

 and of turning the spindles and bobbins by distant 

 wheels, from certain machines for throwing silk 

 that were introduced by a Sir Thomas Lombe 

 from Italy and set up in a large mill at Derby. In 

 Mr. Wyatt's manuscript there are given 23 items 

 headed ' Remarks on Mr. Cave's Work at 

 Northampton, 8 October, 1743.' These are so 

 interesting that they are given here in full : 



' I. They have spun in all about 50,000 skeins since 

 they first began. 



2. They spin 90 skeins per day at each frame for a 



day's work ; at least, they call that their day's 

 work. 



3. They have worn out but two pinions since they 



began and not one wheel. 



4. They have 5 frames up, but seldom hands to keep 



4 at work. 



5. They suppose one of the frames has done half the 



work that has been done. 



6. I don't apprehend that the wheels and pinions of 



that frame are half worn out ; from whence I 

 infer that a set of wheels and pinions would 

 spin at least 35,000 skeins ; that is, 100 

 wheels and 100 pinions. 



7. The rest of the work belonging to that frame, 



taken in general, is not (in my opinion) one- 

 tenth part worn out. 



8. Joseph Newton (a man that has always been em- 



ployed in the work since it first began at 

 Birmingham) would undertake to keep the 

 250 spindles in repair with his own hands, 

 i.e., metal work, estimating at the rate they 

 have worked. 



9. The metal itself, and the wood work cannot in my 



opinion exceed j^20 per annum. 



10. I call the insensible decay of the mill build- 



ing and water-wheel about ;^20 per annum 

 more. 



1 1 . The repairs of cards, they tell me, amounts to 



l8d. per week, which is about equal to the 

 wages of the carders themselves, but much 

 more than I think they cost at Birmingham ; 

 that is, per week. 



12. The cards and carding both extremely ill 



managed. 



13. The work never cleared till necessity forces a 



particular spindle. 



14. The dirt and cotton spread about the spinning 



rooms and the pathways near the mill is 

 surprising. 



15. The agent there has a wife, and two other 



women, to assist him, whose salarj-s taken 

 together (I am told) amounts to about ^^88 

 per annum. 



16. The water-wheel is capable of making about 



I 5 revolutions in a minute, but they generally 

 flood it, in fact, till it makes about 6 or 

 8 revolutions in a minute. 



17. Their picking cotton and reeling yarn amounts 



to about iJ. per lb. 



18. They have fifty carders, spinners, and super- 



numerary girls in the work whose wages last 

 week amounted to £2 19/. "jJ. (which I 

 call ^3)- 



19. I apprehend they waste about one-tenth part of 



the cotton. 



20. The sort of yarn they spin is about 15 skeins for 



I lb. Their cards much too fine for the sort 

 they spin. February, 1 74.3-4. 



22. Since the taking of the remarks above, I have 



been informed by an author that I can depend 

 upon, that they have spun half as much more 

 in a week as they did when I was there ; and 

 that in particular the day before my letter's 

 date, one pair of girls spun 36 skeins. 



23. That the repairs of cards do still cost them about 



as much as the carders that card them.' 



This cotton-mill at Northampton did not 

 prosper, and passed into other hands about 1764, 

 though it was stated by Charles Wyatt, a son of 

 the inventor, 



' that there is the highest probability that the machinery 

 got into the hands of a person who, with the assistance 

 of others, knowing how to apply it with skill and 

 judgment, and to supply what might be deficient, 

 raised upon it a gradual accession of profit, an immense 

 establishment, and a princely fortune.' 



This mill, still often called Cotton Mill, is 

 used now as a corn-mill, and, as so many of the 

 corn-mills in Northamptonshire are, it is worked 

 by steam. 



As fulling and dyeing were industries closely 

 attendant on that of weaving the few facts we 

 know relating to them locally may here be men- 

 tioned. In the time of Henry III Sulby Abbey 

 granted a lease ^ to Roger Clerk, fuller of North- 

 ampton, the mayor being one of the witnesses ; 

 while in a rental ^ of the abbey of St. James a 

 ' vicus fullonum ' is mentioned in the follow- 

 ing reign. Another reference ' to a tenement 

 in this street ' in magno vico fullonum ' may 

 be even earlier than the two allusions already 

 cited. 



In the second volume of the borough of 

 Northampton records we have some references to 

 the fullers of Northampton. In 1554 one John 

 Sutton, a fuller, obtained from the corporation a 

 lease of his taintor grounds, one in Cow Meadow 

 42 yds. in length, and the other in St. George's 

 Leys 3 1 yds. long ; he paid for them a fine of 35. 41/. 

 and a yearly rent of the same amount. During 

 the reign of James I a complaint was made to 

 the town assembly that the taintors, which were 

 fixed stretchers of wood, erected in the Cow 

 Meadow were a subject of great annoyance and 

 hurt — 



'Though it was agreed in 1 62 1 that John Robinson, a 

 fuller, should be allowed to set up a pair of taintors in 

 the Cow Meadow in the same place where formerly 

 he and John Fox his predecessor had them. He was 

 allowed to use them at any time during the year so 

 long as he paid a yearly rent to the chamberlain 

 of 20/.' 



' Add. Chart. 22351. 



• Add. R. 61 17. 



' Anct. D. (P.R.O.), A 9876. 



335 



