INDUSTRIES 



which marked the lace of the early eighteenth was a succession of bad harvests, we can see how 



century may with some assurance be ascribed to welcome would be the addition earned by the 



the skilled craftsmen of north-eastern France women and girls of the village at their pillows, 



who, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes Though this industry was almost universal in 



in 1685, sought and found refuge in England. the county, certain villages were especially famous 



As to this improvement in Bedfordshire, Defoe for their lace-workers and lace-schools. Anderson 



bears emphatic testimony, and we may well be- mentions that Kettering has a ' considerable trade 



lieve that it extended to the neighbouring counties.^ in lace,' and we learn also that fine lace was 



A little later fine Brussels ground was worked in made at Middleton Cheney. * Besides these, 



Northamptonshire, and specimens of lace still Spratton, Paulerspury, and Towcester were im- 



exist in which the design is run or sewn with the portant centres of the lace trade, 



needle on to the bobbin-made ground. At the beginning of the nineteenth century 



In 1763 George III, anxious to promote the lace-making was chiefly carried on in Welling- 



prosperity of his own people, ordered that all lace borough and the neighbourhood, and in the 



worn at his sister's wedding should be of English villages on the south-west side of the county ; it 



make. was computed that from 9,000 to 10,000 per- 



The lace-trade seems to have always been sons, mostly young women and boys, were en- 



peculiarly subject to fluctuations — the same gaged in this industry, who earned from 2d. to 



worker earning at one time ^1 per week and i^. dd. per day. 



at another 31. or 41. In 1780 there seems to One of the chief branches of the Northampton- 

 have been a special depression, for the poet Cowper shire trade was the making of baby lace — very 

 presented a petition to Lord Dartmouth in favour narrow edgings chiefly used for trimming babies' 

 of the lace-makers of Olney, who were at starva- caps. In these edgings the point ground ^ was 

 tion point, and this depression was no doubt felt employed, the patterns were often taken from 

 also in the sister county of Northamptonshire. those of Lille and Mechlin, hence the Midland 



Almost every village in the county had its lace has often been called ' English Lille.' Other 



lace-makers during the seventeenth, eighteenth, kinds of grounds which were made were the wire, 



and early part of the nineteenth centuries. It double, and trolly grounds. 



has been remarked that the hands of Northamp- The closing of English ports to French lace 



tonshire women are very small and well-shaped during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars 



compared with those of other counties. This is gave a great impetus to the industry in Northamp- 



doubtless owing to the fact that so many of the tonshire, and a sort of ' Fausse Valenciennes,' 



women of the previous generation worked at their resembling what is now known as 'Point de 



pillows from childhood, and their hands were not Paris,' was introduced under the local name of 



roughened by coarse work or field labour. Many ' French ground.' ' A natural slacking of trade 



a wife earned the greater part of the income occurred on the conclusion of peace after 



which kept the home together. When we re- Waterloo. 



member that the labourers' wages were 8j. or gj. After the exhibition of 1851, where some of 



a week, and when, as sometimes happened, there the best workers of the Midlands illustrated the 



practice of their craft, Maltese guipure and 



' We are indebted to the courtesy of Miss Alice plaited laces were introduced, and prices just at 



Dr}-den for a notice of a parliamentary petition of this time were so high that not only women but 



1698, preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, men were engaged in making lace — the latter 



which furnishes a list of Northamptonshire parishes finding it far more lucrative "than field labour, 



where lace-making was then carried on, with an ^^^ newly-introduced varieties required less time 



estimate of the number of workers : 1 , u ",, ^, u •,, ■ 



and skill than the older piUow-lace. 



Centun (PQuinton) aRas Donten . . . 257 xhe women made the lace in their own homes. 



Little Houghto^n ^^60 but the children were sent to a school to be 



W^lh"^ f, taught the work. These schools played an im- 



Ea'rls^Barton .' .' .' .' . . . . '. 127 portant part in the industry. Nearly every 



■£,Qion ... 44. village had its lace school, and in many cases it 



Towcester 591 ^^^ the only school of any kind of which the 



Castle Ashby 64 village could boast. Lace-making was the chief 



Braxsey (? Blakesley) 154 subject taught, and a very little elementary in- 



Whittlebury 206 struction was sometimes added in reading and 



Yardley Hastings 442 ciphering. The school was generally kept by a 



Ashton 101 



Gredon (? Grendon) 259 , p^j^^ ^^^^^^ j^ ^;j ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ introduced in 



It may, however, be wise to exercise some caution 1778. This local name is misleading, as the ground 



in accepting these interesting figures as rigidly exact, is not made with the needle-point. The reference is 



as petitioners desiring protection for their special to its superior effect. Jackson, op. cit. 1 84. 



handicraft might regard a little exaggeration as quite ^ Ibid. Cf. Channer and Roberts, Z,<;r^A/ji;«f«)iii# 



justifiable. Midlands, 27. 



2 . 337 43 



