SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



the reign of Elizabeth,"^ at first subservient to, had gradually replaced the 

 older industry. Side by side, as a dependent industry, must be placed the 

 production of yarn, the new draperies requiring long wool which had to be 

 combed before it was spun, instead of short carded wool. This combing and 

 spinning employed many poor persons, who fed the Norwich and London 

 markets as well, producing more than could be made up in Suffolk. It was 

 said that while 84 lb. of wool, the amount required for a cloth of the old 

 stout texture, gave employment to but fourteen people, forty or fifty were 

 engaged upon working up the same quantity into the flimsier materials. 



But the period of revival was but a brief one, for towards the close of 

 the 17th century the fabrics brought in by the East India Company came into 

 serious competition with the new draperies,^'' and as time went on they 

 followed the old to the manufacturing towns of the north and west of 

 England. In 1722 Defoe"' comments on the poverty of Sudbury, the centre 

 of the revived industry : ' They have a great manufacture of says and per- 

 petuanas, and multitudes of poor people are employed in working them ; but 

 the number of the poor is almost ready to eat up the rich.' 



But while the weaving industry steadily declined, a very large quantity 

 of yarn continued to be spun for weavers without the county, especially in 

 Norwich. The earnings were extremely low, from 3^. to 4^. a day,*^° and 

 the trade subject to frequent depression.^" The spinners could not live upon 

 their pittances, and the deficiency had to be made up out of the rates. 

 Arthur Young estimates their number, women and children, at about 

 36,000.'" 



Enough has been said to show that the undoubted increase of poverty 

 in certain parts of Suffolk was due to well-defined economic causes. To- 

 wards the middle of the century several districts within the county applied 

 to Parliament for the ' power of incorporating themselves and of regulating 

 the employment and maintenance of the poor by certain rules not authorized 

 by existing poor laws.' '" 



Several Acts of Parliament were passed, and between 1756 and 178 1"'' 

 the hundred of Colneis and Carlford ; Blything, Mutford, and Lothingland; 

 Wangford; Loes and Wilford; Samford; Bosmere and Claydon; Cosford (with 

 the parish of Polsted) ; Hartismere, Hoxne and Thredling ; and Stow were 

 incorporated. They were permitted under the Act to borrow funds to a 

 limited amount for the purpose of building Houses of Industry,"* and these 

 were erected (in all but the Hartismere district, where smaller local houses in 

 several parishes took the place of a central house) at Nacton (1757),'^^ Bul- 

 camp (1765),''' Oulton (1767),'" Shipmeadow (1766),"* Melton (1765),-'' 

 Tattingstone (1766),''" Barham (1766),-" Semer (1780),''' Onehouse (1781)."' 

 The erection of the workhouses led to rioting and the attempted destruction 

 of the buildings by the classes they were intended to benefit."* In other 

 ranks of society the movement found supporters among those who considered 

 the spirit of the French Revolution not altogether absent from the English 



'" y.C.H. Suff. ii, 267. "« Ibid. 269. "' Tour in the Eastern Counties (ed. Cassell), 100. 



"° F.C.H. Suff. ii, 270. "' Young, Gen. View of Agric. (1794), 50. 



'" Ibid. (180+), 232. •" Young, App. to Gen. Fiete of Agric. (1794), 75. 



»'^ Ibid. 76 et seq. "* Ibid. 76. "* Ibid. »« Ibid. 77. 



»" Ibid. 78. "* Ibid. " Ibid. 79. ~ Ibid. 80. 



"' Ibid. 81. "' Ibid. 82. •» Ibid. 83. »" Ibid. 92. 



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