Domestic Industries and Out-door Labour. 137 



women if I did [not] exempt them from the charge, by 

 whose industry and diligence their families are in a 

 great measure supported." Those exemplary women of 

 Glenmuick, it appears, spun flax for the Aberdeen manu- 

 facturers, as well as made blue homespun cloth and 

 tartan webs of their own wool, and which they sold at 

 2s. and 2s. 6d. an ell. 



The statements of various writers show that the 

 stocking manufacture was of much local importance all 

 through the eighteenth century. James Rae of White- 

 haven, a volunteer under the Duke of Cumberland in 

 1745, in his History of the Rebellion, says of Aberdeen 

 trade, " the manufacture here is chiefly stockings, all 

 round the adjacent country ; and every morning the 

 women bring in loads to sell about the town to mer- 

 chants, who have them scoured for exportation to 

 London, Hamburg, and Holland. They are generally 

 all white from the makers, and knit most plainly; 

 some are ribbed, and a great many with squares, which 

 greatly please the Dutch. They make stockings here 

 in common from one shilling a-pair to one guinea and 

 a half, and some are so fine as to sell for five guineas 

 the pair." And similarly, Mr. Francis Douglas, speaking 

 of the rather sterile seacoast district in the north part of 

 Kincardineshire, where one could see "numbers of poor 

 huts and starved cattle," says, " being within a few 

 miles of Aberdeen, the females have constant employ- 

 ment in knitting stockings to the manufacturers. By 

 their unremitting labour in this branch they earn money 

 to pay their rents." The extent of the knitting industry 

 must have been great. Douglas says, " the manufac- 

 ture was supposed to amount to from a hundred and 

 ten to a hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling 

 annually ; two-thirds of which are reckoned to be paid 

 for spinning and knitting ; the other third goes to 

 pay the. materials, and afford a profit to the manu- 

 facturers." The wool was still, it may be said, im- 

 ported from the south; and in 1778 it was stated 



