

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



declension, demanded that Parliament should fix a minimum wage, and 

 signalized the rejection of the Bill by riots in which 300 frames were 

 broken. 848 



Despite these complaints, however, the condition of the workers must 

 have long been prosperous. Felkin gives the case of a man born in 

 1745, and apprenticed in 1755. He worked for ten hours a day, five days 

 a week, passed from the condition of apprentice to that of journeyman, when 

 he boarded with his master, receiving food, lodging, and washing ; and 

 eventually, having served out his time and married, he prospered sufficiently 

 to be able, in 1783, to build for himself a small house, to which the lord of 

 the manor added garden ground, and he continued to be able to maintain 

 himself and his family in reasonable comfort during the period of high prices 

 which ensued. 24 * 



This man, however, had apparently the advantage of being apprenticed 

 before the apprenticeship system had reached its worst ; what that system 

 might be in Nottinghamshire appears in the case of another ' stockinner,' in 

 Kirkby, in 1783. This man must have been apprenticed at about nine years 

 of age. He remained an apprentice for fourteen years. He was bound first 

 to a joiner, who subsequently transferred him to a weaver, who in his turn 

 transferred him for four and a half guineas to a soldier. That under these 

 circumstances the apprentice should have thoroughly learned his trade could 

 hardly be expected ; therefore it is not remarkable that, though he appeared 

 to be an intelligent man of good character (able to read, and a church-goer), 

 his earnings were small. He could make half a dozen pairs of stockings a 

 week at u-. 6d. a pair, out of which he had to pay is. or lod. for frame-rent, 

 3^. for footing, and id. for seaming. 250 



Such a declension from the high wages of the early part of the 

 century sufficiently explains the unrest among the workpeople, even supposing 

 the skill of the worker to have been in this instance below the average ; 

 while the possible success of the competent workman, as instanced in the 

 previous case, shows how easily that unrest might have been looked on as 

 unreasonable, especially among the hosiers, who conceived that these efforts at 

 regulation might drive the trade to France. 251 The contest continued, 

 accompanied by riots, for another ten years ; then in 1787 a list of wages was 

 agreed on, which lasted for twenty years, till broken down by the decline of 

 trade consequent on the French War. 858 



For the fall of wages previous to 1777, which had been the cause of 

 these troubles, there was another reason besides the over-flooding of the 

 labour market, and the natural reaction after a too prosperous beginning. 

 The progress of invention was for the time being making against the 

 worker. 



From early days Nottinghamshire is said to have been famous for smiths' 

 work, though direct evidence for local work of the kind is scanty. With the 

 increase of stocking-making, however, the old industry revived in anew form, 

 and stocking frames became an important Nottinghamshire manufacture. In 

 1751, Deering's list shows thirty-four craftsmen in Nottingham in some way 





148 W. Felkin, Hist, of Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacture, 229 et seq, 1 16, 117. 

 Ibid. 45 1 et seq. IM Add. MSS. 18552. 



K> Felkin, Hiit. of Machine-wrought Hosiery, &c. 117. MI Ibid. 230. 



298 





