SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



concerned in the making of stocking frames. 863 To Nottingham, therefore, 

 came the inventors and improvers, such as Strutt and Arkwright. They 

 found followers on every hand, and the ensuing hundred years is the great 

 inventive period for Nottinghamshire. The result was necessarily a temporary 

 decrease in the demand for labour in industries where machines were 

 replacing hand-work. The numerous inventions of Arkwright and Strutt 

 and lesser mechanicians altered the conditions of every textile industry in the 

 country. In Nottinghamshire itself a fever of energy and unrest seemed to 

 possess the population. From 1764 to 1852 about one hundred and seven- 

 teen persons in Nottinghamshire obtained patents for over two hundred 

 inventions, and though such inventions were essentially labour-saving in their 

 character, yet more than a third of the number of inventors were themselves 

 artisans, not only frame-smiths, but stockinners and weavers. Stocking-weaving 

 was being supplemented by engineering as a Nottinghamshire industry. 25 * 



Another industry was springing up also ; that of cotton-spinning ; in 

 1786 coarse linen and sail cloth were woven at Newark, 265 and in 1801 there 

 were various cotton mills at Mansfield, one employing about a hundred and 

 sixty hands. 86 ' But a far more important manufacture then coming into exis- 

 tence was that of lace-making. The gradual adaptation of the principle of the 

 stocking frame to the purpose of lace-making was proceeding all through the 

 latter half of the i8th century. From 1760 onwards improvements were 

 constantly made on the adapted frame," 7 and from 1775 to 1852 no less than 

 eighty-eight patents were taken out for improvements or modifications of 

 lace machines. 268 



Both the making and the using of lace machines quickly spread through- 

 out Nottinghamshire. In 1777 the first 'square-net' frame was set up in 

 Nottingham. In 1790 200 lace frames were manufactured ; and their 

 export to France, Spain, Italy, and Germany had begun. In 1810 15,000 

 hands (men, women, and children) were said to be employed in the making 

 of point net alone. 859 



Unhappily, there are few trades more subject to the caprices of 

 fashion than that of lace-making. Not only did the demand for lace vary 

 enormously, but the demand for different kinds of lace varied also, and as these 

 different varieties of lace required that the machines on which they were 

 woven should be variously constructed, a change of taste and fashion would 

 frequently ruin lace-maker and machine-maker alike. Thus the point-lace 

 frames so widely used in 1810 had entirely ceased working by the end of 

 1 8 28, 2 ' and warp-lace frames, also much used in 1 8 10, had vanished by 1819. 261 



This characteristic of the lace trade, which had taken so great a hold on 

 Nottinghamshire, encouraged a spirit of speculation among the people. In 

 the early days of the manufacture wages were exceedingly good. Four 

 guineas a week was earned by workers at the warp-lace frames in 1810 ; 10 

 by makers of silk blonds in i8o7. 288 But in a trade so uncertain, these 



"* Decring, Fetus Nottinghamia, 95. 



164 The above details were obtained from an MS. list of Nottinghamshire patents kindly lent to the 

 writer by Mr. Prosser of H.M. Patent Office. 



155 W. D. Rastall, Hist, of Southwell, ii, 138. '" W. Harrod, Hist, of Mansfield, pt. ii, 5, 6. 



'" W. Felkin, Hist, of Machine-wrought Hosiery, &c., 133 et seq. 



168 Mr. Prosser's list. 



169 W. Felkin, Hist, of Machine-wrought Hosiery, &c., 1 34-9. 



Ibid. 139-40. Ibid. 149. * Ibid. 147-9. 



299 



