CLOTH TRADE IN THE SOUTH-WEST 311 



large number of men and women in the city itself, and in the " county 

 round to the extent of seven or eight miles." Kidderminster and 

 the neighbourhood were carpet-makers. On the borders of Stafford- 

 shire and Warwickshire many were employed in making nails, 

 needles, and fish-hooks. 



Over the greater part of Gloucestershire, and especially in the 

 Cotswold Hills, there was much spinning of wool. The trade in 

 the fine broad-cloths of Stroud and the surrounding parishes was in 

 1794 at a stand-still ; but in the coarser quahty required for army 

 clothing it was brisk. Even here the introduction of machinery 

 " has thrown many hands out of employment," and caused the poor- 

 rates to rise " to six shilHngs in the pound and upward." At 

 Cirencester in 1807 many labouring people were still employed in 

 sorting wool from the fleece ; but the wool trade had much decreased 

 in the last forty years, as also spinning woollen yarn and worsted 

 since the introduction of machinery. Tewkesbury had its stocking- 

 frame industry ; Dursley and Wotton-under-Edge made wire cards 

 for the use of clothiers ; iron and brass wire, tin-plate, pins, rugs 

 and blankets employed other districts of the county. But the 

 decline of trade made itself felt in the great increase of rates. " In 

 the clothing district," says Rudge, " the weight of parochial assess- 

 ments falls uncommonly heavy on landed property. During the late 

 scarcity, the average charge might be 4s. 6d. through the county ; 

 while at the same time it amounted to at least three times that 

 proportion in some of the parishes where the clothing manufacture 

 is carried on." ^ In Somersetshire, the trade in woollen cloth and 

 worsted stockings of Frome and Shepton MaUet had given employ- 

 ment, not only to the two towns, but to " a vast number of the lower 

 order of people in the adjacent villages." But in 1797 the restriction 

 of the export trade by the war, the introduction of machinery, and 

 the competition of the North, had begun to injure the trade and 

 lessen the demand for labour. Taunton had lost its woollen 

 manufactures, though they still flourished at Wellington and 

 Wiveliscombe. 



In Cornwall, carding and spinning were in 1811 dying out, and 

 " to the total decline of this business must, in some measure, be attri- 

 buted the progressive increase of the rates of the county." ^ From 

 Devonshire in 1808 came the same complaint of the failure of em- 



1 Gloucestershire (1807), p. 346. 



2 Worgan's Cornwall (1811), p. 33. 



