THE BELFAST LINEN INDUSTRY. 415 



In 1697 an Act was passed containing various enactments intended to aid 

 the linen industry. King William III. invited Louis Crommelin and twenty- 

 five Huguenot families to come from Holland, where the linen trade 

 flourished, and carry on the industry in this country. In 1699 a patent 

 was granted to Crommelin declaring that : — 



" A grant of £800 per annum be settled for ten years as interest at 8 per 

 cent, for ;^io,ooo advanced by the said Louis Crommelin for making a bleach- 

 yard and holding a pressing-house, and for weaving and cultivating and 

 pressing flax and hemp, and making provision for both to be sold and ready 

 prepared to the spinners at reasonable rates and upon credit, and providing all 

 tools and utensils, looms and spinning-wheels, to be furnished at the several 

 costs of persons employed, by advances to be repaid by them in small 

 payments as they are able ; advancing sums of money necessary for the 

 subsistence of such workmen and their families as shall come from abroad, 

 and of such persons in our kingdom as shall apply themselves in families to 

 work in the manufactories. Such sums of money to be repaid without interest, 

 and to be repaid by degrees. That ^.200 per annum be allowed to said Louis 

 Crommelin during pleasure for his pains and care in carrying on said work, 

 and that .1^120 per annum be allowed to three assistants, together with a 

 premium of ^60 per annum for the subsistence of a French clergyman." 



Crommelin started the linen industry at Lisburn and at Hilden where 

 Messrs. Barbour's famous mills now are. Under his wise direction the 

 industry flourished; and when he died in 1727, it was continued and in- 

 creased by his nephews. In 171 1 the Linen Board was appointed to 

 encourage and, to a certain extent, control the flax and hempen manufac- 

 tures of Ireland. The Board met every week in the White Linen Hall in 

 Dublin, now the Linen Hall Barracks, and was entrusted, until its dissolu- 

 tion in 1828, with the distribution of Parliamentary grants, which varied 

 from ;^ 1 0,000 to ;^3 3,000 a year. About the same time, the Duke of 

 Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with the intention of aiding the 

 industry, directed that hat-bands and scarfs of /inen should be used at 

 funerals ; and this custom, though it gradually fell into disuse, is not yet 

 extinct. The exports of Hnen from Ireland in 1690 were estimated at 

 300,000 yards, and had increased in 1720 to 2,400,000 yards, valued at 

 i^ 1 00,000. The returns kept by the Linen Board from 1728 to 182T show 

 how enormously the export trade developed. In 1728 there were 4,692,764 

 yards of plain linen exported ; in less than twenty years the figures were 

 doubled; in 1821 there were 43,507,928 yards exported. In 1739 the 

 export of linen from Ireland amounted in value to over ;^6oo,ooo. In the 

 same year the Brown Linen Hall was established and the industry became 

 recognised as a staple one. In this connection it should be mentioned that 

 the industry received many benefits and much encouragement from the 

 then Earl of Donegall. 



The linen manufacture increased in importance until the latter end of the 

 eighteenth century, when it was seriously threatened by the cotton industry, 

 and about the year 1800 many linen makers dropped that industry and 

 devoted themselves to cotton-weaving. However, after nearly thirty years 

 of great prosperity — at one time there were over 100,000 spindles at work — 

 the cotton industr)^ began to decline, and when the spinning of flax by 

 machinery was introduced it rapidly fell into decay ; until at present cotton 

 manufacture has practically ceased to exist. 



