THE SILK INDUSTRY IN WESSEX. 73 



the internal evidence assigns them to the year 1793. One 

 contains the names of 48 windsters, as they were called, 

 whose weekly wage averaged Is. 5d. each ; the other list of 

 18 names averaged 2s. 2d. each. All were females, presumably 

 young girls who were employed at Westbury as out-workers. 



It will perhaps be interesting to quote a few extracts 

 relative to the employment of those who by reason of poverty 

 had been under the control of the Overseers of Sherborne and 

 Cerne Abbas. In July. 1776, a vestry meeting was held at 

 Sherborne to consider the question of the workhouse children 

 and the silk mills. Apparently there was some form of 

 bidding between the owner of Westbury and William Cruttwell, 

 who had set on foot a competing business, for the privilege of 

 obtaining the services of the poor. Willmott laments in a 

 letter to Vere that he was unsuccessful, as his opponent had 

 offered a higher price, i.e., wage. Nevertheless, his rival's 

 success was short-lived, as we shall presently see. Another 

 t allusion to the same custom occurs in November, 1787, when 

 Mrs. Willmott is informed by Miss Coombs that the Guardians 

 of Cerne had consented to an abatement, during unemploy- 

 ment, of one half of the sum agreed to be paid to the paupers 

 of that district. Again, a letter from Westbury tells Vere 

 in May, 1788, that " as I employ those of the parish I must pay 

 " them work or play, which is very hard upon me, and has been 

 ' for many months past, but have kept them on in hope the 

 "trade would take a turn." 



By the kindness of Mr. E. Arnold Wright, whose firm, A. 

 R. Wright and Company, bought in 1907 the silk mills owned 

 by several generations of the Willmott family, I have been 

 enabled to inspect two letter books, 1772 to 1781, which 

 were not included in the collection given to the Field Club. 

 The outward correspondence, copied by hand in these books, 

 includes many touches of local colour which enliven the 

 somewhat dull records of silk received at Sherborne and 

 returned thence to London ; I will therefore cite a few incid- 

 ents mentioned in William Willmott 's letters. At the begin- 

 ning of 1773 the silk industry languished throughout England, 



