A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



into what had been a legitimate sphere of competi- 

 tive business. Some of the brokers who could 

 not get licences continued to pursue their avoca- 

 tion as nominal agents of the larger wool-growers. 1 

 No doubt the main grievance against the broker 

 was that he bought wool, not only to sell to the 

 clothier but also for export, the prevailing theory 

 being that the English manufacturer had an 

 exclusive right to English raw material. 8 



Coming next to the clothier, into whose 

 hands the wool directly or indirectly passed, we 

 have to do with a class of the most varied status. 

 Some of its members were large employers of 

 labour and at the same time merchants on an 

 extensive scale ; others only contrived to keep 

 themselves above the level of the labouring class 

 by dint of constant alertness and thrift and the 

 possession of a minimum of capital. A petition 

 of clothiers was presented to the government in 

 1585 against the activities of the licensed brokers, 

 complaining that as their own capital was not 

 great they had to buy at second, third and fourth 

 hand in the latter end of the year at excessive 

 prices. Of the 166 names appended to this 

 document, representing nine or ten counties, 

 forty-one were those of Suffolk clothiers. No 

 other county in the list (Norfolk was not included) 

 furnished more than half the number ; and no 

 doubt the petitioners, in spite of their protestations 

 of poverty, were the representatives of a more 

 numerous class. 3 In the hands of these capi- 

 talists, small or great, lay the control and direc- 

 tion of the manufacture, with the exception of 

 the finishing processes which were often carried 

 out after the cloth had been disposed of to the 

 merchant. 



Although some undyed cloth was made in 

 Suffolk, the greater part seems to have been dyed 

 blue in the wool, whilst a smaller portion was 

 further dyed violet, purple or green after it had 

 been woven. The chief materials used in 

 dyeing the wool were woad and indigo ; and 

 three varieties of colour, i.e., blues, azures, and 

 plunkets, which seem to have differed from each 

 other mainly in depth, as the dyestuff that would 

 dye a given amount of wool for blues would dye 

 twice the amount for azures, and four times the 

 amount for plunkets. 4 After being dyed one of these 

 colours, the wool was washed and dried before 

 being carded and spun. 



The carding and spinning were mostly done 

 by women and children in their cottage homes 

 all over the country-side. ' The custom of our 

 country is,' says another petition of Suffolk 

 clothiers in 1575, 



to carry our wool out to carding and spinning and put 

 it to divers and sundry spinners who have in their 

 houses divers and sundry children and servants that do 



1 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxv, 14, 40. 



'Ibid. 41. 



5 Lansd. MS. 48, fol. 67. 



4 Cott. MS. Titus B. v, fol. 254. 



card and spin the same wool. Some of them card 

 upon new cards and some upon old cards and some 

 spin hard yarn and some soft ... by reason whereof 

 our cloth falleth out in some places broad and some 

 narrow contrary to our mind and greatly to our 

 disprofit. 4 



The manner of the delivery of the wool and the 

 return of the yarn by weight with allowance for 

 waste had been prescribed by an Act of Parlia- 

 ment of 1512, which punished any fraud on 

 the part of the worker by the pillory and the 

 cucking-stool. 6 



Although the preparation of yarn was chiefly 

 carried on in the villages and smaller towns, it 

 also continued to find occupation for a consider- 

 able amount of semi-pauperised labour in the 

 larger towns. Spinning indeed was the main 

 resource of those whose duty it became under 

 the new Poor Law to find work for the unem- 

 ployed, and in institutions, such as Christ's 

 Hospital, Ipswich (founded 1569), children were 

 set to card and spin wool from their tenderest 

 years. 7 At Bury in 1570, an order was made 

 by the town that every spinster was 



to have (if it may be) 6 Ib. of wool every week and 

 to bring the same home every Saturday at night, 

 and if any fail so to do, the clothier to advertise 

 the constable thereof for the examination of the 

 cause, and to punish it according to the quality of 

 the fault. 8 



And an order was made in 1590 at Ipswich with 

 a view to finding employment for the poor, that 

 no clothier should put out more than half his 

 work to be carded or spun, woven, shorn, or 

 dressed out of the town (if he could get it as well 

 done in the town), without special licence from 

 the bailiffs. 9 



The spinners, who never seem to have pos- 

 sessed any organization of their own, were very 

 liable to oppression on the part of their employers, 

 not only through low wages, but also through 

 payment in kind and the exaction of arbitrary 

 fines. It is not surprising, therefore, to find 

 them frequently accused of keeping back part of 

 the wool given out to them and of making up 

 the weight by the addition of oil or other mois- 

 ture to the yarn. The natural connexion of 

 these two evils found recognition in a Bill pre- 

 sented to the Parliament of 1593, which while 

 imposing fresh penalties on frauds in spinning 

 and weaving, proposed at the same time to raise 

 the wages of spinners and weavers by a third. 10 

 The Bill failed to pass, but the regulation of 

 wages in the interest of the spinners continued to 

 be a problem of poor law administration during 

 the next half-century. 



5 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxiv, 32. 



6 3 Stat. Hen. VIII, cap. 6. 



7 Leonard, Early English Poor Relief. 



3 Hist. A/SS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. pt. viii, 1 39. 

 9 Ibid. Rep. ix, App. pt. i, 255. 

 10 S. P. Dom. Eliz. ccxliv, 126. 



2 5 8 



