INDUSTRIES 





shearmen and dyers, with a view to remedying 

 the abuses that arise from the incursions of 

 foreigners, and in order that ' the said mysteries 

 and sciences may be better ordered, the town 

 better maintained, and the country near about it 

 more preferred and advanced.' The members 

 of the new company are, by the advice and 

 consent of the bailiffs of the town, to elect two 

 wardens, one of whom is to retire after a year 

 and be replaced by a similar election. The 

 retiring warden is to render an account to the 

 new warden in the presence of the bailiffs. The 

 company is to have a chest with three locks and 

 three keys to hold the forfeits and other profits, and 

 also the register book. The wardens are to 

 have one key apiece, and the third key is to be 

 kept by one of the portmen appointed by the war- 

 dens. No member of the company is to give to 

 journeymen greater wages than the law of the 

 realm allows, and if any journeyman shall refuse 

 to work for these wages the wardens and bailiffs 

 shall commit him to prison. No craftsman of 

 the company is to take an apprentice born out 

 of the town without the licence of the bailiffs in 

 writing. 1 



With these ordinances may be compared the 

 much more extensive regulations for the true 

 working of cloth made at Bury in 1607, the 

 town having only received its charter in the 

 preceding year. There are to be chosen yearly 

 by the alderman and burgesses six discreet, 

 honest, and skilful men who are called overseers, 

 of whom two are to be weavers, two shearmen, 

 and two clothiers. These are to give a bond of 

 ^40 to search and find out all frauds done by 

 every clothier, carder, spinner, weaver, burler, 

 rower, thicker, dyer or shearer. A seal of lead 

 for which 2d. is to be charged is to be placed by 

 the searcher with the arms and name of the 

 borough to every cloth sufficiently dressed, dyed, 

 and pressed. The frauds and offences visited 

 with penalties include straining cloth with 

 engines, defective length, breadth or weight ; 

 withholding cloth from the sealer, absence of the 

 clothier's token, defective dyeing, use of hot press 

 or iron cards. None is to buy coloured wool or 

 yarn from carder, spinner, or weaver. No 

 weaver is to act as fuller or dyer. No fuller is 

 to have a loom in his house or to take profit 

 directly or indirectly from a loom. 2 In each of 

 these two sets of ordinances there is an evident 

 revival of the old spirit of local industrial mono- 

 poly, but the extent of its practical effects was 

 dependent on the manner in which the new 

 organizations were administered. These were, 

 however, entirely subordinated to the municipal 

 authorities ; and the leading men of the two 



1 Gen. Assem. Bk. 33 Eliz. 30 Apr. and Hist. MSS. 

 Com. Rep. ix, 255. 



' Constitutions, laws, statutes, decrees, and ordi- 

 nances, MS. in Bury Town Hall ; a summary in 

 Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv, pt. viii, 140. 



towns were by no means unanimous in their 

 desire for industrial monopoly. Many of them 

 were wealthy merchants whose prosperity de- 

 pended on the maintenance of the trade that 

 had grown up by the removal of local restric- 

 tions, and who had no desire to see those restric- 

 tions reimposed. If the industrial capitalists of 

 the towns who wished to make the spinning and 

 weaving of the country round serve as feeders of 

 their finishing trade were to have their way they 

 must get powers independent of the town govern- 

 ment. And we find that there was a general 

 movement in this direction among the cloth- 

 workers of the chief clothing towns of England 

 about this time. 3 The clothiers, clothworkers, 

 woollen weavers, and tailors of Bury and its 

 liberties were incorporated in 1610, the cloth- 

 workers and tailors of Ipswich about 1619. 

 The Bury corporation was the more ambitious 

 of the two, as the liberties of Bury not only 

 embraced a third of Suffolk, but included nearly 

 all the districts where cloth-making was carried 

 on. There were to be two masters and two 

 wardens and twenty associates. The two 

 masters named in the charter were George 

 Boldrow of Bury, clothier, and George Fysson 

 of Bury, tailor, and two wardens, Edward 

 Hynard of Bury, clothier, and Edward White 

 of Bury, weaver, whilst the associates included 

 six tailors, three clothworkers, three weavers, and 

 two clothiers of Bury, and six country clothiers, 

 one each from Hadleigh, Lavenham, Glemsford, 

 Waldringfield, Boxlord, and Groton. One 

 master and one warden were to be always tailors. 

 The masters and wardens, with the consent of 

 the associates, were to name so many of the 

 better sort as they thought fit to be the livery of 

 the company, which was in other respects also 

 to be framed after the model of a London livery 

 company. The masters and wardens, or their 

 deputies, were to have powers of search in Bury 

 and its liberties, and might call in magistrates 

 and headboroughs to their assistance. No 

 householder was to set on a journeyman before 

 the latter had appeared at the hall and explained 

 why he left his last master. The journeyman 

 was then to receive a certificate and pay 8d. 

 No person that had not been a covenant servant 

 or householder within Bury or its liberties 

 above twelve months before the date of the 

 charter, or had not served seven years' appren- 

 ticeship, was to set up shop till he had paid 

 a fine, not exceeding 5. The apprentice at 

 the end of his service was to pay 3;. 4^., and 

 have his name recorded, and after three years' 

 approved service as a journeyman he was to pay 

 6s. 8d. and be admitted householder. There 

 were numerous regulations against fraud or defec- 

 tive work on the part of spinners, weavers, 

 fullers, and dyers, against stretching, the use of 

 cards, &c. Payment of wages was to be in 



263 



Unwin, Industrial Organization, pp. 40, 98, 147. 



