INDUSTRIES 



duced in the previous year. The subject of 

 the design was partly allegorical, introducing 

 Neptune, Mars, Time, Honour, and Harmony, 

 with medallion portraits of English naval and 

 military heroes, and figures of Queen Victoria 

 and Prince Albert. 33 



In the evidence taken before a committee 

 of the House of Commons on the silk trade 

 in 1831-2 it was stated that the population of 

 the districts in which the Spitalfields weavers 

 resided could not be less at that time than 

 100,000, of whom 50,000 were entirely de- 

 pendent on the silk manufacture, and the 

 remaining moiety more or less dependent 

 indirectly. The number of looms at this 

 period 34 varied from 14,00010 17,000 (in- 

 cluding too Jacquard looms), and of these 

 about 4,000 to 5,000 were generally unem- 

 ployed in times of depression. As there were 

 on an average, children included, about thrice 

 as many operatives as looms, it is clear that 

 during stagnation of trade not less than from 

 10,000 to 15,000 persons would be reduced 

 to a state of non-employment and destitution. 35 

 An excellent account of the condition of the 

 silk trade, written in 1868, will be found in 

 Once a Week?* From the census of 1901 

 it appears that the number of silk weavers in 

 the various processes of the trade in the entire 

 county of London reached only 548, of whom 

 48 were employers. The relations between 

 the employer and the operative deserve a pass- 

 ing notice. The manufacturer procures his 

 thrown ' organzine ' and ' tram ' either from 

 the throwster or from the silk importers, and 

 selects the silk necessary to execute any par- 

 ticular order. The weaver goes to the house 

 or shop of his employer and receives a suffi- 

 cient quantity of the material, which he takes 

 home to his own dwelling and weaves at his 

 own looms or sometimes at looms supplied by 

 the manufacturer, being paid at a certain rate 

 per ell. In a report to the Poor Law Commis- 

 sioners in 1837 Dr. Kay thus describes the 

 methods of work of a weaver and his family : 



A weaver has generally two looms, one for his 

 wife and another for himself, and as his family 

 increases the children are set to work at six or 

 seven years of age to quill silk ; at nine or ten 

 years to pick silk ; and at the age of twelve or 

 thirteen (according to the size of the child) he is 

 put to the loom to weave. A child very soon 

 learns to weave a plain silk fabric, so as to become 

 a proficient in that branch ; a weaver has thus not 

 unfrequently four looms on which members of his 



" Penny Mag. (1841), x, 478. 



M Badnall, A View of the Si/A Trade (1828), 93. 



35 Hogg, Weekly Instructor, 1854 ( new ser -)> " 



38. 



Vol. xviii, 228, 250, 276. 



own family are employed. On a Jacquard loom 

 a weaver can earn 2 $s. a week on an average 37 ; 

 on a velvet or rich plain silk-loom from 161. to 

 lot. per week ; and on a plain silk-loom from 121. 

 to I4/. ; excepting when the silk is bad and re- 

 quires much cleaning, when his earnings are re- 

 duced to I Of. per week ; and on one or two very 

 inferior fabrics 8/. a week only are sometimes 

 earned, though the earnings are reported to be 

 seldom so low on these coarse fabrics. On the 

 occurrence of a commercial crisis the loss of work 

 occurs first among the least skilful operatives, who 

 are discharged from work. 



Porter in his Treatise on the Silk Manufacture 

 gives a pleasing picture of the home life of a 

 Spitalfields weaver and of his happy and pros- 

 perous condition ; but a writer in Knight's 

 London 38 paints in much more sober colours 

 the condition of a weaver and his family. 39 

 Each account is taken from personal observa- 

 tion, and the difference is probably to be ex- 

 plained by the state of trade at the time of the 

 visit, and the class of workman visited. The 

 houses occupied by the weavers are constructed 

 for the special convenience of their trade, 

 having in the upper stories wide, lattice-like 

 windows which run across almost the whole 

 frontage of the house. These Mights' are 

 absolutely necessary in order to throw a strong 

 light on every part of the looms, which are 

 usually placed directly under them. Many 

 of the roofs present a strange appearance, 

 having ingenious bird-traps of various kinds and 

 large bird cages, the weavers having long been 

 famed for their skill in snaring song-birds. 

 They used largely to supply the home market 

 with linnets, goldfinches, chaffinches, green- 

 finches, and other song birds which they 

 caught by trained 'call-birds' and other 

 devices in the fields of north and east Lon- 

 don. The treaty with France in 1860 which 

 allowed French silks to come in duty free, 

 found Great Britain and Ireland unable to 

 compete with France, and in a short time the 

 trade dwindled immensely with disastrous 

 results to Spitalfields and other centres. 



The progress of the decay of the Spitalfields 

 silk trade from 1 860 onwards and the recent 

 attempted revival of its silk brocade industry 

 are well treated in an interesting article by 

 Lasenby Liberty contributed in 1893 to the 

 Studio on ' Spitalfields Brocades.' 40 



" For the best kind of work weavers have been 

 paid as much as 1 5/. a day. Knight, Land, ii, 

 396 note. See also Eclectic Mag. iSqi.xxiii. 268. 



Vol. ii, 397. 



39 See also for the darker side of the picture, 

 Dr. Hector Gavin, Sanitary Rambling! (1848), 42 ; 

 Hogg, Instructor (Ser. 2), ii, 96. 



40 Studio, \, 20-4. 



137 



18 



