INDUSTRIES 



notice this new departure, and he mentions a 

 curious use to which inferior flax was put : — 



They have (he writes) a great manufacture of 

 twine, cables, sail-cloth and coarse cloths not exceed- 

 ing I/, a yard, the county producing abundance of 

 hemp and flax ; when the latter happens not to be 

 good they thatch with it, and it lasts much longer 

 than any other material." 



Coker sail-cloth was famed for its excellence, 

 which was said to be due to some particular 

 quality in its water. The Bridport manufac- 

 turers, not to be outdone, changed the style of 

 their town and labelled their goods as coming 

 from 'Bridport, near Coker,'^' though the towns 

 are about fifteen miles apart and have no con- 

 nexion with each other. At one time the 

 manufacture of sail-cloth seemed to be all-im- 

 portant, and to be much more profitable than 

 net-making ; but its importance has died down, 

 while that of net-making has developed and 

 increased. There are only a few sail-cloth 

 mills still working. 



There are three very pessimistic accounts of 

 the condition of the hemp industry between 

 1760 and 1770, but the two published in 1769, 

 England displayed by a Society of Gentlemen and 

 the Description of England and JFales, published 

 by Newbury and Carman, echo each other word 

 for word, and with regard to Bridport are prob- 

 ably both based on the sixth edition of Defoe's 

 Tour through Great Britain, which came out in 

 1 76 1, but in some cases described the state of 

 affairs which existed in 1724. This would 

 account for the fact that all three describe 

 Bridport Harbour as choked with sand, which 

 was true in 1724 ; and that they agree in say- 

 ing ' there are scarce any remains ' of the once 

 flourishing hemp industry. Defoe was much 

 interested in the mackerel fishing when he 

 came along the coast road from Abbotsbury in 

 1724, and whether he was tired or whether he 

 was pushed for time when he reached Bridport 

 it is impossible to say, but his description of it 

 is meagre, uncomplimentary, and, as far as 

 concerns its industry, contradictory to every 

 contemporary writer. Probably the only in- 

 formation supplied by the three pessimistic 

 accounts is the fact that Bridport derived a 

 certain amount of profit from its position on 

 the great western road between London and 

 Exeter. There may have been some temporary 

 depression in the industry as it is peculiarly 

 liable to such depression, but it is much more 

 likely that all the descriptions are derived from 

 a mistaken view of the condition of the trade 

 in 1724. 



The rector of Wareham, Mr. Hutchins, col- 

 lected his information at the same time as the 

 * Society of Gentlemen.' Pococke says that 



'* Pococke, Travels through Engl. (1750), ii, 87. 

 "' From local information. 



Hutchins had begun working at his county his- 

 tory in 1750 when they met at Wareham, 

 though it was not published until 1774. He 

 alludes to 'the resort of travellers' as one of the 

 'supports' of the town, but says that 'the staple 

 trade is large seines and nets used in the British 

 fishery and other hemp manufacture ; ' "'' this is 

 corroborated by the references to Bridport goods 

 which occur in histories of Newfoundland. 



The next forty years mark the zenith of 

 Bridport's connexion with Newfoundland as 

 they mark the zenith of the fishing industry 

 on which that connexion so largely depended. 

 A description of the industry in 1802 is the 

 first to mention the circle of dependent villages 

 in which netting as a home industry kept pace 

 with the increase of the demand for nets : — 



I'he manufacture at Bridport is at present varied, 

 but perhaps flourishes more than in any former time 

 and furnishes employment not only for the inhabi- 

 tants of the town, but for those likewise of the neigh- 

 bouring villages to the extent of ten miles in circum- 

 ference. 



It consists of seines and nets of all sorts, lines, twines, 

 and small cordage and sail-cloth. Upwards of 1,500 

 tons of hemp are worked up annually and nearly 

 1 0,000 hands are employed." 



Mr. Britton does not state how he arrived at 

 this last number, and it seems curious in view 

 of the fact that in 1 821, when a census was 

 taken of the families engaged in handicrafts, 

 there were only 10,811 in the whole of Dorset. 

 A rough calculation of the families so engaged 

 in the division and borough of Bridport and the 

 various hundreds in which the industry flourished 

 gives a total of 2,164 families, but this would 

 include all the masons, smiths, carpenters, and 

 cobblers. If these families were deducted the 

 total would probably fall below 2,000, and it is 

 highly improbable that a family would have 

 averaged five persons capable of making up 

 hemp. Allowance should also be made for the 

 fact that according to the report on the census 

 of 1821 the population of Dorset had increased 

 from 119,100 in 1801 to 147,400 in 1821. 

 However, the whole description was considered 

 so good that it did duty for sixty years, and is 

 reproduced verbatim as an accurate contemporary 

 account in 1864. 



There are various other references to the 

 industry throughout the nineteenth century, but 

 its history is really a history of the reorganiza- 

 tion of the trade under the new conditions in- 

 volved by the use of machinery, and of its de- 

 velopment under the spur of competition ; it 

 can therefore best be gathered from a descrip- 

 tion of this reorganization. 



The handicraft continued unchanged from 

 early days until the introduction of machinery 



"Hutchins, Hisl. Dorset (1774), i, 233. 



^' Brayley and Britton, Beauties of Engl, and Wales 



801), iv, 519. 



(1801) 



349 



