A HISTORY OF DORSET 



at the end of the eighteenth century. This view 

 of the industry is not contradicted by the evi- 

 dence afforded by the Bridport records. Prob- 

 ably an account, pieced together from oral 

 tradition, of the way the work was done to- 

 wards the end of the eighteenth century would 

 give a fairly accurate picture of the work at any 

 given time in the preceding centuries. The 

 only changes necessary would be in the costumes 

 of the workers. 



Originally, the ropes were made of the hemp 

 grown in the neighbourhood and sold in the 

 Bridport market."' A rough division of labour 

 was usually practised, the work was divided 

 between the 'combers' and 'spinners,' names 

 which still survive ; the spinners were assisted 

 by ' turners,' boys or girls who turned the 

 spinning-wheel ; these have been replaced by 

 steam. The raw hemp was given out to the 

 ' combers ' to be combed, and when thus prepared 

 was spun into yarn by the ' spinners,' and finally 

 was twisted into the required thickness of rope. 

 This last operation seems to have taken place in 

 the master spinner's rope-walk. Both the spin- 

 ning and the twisting were carried on in the 

 long gardens behind the workers' houses ; and 

 the yarn, twine, and ropes were dried on hooks 

 called ' waggles ' which were fixed in front of 

 the houses. These processes have given to the 

 town of Bridport its distinctive features — the 

 two main streets are curiously broad, and the 

 gardens lying behind the houses which front 

 these streets are very long in proportion to their 

 breadth. The custom of drying the twine, &c., 

 on ' waggles ' in the main street was maintained 

 until within the last thirty years. The rope, yarn, 

 and raw hemp were all subject to inspection by 

 an official appointed by the town council. 



The rope-walks and spinning-walks were all 

 open, and old inhabitants say that they were 

 very picturesque. Most of the rope-walks still 

 in existence have been roofed over. Longfellow's 

 description of rope-making is most vivid and ac- 

 curate : — 



In that building, long and low. 

 With the windows all arow, 

 Like the port-holes of a hulk, 

 Human spiders spin and spin. 

 Backw.^rd down their thread so thin 

 Dropping each a hempen bulk. 



At the end an open door, 

 Squares of sunshine on the floor, 

 Lights the long and dusty lane. 

 And the whirring of the wheel 

 Dull and drowsy makes me feel, 

 All the spokes are in my brain. 



'^ Stevenson gives the following list of hemp- 

 growing parishes in the county in 1812 : Bridport, 

 Loders, Bradpole, Powerstock, Symondsbury, Chid- 

 eock, Bothenhampton, West Milton, Walditch, Stoke 

 Abbott, Beaminster, Netherbury, and Abbotsbury. 

 ■^gric. of Dors. 287. 



There was one rope-walk of which the tale 

 is still told that for some reason it was so dark 

 that the spinners had to walk to and fro with 

 lighted candles on their shoulders to enable them 

 to see what they were doing. The story sug- 

 gests Rembrandtesque effects of light and shade. 



Old workers living in Bridport report curious 

 customs in connexion with the open rope-walks, 

 which seem to point to some corporate organiza- 

 tion of the details of the work. Trees grew in 

 most of the walks, these were usually ' witheys,' 

 i.e. willows, and they were all cut on Christmas 

 Day. In autumn and winter, as the days drew 

 in, the work was done by artificial light, but 

 despite the natural differences of different walks 

 with regard to the date when artificial light 

 became necessary, the lanterns were all put up 

 in the first week of October amid general re- 

 joicings ; and they were all taken down on the 

 last Friday in February. 



Besides the lantern festival in October the 

 workers rejoiced in various other especial feast 

 days. On Shrove Tuesday they received ' Pan- 

 cake money,' which amounted in the case of 

 ' Spinners ' to yi. a head, and in the case of 

 'Turners' to half as much. On Easter Tues- 

 day all hands ceased to work at four o'clock, and 

 some, at any rate, betook themselves either to 

 cock-fighting or to jumping in sacks for Easter 

 cakes. Whitsuntide they celebrated by eating 

 treacle rolls. ^^ 



Among the Bridport documents is an inden- 

 ture dated 20 June, 1683, by which the over- 

 seers of the parish apprenticed 'a poor fatherless 

 and motherless child,' John Baillie, to John 

 Keich, spinner, who undertook to teach and 

 instruct his apprentice ' in the craft and mistery 

 and occupation of a spinner.' The apprentice- 

 ship was to last until the boy was twenty-four 

 years old, and on his discharge the apprentice 

 was to be given two suits of apparel.'^ 



This system of binding out the 'parish ' chil- 

 dren may, or may not, have worked well in the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; it scarcely 

 ever led to open revolt, as very few cases between 

 apprentices and masters came before the quarter 

 sessions for Dorset. There is a good deal of 

 hearsay evidence as to what happened in the 

 early nineteenth century. The children were 

 bound by indentures to the age of twenty-one, 

 and worked as their masters thought proper, 

 sometimes working from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

 They did not earn wages until after they were 

 twenty-one years of age, when they could work 

 for whatever master they chose, and earned %d. 

 a day. The employers of apprentices recei\ed 

 money from the parish.'^ This account is 

 perhaps biased, since the people who remember 



'" Local information. 

 " Bridport Doc. K. i 3. 



" Local information ; my informant thought the 

 facts only applied to women. 



350 



