A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



by statute, which are used with card wires, theirs being used only with 

 small teazles, for the gentle raising of the cloth at the first work.' If they 

 were not to have the moseing-mills, but to finish the cloth by hand, they 

 would have to use king teazles, which could not be grown in less than two 

 years. 1 In 1 640 more successful complaints were made against the restric- 

 tions on the manufacture of says, or 'say dyed cloth' (cloth dyed before it was 

 fulled).* But neither the gig-mills and moseing-mills nor the desired kind of 

 rack were allowed, though the old restrictions (passed from 1328 to 1606) as to 

 length, breadth, and weight of cloth were removed, and cloth was only to be 

 rejected by the searcher for being falsely made, ' wasted in the hull, squaly, 

 rowy, baudy, holes and the like.' 8 Thrum gatherers, or petty chapmen of 

 cloth, were forbidden, and home-spinning for the market restricted, evidently 

 in order to help the clothiers. 



But the woes of the clothiers were not yet cured, when the Civil War 

 was upon them. Some took an active part in the struggle, as Paine, a 

 clothier, who fell with the colours in his hand ; 4 others obtained letters of 

 protection, which availed little against the marauding hands of the soldiers, 

 by whom the clothiers about Stroudwater ' were utterly undone.' 6 It is 

 recorded that the garrison of Beverley Castle was reinforced during the 

 rebellion to ' overawe the wealthy clothiers of Gloucestershire.' Towards 

 the end of the seventeenth century the trade recovered, whether from 

 natural causes or the action of government.' In 1677 Gloucestershire weavers 

 were famous enough to be lured to Ireland by a London company. 7 From 

 1 690 to 1760 appears to have been the period of greatest prosperity among the 

 Gloucestershire clothiers, to judge by the numerous houses and tombstones 

 which they have left as witnesses. 8 The dyers were gradually assuming a 

 position of inferiority to the clothiers, who dictated prices to them, and 

 exacted the last farthing for defects in the still difficult art of dyeing. 9 



The wages paid by the clothiers to their employees may be made 

 out from a pamphlet of 1737, computing the amount of work provided 

 in a week by one pack of wool, made into broad cloth : 10 



' * 



One man to sort and dry it ....... 80 



Dyeing and cleaning, etc. . . . . . . . i 10 o 



Four men and two boys to scrible it . . . . 280 



Thirty women and girls to card and spin . . . . 600 



Four boys to spoole and wind quills . . . . . 10 o 



Four women to burle it ....... 120 



Five to scour, full, row, shear, rack, and press it . . 340 



Eight men to weave it . . . . . . . 4160 



Total. 5 8 persons employed for a week at . . .1980 



1 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, ccxliv, I and 45. ' Ibid, ccccliv, 29 and 84. 



* Ibid, dxxxiv, No. 152. * Bibliotheca Gloucestriana, iii, p. cxliv. 



6 P. H. Fisher, Notes and Recollections of Stroud. See S.P. Dom. 1653, xxxvii, 36; also Hist. MSS. 

 Com. Rep. iv, 63. 



6 The Acts for burying in woollens, passed by Charles II to encourage the cloth industry, are borne 

 witness to in the parish register of Henbury. Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xii. 



7 See 'Dialogue between clothier, woolen draper, and yeoman.' Smith, Mem. of Wool, 227. 



8 See Bigland, Gloucestershire, vol. ii. 



9 In 1718 the prices received by dyers were : 'For colouring one cloth green, 40*. ; for colouring one 

 cloth blue, 28.^-36.;. ; for woading (a sort of blue put on preparatory to black), 5*. to 24*., though (as was naively 

 admitted), if a cloth was unusually long, and the dyers were forced to take the same price, they used to make 

 the woad so much the worse in proporc'on as might make them amends/ Cal. of Excb. Sfec. Com. June, 1718, ' 

 'at Strowde.' 10 The Golden Fleece, 1737. 



1 60 



