A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



sign, socially. 1 The towns, too, have begun to revive. Bristol, which lost 

 its supereminent position in the West Indian trade owing to the rise of 

 Liverpool, in the wool trade owing to London's rivalry, and in the sugar 

 manufacture owing to Free Trade, has taken a new lease of life since 1888, 

 when the city bought two new docks built at Avonmouth and Portis- 

 head, and took over the entire control of its own trade. 8 Gloucester has 

 benefited enormously by the opening first, of the Berkeley Canal in 1827; 

 secondly, by the formation of a canal joining the Stroudwater Canal, which 

 completed the waterway between Gloucester and London (1836); and thirdly, 

 by the improvement of her harbour at Sharpness (1874), which now permits 

 the entrance of a ship of 4,000 tons. Cheltenham, which became a watering 

 place in the latter half of the eighteenth century, is now one of the most 

 thriving towns in the county. Even in the Stroud Valley, where the woollen 

 industry has been passing through a terribly bad period, the manufacturers 

 seem not unhopeful as to the future. Thus, though Gloucestershire has 

 somewhat the air of a home of lost causes, though crumbling mills in half- 

 forgotten valleys, and ruined cottages on her upland pastures, seem to testify 

 to a greatness that has passed away, we cannot but hope that the county has 

 a better future in store. The establishment of the Guild of Handicraft at 

 Chipping Campden should set an example to all those who desire to see the 

 return of industry to healthy and beautiful surroundings. In such a reforma- 

 tion Gloucestershire, with the variety of resources of which we have said so 

 much, might play a leading part. 



APPENDIX I 3 



TABLE OF WAGES * IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE, FOURTEENTH TO TWENTIETH CENTURY 



1 H. Rider Haggard, Rural Engl. i. * W. Hunt, op. cit. 



* Number in italic drawn from Rogers'? average for whole country in that year. 



4 Drawn from Mins. Accts. Churchwardens Accts. two Quarter Sessions Assessments (Rawlinson MSS. 

 C. 3 5 8), A. Young, ' Tour through Southern Counties,' Parl. Blue Bks., and Thorold Rogers, Hist, of Agric. 

 and Prices. 



I 7 2 



