130 REPORT — 1866. 



■classes of hand-machines, it is computed, give employment to about 20,000 women 

 and girls as winders and seamers, earning 4s. each on an average. There are about 

 1000 wide-power rotary frames, employing 700 men, at from 20.s. to 32s. ; and 

 about 16,000 girls and women, seamers and winders, on an average of 5s. weekly. 

 There are about 1200 sets of circular round-power frames improved, employing 500 

 men and 500 youths, at from 12s. to 35s. weekly ; and 1000 women, getting 12s. 

 to 20s. weekly wages. The winders, cutters, menders, and others attached to these 

 are about 11,000 Momen and girls, averaging 7s. to 12s. a week. And there are 

 about 400 warp msuihines making hosieiy by power, employing 400 men, at 14s. to 

 35s. ; aud 200 youths, at 12s. to 20s. ; besides 400 warpers, &c. (men), gaining 

 about 25s. ; and also 2000 women and girls stitching, &c., at 8s. a week on an 

 average. It is probable that there are 2000 men employed in bleaching, dyeing, &c., 

 and as porters, &c., at 20s. to 35s. weekly ; besides 5000 menders, folders, &c., 

 working in warehouses, at from 8s. to 12s. weekly. To these must be added the 

 warehousemen and clerks in 80 establishments for finishing and sale of goods in 

 Nottingham. The Nottingham hosiery business is now believed to be giving em- 

 ployment to about 17,000 males and 44,000 females — together, 61,000 worlq)eople. 

 The estimated returns amoimted in 1865 to about £3,000,000. The two staple trades ' 

 of Nottingham, therefore, distributed in returns an amount of somewhat more than 

 £8,000,000 sti rling last year, and furnished, in the aggregate, employment to nearly 

 200,000 workpeople. The hosiery hand-frames here stated were enumerated 

 throughout the whole trade by my census in 1844 ; and the results are given with 

 much minuteness in a paper read in this Section at the York Meeting of the British 

 Association, where the terrible details of suft'ering then, and for forty years pre- 

 viously, endured, caused much interest and sympathj'. Happily the state of things 

 then desciibed is now entirely changed, and the labour ol the stocking-maker being 

 in larger demand than the supply, both employed and employer are enjoj^ng an 

 amoimt of prosperity never before realized, but which, we hope, may be long con- 

 tinued. It will be an explanation of some interest to those who are strangers to 

 the process of these trades, to state that the hand-knitter of a stocking, if assiduous 

 and clever, will knit 100 loops a minute ; and that Lee, on his first machine, made 

 1000 of worsted, and on his second 1500 loops of silk per minute. The visitor may 

 now see made on the round frame, patented by Brunei in 1816, but since modified 

 and improved, without any effort of the attendant but to supply yam, 250,000 loops 

 of the finest textures made, in various colours, per minute, with safety ; an advance 

 of 2500-fold upon the hand-lniitter. Also, that while a pillow-lace maker can 

 form 5 meshes per minute by her skilful and pliable fingers, Heathcote, on his first 

 essay upon his bobbin -net machine, made 1000, and, before the expiration of his 

 patent, 10,000 of these meshes per minute ; a man sitting to overlooK his machine 

 now will watch its movements, producing 60,000 meshes per minute— an increase of 

 10,000-fold on the cushion labourer's aj-duous and painstaking task. The mathe- 

 matical nicety of the construction of each of these machines necessary to their 

 secure worlving, the beautiful simplicity of the looping stocking frames, contrasted 

 with the complexity and rapidity of movement through confined spaces of the 

 thousands of bobbins and carriages, in the mesh-making and embroidering bobbin- 

 net machines, vdll be found to sm-pass the greater part of the machinery employed 

 in any other manufacture whatever. Two or thi-ee particular points in connexion 

 with the present operations of these trades will interest this Section. A himdred 

 years ago almost all stockings were widened and narrowed on the frame, as they 

 had been by hand-knitting, so as to fit the leg and foot exactly with neatness and 

 comfort to the wearer. These were called full-fashioned hose. Seventy or eighty 

 years ago the practice of making goods straight down in the leg first began ; these 

 were called .ipurious goods. From that time tiU 1845 Parliament was on several 

 occasions informed that this practice caused distress, and applied to to declare this 

 mode of making stockings illegal ; but these petitions were without legislative re- 

 sult. Brunei's round frame makes knitted socks without fashion, and the roimd 

 web is shaped by scissors and sewn up by stitching machines or hand. One head 

 will produce weekly 30 dozen of women's hose, sold at 3d. to Gel. a pair.. At first 

 these goods were hateful to the greater portion both of masters and men. So far 

 from the trade being ruined, it has become better than for a century past, in every 



