136 MR. J. C. DYER ON THE ORIGIN OF 



out of workj and mucli local distress prevailed in that 

 neighbourhood, which led to the '' Nottingham Riots" 

 "Lace-frame Breaking," and other outrages that took 

 place about fifty years ago. Among these acts of violence 

 was the entire destruction of Mr. Heathcoat's establish- 

 ment for lace-making with his patent machinery. The 

 great success of the inventions had excited such extensive 

 and bitter hostility against him and his partners in trade, 

 that it appeared advisable, even for his personal safety, to 

 leave that part of the country, and re-establish his works at 

 some place quite disconnected with the cotton trade. Ac- 

 cordingly he removed to Tiverton, Devonshire, where he 

 erected a large lace-making establishment for using his new 

 machines in safety. These works have been continued to 

 the present time, and from time to time greatly extended, 

 and successive new inventions and improvements have 

 been introduced, the fruits of his fertile genius and 

 enterprising spirit, which have made them eminently 

 successful. 



Whilst engaged in devising changes and improvements 

 in his lace-machines about forty-five years ago, Mr. Heath- 

 coat came to Manchester for the purpose of examining 

 the movements of my wire-card making machines, and by 

 a careful analysis of them he was enabled to apply several 

 of those movements to facilitate the improvements then 

 making in his lace machinery. 



It mostly happens that the first efifects of labour-saving 

 inventions are to cause derangement and distress among 

 those employed in the trades for which such inventions are 

 brought into use, and this in proportion to the real efl&- 

 ciency of the new machines in reducing the cost of labour 

 in working them. But the temporary evils thus arising 

 are always counterbalanced by the advantages tt grow 

 out of extending those trades, and thus aifording em- 

 ployment for a greater number of hands than could ever 



