INDUSTRIES 



of twenty-four ells only. This the manu- 

 facturers represented was impossible owing to 

 the different natures of the wool with which 

 they worked, and in time a different standard 

 came to be recognized for each of the different 

 descriptions of cloth made in the kingdom. 

 But even with this laxity several of the 

 notices which we have of the Surrey industry 

 have to do with the difficulty of keeping the 

 pieces of cloth within the dimensions 

 specially decreed for cloth of their particular 

 class.* 



Thus in 1535-6" it was enacted that 

 every kersey made and dressed to be put to 

 sale should contain one yard in breadth within 

 the list or border. A petition was made to 

 the Privy Council apparently a few years 

 after this enactment by 'the makers and 

 workers of coarse kerseys commonly trans- 

 ported into the parts beyond the seas inhabit- 

 ing within the counties of Berks, Oxford, 

 Southampton, Surrey, Sussex and York.' It 

 represents that these makers could not by any 

 means possible observe the breadths of such 

 coarse kerseys as limited by the Act. The 

 execution of the Act had for a time been 

 suspended by the king's proclamation at their 

 humble suits, but if it was to be ultimately 

 enforced the makers would ' be forced against 

 their wills either to forsake their misteries and 

 leave off their making of such coarse kerseys 

 or else to incur the danger and penalty of the 

 said statute to their utter undoing.' * From 

 this petition it may be inferred that thus 

 early the kersey manufacture of Surrey pos- 

 sessed that characteristic which most distin- 

 guishes it in its later and declining days. The 

 cloth was chiefly made for the export trade. 



The age of the Tudors was prolific in leg- 

 islation which aimed at regulating and check- 

 ing abuses in the manufacture of the com- 

 moner necessaries of life, and it is only what 

 we should expect that the cloth-making in- 

 dustry, the staple one of the country, was 

 especially subjected to a multiplicity of enact- 

 ments. With the general trend of this 

 legislation we are of course not here con- 

 cerned, but only with those particular con- 

 ditions imposed by it which seem to have 

 most affected the industry in Surrey. As is 

 usually the case our information as to a 

 special industry becomes amplified with the 

 greater interference of the legislative with 

 the manner of conducting it. Large rewards 

 offered under the various Acts to those who 



1 Cunningham, Grozoth of English History and 

 Commerce, i. 322, 323. 



2 Stat. 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 12. 



3 Star Cham. Proc, Hen. VIII. bdle. 23, No. 



US- 



would bring offenders to justice naturally 

 opened the way for the common informer, and 

 it is from the informations against Surrey 

 clothiers that we may best learn how they 

 were affected by these Acts. One word 

 however is necessary as to the value of this 

 evidence. From the records of the Court of 

 Exchequer we may learn the nature of the 

 charge, but as in nearly every case the accused 

 denies the commission of the offence, and 

 elects to put himself upon the country, it is 

 rarely easy and often impossible to know 

 whether the indictment was held proven by 

 a jury. What we do learn are the localities 

 in which particular industries were carried on, 

 and we are left to infer from the frequency 

 with which certain offences are alleged to 

 have been committed in certain districts, 

 that some grounds for believing that they 

 would be proved in a court of law must have 

 prompted the informer to bring forward his 

 charges. 



One of the commonest offences against 

 the Acts regulating their industry of which 

 the Surrey clothiers were accused was that of 

 making cloth outside the limits of a market 

 or corporate town. In 1557-8 it had been 

 laid down that none should make cloth except 

 in a market town wherein cloth had been 

 used to be made by the space of ten years 

 past, or in a city borough or town corporate 

 under a penalty of ^^5 for every cloth made 

 contrary to these provisions. The alleged 

 motive for this legislation was the decay of 

 towns which had been brought about by the 

 removal of clothiers, but possibly it was 

 prompted to some extent by the desire to 

 facilitate the performance of the duties that 

 devolved upon the ulnagers and sealers of 

 cloths who would have the makers more 

 under their supervision in the towns than in 

 scattered villages. The Act was subse- 

 quently slightly modified, and toleration was 

 extended to certain clothiers in the west of 

 England.* These modifications need not 

 concern us here. In Surrey the effect of 

 these measures seems to have been to force 

 the clothiers from the villages into the towns. 

 In 1 561 two of them, Richard and Simon 

 Hardinge, were charged with having made 

 woollen cloths at Frensham," and another, 

 Thomas Rosyer, with committing the same 

 offence at Witley,* neither of these being 

 places within the meaning of the Acts. It 

 is curious to find Godalming described in the 

 same year as a market town where cloth had 



* Stat. 4 & 5 Phil, and Mary, cap. 5 ; 1 8 Eliz. 

 cap. 16. 



= Exch. K. R. Mem. R. Trin. 3 Eliz. 38. 



8 Ibid. 39. 



343 



