SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



cloth, which was formerly made in Blackburn and Preston by handloom, 

 whereas ' there is no such thing made there now.' Since 1813 the power- 

 loom had been gradually coming in, but only since 1820 had it become the 

 victorious rival of the handloom. Formerly fustian-weaving employed from 

 6,000 to 8,000 handloom weavers, yet now the witness thought there would 

 not be more than 200 handloom fustian-weavers in the whole of Lancashire. 

 In Hey wood, where there were formerly above 3,000 handloom fustian- 

 weavers, a manufacturer had observed to the witness that he would ' be sorry 

 to be compelled to find six' before he went to bed. In the year 1834 

 between 4,000 and 5,000 handloom weavers were employed by the witness's 

 firm at Preston, but the firm had now decided to go in for power as they 

 could not otherwise compete with other cloth makers. Nearly all the 

 'journeymen ' weavers as a class had taken to power-loom weaving. At 

 Bolton twenty-five per cent, of the handlooms were standing idle, and 

 during the last ten years not a single handloom was known to have been 

 made. 



The neighbourhood of Ashton and Stockport was all busy with power, 

 and at most two-third parts only of the handlooms formerly employed were 

 now in use. In fact the handloom weavers only existed upon sufferance. It 

 was useless to try and bolster up their wages artificially by legislation. The 

 weaving industry was in a state of transition *" from one species of employ- 

 ment to another, and the only chance for the handloom weaver was to seek 

 other employment. 



The remedy was clear and obvious. Factory hands were, strange to 

 relate, scarce, and not only in Manchester, but in Bolton and Preston. There 

 was employment waiting for the distressed population, but for various reasons 

 the poor people would not enter the mills. One reason assigned was the 

 long hours of labour ; *" another, the noise of the factory, and the extreme 

 heat in which the workers had to labour from six in the morning till eight 

 at night.*'"' One of the strongest reasons finally was the danger offered by 

 the new machinery, of which many workers were afraid. The evidence of a 

 silk-weaver, whose son had been fatally injured by a spinning mule, was to the 

 effect that if he had seventy-seven children he would not send one to a cotton 

 factory. 



Evidence points to the fact that many of these Lancashire weavers could 

 have got other employment had they been so minded. The factories were 

 short-handed and handloom weavers were taken in preference to others 

 because they had been ' accustomed to care and minute attention ' to weaving 

 processes.*^^ Many weavers did apply and obtain employment at the Bury 

 mills *^^ and elsewhere. But a section held aloof, partly from dislike and fear of 

 the factories, partly from a determination to protest by inaction against a 

 condition of misery not of their own creation. The dislocation of their 

 particular arm of industry had produced a festering sore, and many had not 

 the force of character or scientific cast of mind that could reconcile itself to 

 amputation as the only possible cure. Apart from the natural disinclination 

 to change their mode of life and methods of industry, these weavers were not 

 physically fitted for rough labour. It appears that when McAdam, the great 



"" Pari. Rep. 137-8. *" Ibid. 139. "" Ibid. 185, par. 2648. 



"' Rep. of Select Com. on Manuf. &c. 6-]^, par. 1 1 364. "' Ibid. 684. 



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