INDUSTRIES 



cashire linen industry occurs in 1641 in Lewes 

 Roberts' Treasure of Traffike : ^^ 



The towne of Manchester in Lancashire must be 

 also herein remembered, and worthily, for their en- 

 couragement commended, who buy the yarne of the 

 Irish, in great quantity, and weaving it returne the 

 same againe in Linen, into Ireland to sell. 



When one remembers the imperfections of trans- 

 port facilities during the seventeenth century, the 

 double carriage of yarn to Lancashire and linen 

 to Ireland must be regarded as a very remarkable 

 feat. 



A picture of a very different character is given 

 in 1680 by the anonymous writer of Britannia 

 Languem or a Discourse of Trade}^ The writer 

 desires to show that foreign imports have in- 

 creased at the expense of home manufactures, to 

 support which contention he brings forward 

 several examples : 



I shall first instance in linnen, lately a consider- 

 able manufacture in Cheshire, Lancashire and in the 

 parts adjacent. . . . But all the manufacture of 

 linnen in Cheshire, Lancashire and elsewhere, is now 

 in a manner expired." 



It seems very doubtful whether this statement is 

 correct, as J. R. McCuUoch says in the intro- 

 duction to the edition quoted from, * It is certain, 

 however, that the depressed condition of industry, 

 for which the author endeavoured to account, 

 was wholly imaginary."^ Further, in 1694, we 

 learn from Chamberlayne that ' Manchester is a 

 town of very great trade for woollen and linen 

 manufactures,'^' whilst in 1750, Pococke writes 

 of Manchester, ' there is a great manufacture here 

 of linen and cotton.' ^^ The latter writer also 

 mentions that there is a manufacture of sail 

 cloth at Warrington.^* A similar observation is 

 made by Arthur Young in 1769 : ^^ 'At War- 

 rington the manufactures of sail cloth and sack- 

 ing are very considerable.' From Aikin we 

 learn that in the first part of the eighteenth 

 century a great quantity of coarse linen and 

 checks was made in Warrington and the neigh- 

 bourhood ; but in later years the manufacture of 

 sail cloth or poldavy was introduced, and rose to 

 such a height that half of the heavy sail cloth 

 used in the Navy was computed to have been 

 manufactured here.'' In 1836, at the time when 



" Political Economy Club, Coll. of Early Engl. 

 Tracts on Commerce (London, 1856), 73. 



™ Political Economy Club, ColL of Early Engl. Tracts 

 on Commerce. The author writes under the name of 

 ' Philanglus.' The treatise has been ascribed to 

 William Petyt, but as McCulloch says in the intro- 

 duction to this edition, this is very doubtfiil. 



" Op. cit. 416. " p. X. 



'' Present State of Engl. (ed. 1 8), 1 694. 



" Travels through Engl, i, 1 1 . 



" Ibid, i, 9. 



^ Tour in North of Engl. (ed. 2), iii, 163. 



" Aikin, Description of Manchester (1795), 302. 



Baines wrote, the industry no longer prevailed at 

 Warrington to any considerable extent.'* 



Another seat of the linen industry appears to 

 have been Kirkham. In 1795 Aikin writes : 

 'The chief trade of Kirkham is coarse linens, 

 especially sail cloth.' '" The industry must have 

 continued well into the nineteenth century, as 

 Baines refers in 1836 to the considerable manu- 

 factures of sail cloth and cordage, and also of fine 

 and coarse linens.^" 



The real death-blow to the Lancashire linen 

 industry was the attraction of the pick of the 

 operatives to the flourishing cotton industry. 

 We should note also that after the invention of 

 the water spinning-frame by Arkwright in 1769 

 cotton yarns could be spun sufficiently strong for 

 use as warps ; the need for linen and woollen 

 yarns for warps in cotton goods was thereby dis- 

 pensed with. Nevertheless the linen industry 

 continued to exist in the county during the 

 greater part of the nineteenth century. In 1835 

 the inspector of factories returned the number of 

 flax factories in Lancashire as 18, employing 

 1,185 ™sn ^nd 1,839 women." Three years 

 later, in 1838, 



there were 70 horse power engaged in flax spin- 

 ning in Salford. In Preston there were in the same 

 year six mills at work, employing 1,392 hands ; in 

 Kirkham two mills with 542 hands ; in Wigan two 

 mills with 400 hands ; in Bolton one mill with 261 

 hands, and in other parts of the county five mills 

 employing in all 286 hands. '' 



In 1881, 610 men and 2,230 women in the 

 county were employed in the manufacture of flax 

 and linen ; ten years later the figures had fallen 

 to 400 and 1,530 respectively; whilst in 190 1 

 only 210 men and 781 women were occupied in 

 this industry. 



THE COTTON INDUSTRY 



It is difficult to discover the beginning of an 

 industry in any locality, because as a rule it will 

 have started in a small way and, therefore, not 

 have attracted the notice of contemporary re- 

 corders, and may even have attached itself at first 

 as a small adjunct to some existing industry. 

 The earliest reference obtained by us is from the 

 wills of Chester, one of which, proved in 1578, 

 was the testament of James Billston of Man- 

 chester, ' Cotton manufacturer.' ^' From the 

 expression * Cotton manufacturer' we should 

 judge that James Billston was a manufacturer 

 of cotton proper, and not of the Manchester 

 ' cottons,' which were coarse woollens, as other- 



^ Hist, of Lane, iii, 681. 



" Description of Manchester, 288. 



^ Hist, of Lane, iv, 392. 



" Porter, Progress of the Nation (1836), i, 272. 



^' A. J. Warden, The Linen Trade, 385. 

 "" Lane, and Ches. Rec. Soc. ii . 



379 



