A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



(Lancashire), that they have found themselves obliged 

 to offer their few remaining spinners larger premiums 

 than the state of their trade veould allovi'." 



From that time until the present the centralizing 

 process has advanced unimpeded ; Belfast and 

 Scotland no longer hold the relative positions that 

 they once occupied, and the widely-spread cotton 

 industry of the north-west of England has been 

 drawn into the contracting circle around Man- 

 chester, which stands out as the immistakable seat 

 of the British cotton trade. The contrast beneath 

 is significant : — 



Distribution of Cotton Operatives in 1838 and 

 1898—9 (from returns of Factory Inspectors) 



1838^' 



Cheshire . 



Cumberland . 



Derbyshire 



Lancashire 



Nottinghamshire 



Staffordshire 



Yorkshire 



England and Wales 



Scotland . 



Ireland 



United Kingdom 



36,400 

 2,000 



10,500 



152,200 



1,500 



2,000 



12,400 



1898-9 



34,300 



700 



10,500 



398,100 



1,600 



2,300 



35,200 



219,100 496,200 



35,600 29,000' 



4,600 800 



259,300 526,000 



217,000 of the 219,100 operatives in Eng- 

 land and Wales were employed in the counties 

 enumerated. Of the 2,200 operatives whose 

 location is not given about 1,000 worked in 

 Flintshire. 



More important far than the exact date when 

 the cotton industry was brought to us, and the 

 precise spot on the globe from which it was 

 imported, is the general type of its organization 

 in its rudimentary state. This may be mentally 

 constructed from the descriptions of contem- 

 poraries and those who remembered the domestic 

 system (Ogden, Guest, Aikin, Butterworth, 

 Rowbottom, Bamford, Radcliffe, Kennedy, and 

 others, and the witnesses who gave evidence to 

 early committees of inquiry). We should expect 

 to find a multiplicity of systems since diversity 

 of arrangements characterized the woollen and 

 linen trades. In the latter were to be found 

 weavers engaged to make up in their own homes 



" Account of Society for promotion of Industry in Lindiey 

 (1789). (B.M. 103 L. 56.) Quoted from Cun- 

 ningham's Engl. Industry and Commerce (ed. 1892), 

 ii, 452. Ogden too (author of ^ Description of Man- 

 chester, l^c.. published in 1 783), if Aikin's 'accurate 

 and well-informed enquirer ' be Ogden, says that the 

 period of rapid extension of the cotton industry began 

 about 1770. 



" The only other county with more than 1 ,000 was 

 Gloucester with 1,500. 



^ According to the last census there were only 

 15,000 cotton operatives in Scotland engaged in 

 spinning, weaving and subsidiary processes and ' other 

 processes or undefined.' 



382 



materials supplied by undertakers ; self-employed 

 weavers using their own materials, bought some- 

 times on a system of long credit ; and journeymen 

 working for men like Martin Brian (or Byrom) 

 of Manchester, one of the three famous clothiers 

 of the ' North Country,* who about the year 1520 

 kept 



a greate number of servants at worke, Spinners, Car- 

 ders, Weavers, Fullers, Dyers and Shearman, &c., to 

 the great admiration of all that came into their 

 houses to beehould them." 



The hand-loom weavers of cotton under the 

 domestic system were of many grades. Some 

 occupied themselves entirely with weaving, and 

 of these there were journeymen working for 

 small masters and also independent weavers. 

 Others united with manufacturing agricultural 

 work on small holdings, or farm work for 

 larger farmers at certain seasons of the year. 

 Though cotton weaving, no doubt, had never 

 been wholly or mainly a by-employment of 

 agriculture, that it was extensively connected 

 with it (so that some agricultural work might 

 have been regarded as a by-employment of 

 weaving) the descriptions of eye-witnesses 

 make plain. Thus RadcliiFe, writing of the 

 industrial conditions in 1770, says that the 



land in our township (Mellor) was occupied by be- 

 tween 50 and 60 farmers .... and out of these 

 50 or 60 farmers there were only 6 or 7 who raised 

 their rents directly from the produce of their farms ; 

 all the rest got their rent partly in some branch of 

 trade, such as spinning and weaving woollen, linen, or 

 cotton. The cottagers were employed entirely in 

 this manner, except for a few weeks in the harvest." 



Edwin Butterworth, a careful investigator, who, 

 however, was not born till 1812, in speaking of 

 the cotton linen fustian manufacture, asserted 

 that in the parish of Oldham were 



a number of master manufacturers, as well as many 

 weavers who worked for manufacturers, and at the 



same time were holders of land, or farmers 



The number of fustian farmers [he said] who were 

 cottagers working for manufacturers without holding 

 land, were few ; but there were a considerable 

 number of weavers who worked on their own account, 

 and held at the same time small pieces of land.'' 



Again, we may quote the following : — 



It appears that persons of this description (county 

 weavers) for many years past have been occupiers of 

 small farms of a few acres, which they have held at 

 high rents ; and, combining the business of a hand- 



*' HoUingsworth, Afa»f«»<V«/M (ed. 1839), 28. The 

 author died in 1656. 



" Radcliffe, op. cit. 59. 



" Butterworth, Hist, of Oldham, i o I . On this custom 

 see also French's Life ofCrompton, 4, 5, 9. 



