INDUSTRIES 



loom weaver with that of a working farmer, have 

 assisted to raise the rent of their land from the profits 

 of their loom.^* 



It was the improvements in machinery, by com- 

 plicating it and allowing of the production of 

 finer goods, which forced the weavers into in- 

 creasing specialism, and slowly destroyed the 

 direct connexion between agriculture and the 

 cotton textile industry. Moreover specialism 

 accentuated the economies of production in 

 towns, where the parts of the industry dependent 

 upon one another could be conducted side by 

 side, where mechanics could be had for the 

 building and repair of appliances, and where 

 there was a market. Spinning in the primitive 

 industry was the occupation of women and 

 children. 



The most prominent functionary under' do- 

 mestic industrial arrangements, and a pivot of 

 the system, was the Manchester merchant. He 

 warehoused goods received from the weavers, and 

 distributed them for export or consumption in 

 the country. Until the vile English roads were 

 repaired at the end of the eighteenth century the 

 goods were marketed with the aid of strings of 

 pack-horses, and were largely disposed of through 

 the medium of fairs. Export appears at first to 

 have been chiefly in the hands of London houses,*^ 

 but as the Manchester merchants grew in wealth 

 and enterprise they went abroad to arrange for 

 foreign sales, or maintained agents or partners 

 abroad. It is not astonishing that in proportion 

 as they succeeded, their business as shippers was 

 taken from them by foreign rivals who set them- 

 selves up in Manchester and directed the export 

 to the lands from which they had severally 

 emigrated. The foreign house was naturally 

 better acquainted with foreign demand, and was 

 more likely to learn promptly of the changes in 

 foreign taste to be provided for. So great was 

 the number of these foreign merchants in Man- 

 chester at the beginning of the nineteenth century 

 that their presence caused marked jealousy, inter- 

 mingled with not a little alarm, which excited 

 some protest.^* 



The other relationship of the merchant to be 

 explained is that to the weavers. From some of 

 these he simply bought cloth, the weavers having 

 provided themselves with warps and cotton. To 

 others he gave out warps and cotton, paying 

 merely for workmanship. At first the weavers 

 prepared the warp for the loom by the system of 



" Reports, &c. 1826-7, v, S- Statements of the 

 existence of this state of affairs can be found in other 

 parliamentary papers, e.g., Gardner's evidence given 

 before the Committee on Hand-loom Weavers 

 in 1835. 



*' See Lewes Roberts, The Treasure of Traffike, 

 (original ed. 1641), 32-3 ; also Stukeley, Itinerarium 

 Curiosum (1724), 55 ; and Odgen, op. cit. 79. 



^ See e.g. the writings of RadclifFe and the demand 

 for an export tax on cotton yarn. 



383 



peg-warping which is illustrated in one of the 

 plates to Guest's History of the Cotton Manufacture, 

 but after the invention of the warping-mill the 

 merchants as a rule gave out warps ready prepared 

 for insertion in the looms.*' As the weavers were 

 scattered throughout the county many Manches- 

 ter merchants put out their work through local 

 agents. There were also local piece-masters, or 

 fiistian-masters, who were independent men of 

 business and not merely agents for Manchester 

 houses, and at some places, such as Bolton, Black- 

 burn, and Stockport, local markets existed both 

 for the provision of the material needed in manu- 

 facture and for the disposal of goods. The 

 merchants bought in the grey and arranged for 

 the colouring and finishing of the goods according 

 to the requirements of their customers. 



The greatest event in the whole history of 

 Lancashire industrialism was the striking series 

 of ingenious mechanical inventions which, in 

 conjunction with the application of steam as 

 motive power, constituted what is commonly 

 known as the Industrial Revolution. The 

 industrial revolution, however, must be regarded 

 in part also as the culmination of a long- working 

 reaction against the social and political ideas 

 crystallized in the laws, regulations and customs 

 with which earlier industrialism had been at first 

 disciplined and then cramped. Among the 

 contrivances which complicated the simple loom 

 we must mention first the ' draw-boy ' or ' draught- 

 boy' for raising warps in groups and thereby 

 enabling figured goods to be produced. In 1687 

 a Joseph Mason patented an invention for avoid- 

 ing the expense of an assistant to work it,** but 

 there is no evidence to show that the invention 

 was of practical value. Later, looms with ' draw- 

 boys ' affixed, which could sometimes be worked 

 by the weavers themselves, became common and 

 were known as harness-looms. They have since 

 been supplanted by Jacquard looms. Of quite 

 another order, as regards the magnitude of its 

 influence on economic conditions, was John 

 Kay's epoch-making invention in 1738 of the 

 fly-shuttle — a remarkably simple device — the 

 general application of which to the cotton 

 industry appears to have been retarded for some 

 unknown reason for nearly a quarter of a century.*' 

 The fly-shuttle was succeeded by the drop-box 

 in 1760, which enabled different coloured wefts 

 to be rapidly interchanged. The idea of the 

 drop-box originated with John Kay's son Robert. 

 There were also other and earlier inventions than 

 the fly-shuttle and drop-box for adding to the 

 productivity, or range of work, of the loom. A 

 self-actor weaving machine adapted for working 



" The reasons for the Manchester merchants assum- 

 ing the task are explained in Chapman's Lane. Cotton 

 Industry, 15—16. 



''Specification 257. 



^ The statement is made by Guest on the evidence 

 of a manuscript lent him by Robert Kay's son Samuel. 



