Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 341 



given. It is a pity that most of the names mentioned in these appendices, 

 as well as many of those in the body of the work, do not appear in the 

 index, which might have been fuller with advantage. 



The early and medieval history of the place is only touched upon in 

 the lightest way, but at the twenty-fifth page the author arrives at the 

 year 1666, when George Carey, cloth worker, appears in the parish with 

 his token, and the book really begins at this point. The Carey family 

 remained in the parish for two hundred years as clothiers and maltsters. 

 With the beginning of the eighteenth century several other clothiers, who 

 were evidently men of substance, are found to be established there. In 

 1691 the population is estimated by the author at 700, in 1701 at 500 f 

 in 1731 at 700, and in 1760 at 1300, The interesting fact is noted from 

 the Longleat Survey Book of 1745 that at all events up to 1732 rents 

 were partly paid in kind or in service, a day's work with plough often 

 forming part of the specified rent. 



The parish registers for the eighteenth century are carefully analysed, 

 and the rise and fall of the death and birth rates for the different periods 

 are given, and explanations are suggested for their variations. In 1741 

 the whole of Corsley Heath was enclosed and allotted to twenty-seven 

 persons who had common rights. After 1730 the cloth trade increased 

 very rapidly, as is seen by the number of persons connected with it to 

 whom leases were granted, and with this increase of the manufacturing 

 population a number of other tradesmen to supply their wants appear. 



The overseers' accounts from 1729 to 1740 show that from £160 to 

 £200 was annually expended in poor relief though the condition of the 

 parish then seems to have been very prosperous, the pensions given by 

 the overseers varying from 1*. to 12.?. a month. The population, estimated 

 at 1300 in 1760, grew rapidly with the prosperity of the cloth industry 

 until about 1830, and at the fitst census in 1831 numbered 1729. It was 

 probably even larger just before this date. All stages of the cloth manu- 

 facture were carried on in the parish, including preparing, spinning, 

 dying, weaving, shearing, and finishing. " Some of the weaving was 

 done in weaving factories where several looms would be kept at work 

 . . . . but the greater part of the yarn was woven by independent 

 workers at their own homes. The loom was fatted up in a long weaving 

 shed at the back of the house, or else in the dwelling itself .... 

 probably few houses, from that of the yeoman farmer down to the 

 labourer's cottage, were at this time without a loom." In the first 

 quarter of the nineteenth century, when agricultural wages 'were about 

 8s. a week, workers in the clothing factories at Corsley could earn from 

 13*. to 30.5. a week. At this period " three-fourths of the population were 

 dependent upon manufactures and trades, and one-fourth on agriculture." 

 In 1783 the whole parish was enclosed and divided up, and this rendering 

 improved methods of agriculture possible, the parish became almost 

 wholly arable, and few cows were kept after the enclosure. 



Coming to religious matters the Wesleyans had established themselves 

 in the parish in 1769, the Baptists in 1777, and the Congregationalists in 

 1771. In 1830 the Parish Church, which, judging from the sketch here 



