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folk, to buy wool, the growth of that county, by themselves 
or agents, and retail it out in open market. The reason as¬ 
signed is this: That almost, the whole number of poor in¬ 
habitants of the county of Norfolk and city of Norwich had 
been used to get their living by spinning of Norfolk wool, 
■which they used to purchase by eight-pennyworth or twelve- 
pennyworth at a time, selling the same again in yarn ; and 
because the grower chose not to parcel it in such small 
.quantities, therefore for the benefit of the poor, the wool of 
Norfolk was allowed to be purchased by wool-dealers. By 
this act, the 33d of Henry VIII., for prohibiting the exporta¬ 
tion of yarn, is made perpetual. The manufacture of wool¬ 
lens in the counties adjoining London appear to have been 
extensive, particularly in the county of Berkshire 5 for, in the 
beginning of the reign of Henry VIII,, John Winchcombe, of 
that county, commonly called Jack of Newbury, was cele¬ 
brated as the greatest clothier in England. He kept one 
hundred looms in his own house, and in the expedition 
against the Scotch, he sent to Flodden field one hundred men, 
fully equipped at his own expense. Even so early as the 
13th century, one Thomas Cole was distinguished by the 
name of the rich clothier of Reading, in Berkshire. 
York, then the second city in the kingdom, and from its 
connection with the port of Hull well situated for the export 
trade, was probably an early seat of the woollen manufacture. 
We have already mentioned the settlement of two clothiers 
from Brabant in the time of Edward III. We do not learn 
precisely in our early historians, when the manufactures ema¬ 
nated from that city into the western parts of the county ; 
but, from an act in the 34th of Henry VIII., we are informed, 
that the chief manufacture of that city was the making of co¬ 
verlets ; the act recites, " that the poor of that city were daily 
employed in spinning, carding,dyeing, weaving, &c., for the 
making of coverlets, and that the same have not been made 
elsewhere in the said county till of late; that this manufac¬ 
ture had spread itself into other parts of the county, and was 
thereby debased and discredited, and therefore it is enacted, 
that none shall make coverlets in Yorkshire but the people of 
York.” Thus we see, under the flimsy pretext of public be¬ 
nefit, the manufacturers were willing to disguise that selfish 
spirit of monopoly, which disgraces almost every page of our 
commercial history. The municipal regulations of the city 
of York, which were, and still continue to be, hostile to a 
free trade, probably obliged many manufacturers, who were 
not sharers in the monopolies of the guild, to establish them¬ 
selves in the western villages of the county, where provisions 
were - cheaper, and where they could carry on their trade 
without restriction. In the reign of Philip and Mary, soon 
after this period, we have the following interesting account 
of Halifax, in consequence of an act passed in the 37th of 
Henry VIII. to prevent any other persons than merchants 
of the staple and woollen manufacturers from buying wool in 
the county of Kent and twenty-seven shires. The poorer 
manufacturers, who were unable to lay in their stock of wool 
at one time, being hereby deprived of their trade, made ap¬ 
plication for redress, which was granted. The act recites as 
follows: “ Whereas the town of Halifax being planted in 
the great waste and moors, where the fertility of the ground 
is not apt to bring forth any corn nor good grass, but in rare 
places, and by exceeding and great industry of the inhabit¬ 
ants; and the same inhabitants altogether do live by cloth¬ 
making, and the greater part of them neither getteth corn, 
nor is able to keep a horse to carry wools, nor yet to buy 
much wool at once, but hath ever used to repair to the town 
of Halifax, and there to buy some two or three stone, ac¬ 
cording to their ability, and to carry the same to their houses, 
three, four, or five miles off, upon their heads and backs, 
and so to make and convert the same either into yarn or 
doth, and to sell the same, and so to buy more wool of the 
wool-driver; by means of which industry, the barren grounds 
in those parts be now much inhabited, and above five hun¬ 
dred households there newly increased within these forty 
years past, which now are like to be undone and driven to 
beggary by reason of the late statute (37th of Henry VIII.) 
0 L. 
that taketh away the wool-driver, so that they cannot now 
have their wool by such small portions as they were wont to 
have, and that also they are not able to keep any horses 
whereupon to ride or fetch their wools further from them in 
other places, unless some remedy may be provided. It was 
therefore enacted, that it should be lawful, to any person or 
persons inhabiting within the parish of Halifax, to buy any 
wool or wools at such time as the clothiers may buy the 
same, otherwise than by engrossing and forestalling, so that 
the persons buying the same do carry the said wools to the 
town of Halifax, and there to sell the same to such poor folks 
of that and other parishes adjoining, as shall work the same 
in cloth or yarn, to their knowledge, and not to the rich and 
wealthy clothier, or any other to sell again. Offending 
against this act to forfeit double the value of the wool so 
sold.” 
From this we learn that many woollen manufacturers had 
been either driven from York at an early period, by the op¬ 
pression of the municipal regulations, or had retired where 
provisions were cheaper, and where they had better streams 
for the erection of fulling-mills, and for other processes of 
the manufacture, such as dyeing and scouring. 
The woollen manufactures also gradually retired from the 
vicinity of the metropolis, owing to the increased price of 
provisions and labour, and probably also to the difficulty of 
obtaining commodious streams for the scouring and fulling 
of cloth, when the country round London became more po¬ 
pulous. In the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII., we 
are informed, that the king demised to William Webbe the 
subsidy and aulnage of all cloth made in the county of-Mon- 
mouth, and in the twelve shires of Wales. A former act of 
this reign, speaking of the manufacturers of North Wales, 
says, they had been used to to sell their cloths so craftily and 
hard rolled together, that the buyer could not perceive the 
untrue making thereof. These acts prove the extension of 
the woollen manufactures westward. 
In the same reign, an act mentions the woollen manufac¬ 
tures as being established in Worcestershire, but prohibits 
any one from making cloth in the county, except within the 
city of Worcester, and in the towns of Evesham, Droitwich, 
Kidderminster, and Bromsgrove; and forbids the owners of 
houses in those places from letting them at advanced prices 
to the cloth-manufacturers. The woollen manufacture has 
continued to the present day at the two last of these towns. 
In the reign of Edward VI., Coventry and Manchester are 
mentioned as manufacturing places. The manufacturers in 
the old established seats of the woollen trade appear to have 
been greatly alarmed at the extension of the cloth manufac¬ 
ture, and to have exerted all their influence to restrain it. 
Near the conclusion of the reign of Philip and Mary, an act 
in 53 sections was passed, relating to the making of woollen 
cloths. It enacts, that no person shall make woollen cloth but 
only in a market-town, where cloth hath commonly been used 
to be made for the space of ten years last past, or in a city, 
borough, or town corporate. From this restricting act, how. 
ever, the following exceptions are made: to all persons who 
dwell in North Wales or South Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire, 
Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, the bishopric 
of Durham, Cornwall, Suffolk, Kent, the town of Godalmin 
in Surrey, or in Yorkshire, being not within twelve miles of 
the city of York, or any towns or villages near the river 
Stroud in Gloucestershire. This act, so absurd and oppres¬ 
sive, was obliged to be modified in the first year of the fol¬ 
lowing reign, by an act entitled “ An Act for the continuing 
and making of Woollen Cloths in divers Towns in the 
County of Essex.” Bucking, Watherfold, Cockshill, and 
Dodham, are the towns specified. 
In consequence of the increase of our manufactures, the 
export of wool had nearly ceased before the reign of Eliza¬ 
beth; and a considerable advance appears to have taken 
place in the price of food, clothing, and rents. 
.The declension of our manufactures in the succeeding 
reigns of the Stuarts, as we have reason to believe, extended 
much more to woollen cloths than to worsted pieces. Long 
wool. 
