Our Legal Heritage Part 114

The people displaced by enclosure became laborers dependent on wages or paupers. Their discontent was expressed in this poem:

"They hang the man and flog the woman That steals a goose from off the common But leave the greater criminal loose That steals the common from the goose."

Eventually there was some relief given to the poor workers. By statute of 1773, wastes, commons, and fields having several owners with different interests might by three-quarters vote in number and in value of the occupiers cultivate such for up to six years. However, cottagers and those with certain sheep walks, or cattle pasture, could not be excluded from their rights of common. By statute of 1776, the Elizabethan statute restricting locations where cottages could be erected and their inhabitants was repealed because the industrious poor were under great difficulties to procure habitations.

Land could be rented out at ten times the original value. Land was typically rented out for 7, 14, or 21 years. Great fortunes were made by large landowners who built grand country estates. The manufacturers and merchants made much money, but agriculture was still the basis of the national wealth. As the population grew, the number of people in the manufacturing cla.s.ses was almost that of the agriculturalists, but they had at least twice the income of the agriculturalists.

The greatest industry after agriculture was cloth. Most of this activity took places in the homes, but families could earn more if each family member was willing to exchange the informality of domestic work for the long hours and harsh discipline of the factory or workshop. More wool was made into cloth in the country. Dyed and finished wool cloth and less raw wool and unfinished broadcloth, was exported. Bleaching was done by protracted was.h.i.+ng and open-air drying in "bleach fields". There were great advances in the technology of making cloth.

Thomas Lombe, the son of a weaver, became a mercer and merchant in London. He went to Italy to discover their secret in manufacturing silk so inexpensively. He not only found his way in to see their silk machines, but made some drawings and sent them to England hidden in pieces of silk. He got a patent in 1718 and he and his brother set up a mill using water power to twist together the silk fibers from the coc.o.o.ns into thread in 1719. His factory was five hundred feet long and about five stories high. One water wheel worked the vast number of parts on the machines. The machines inside were very tall, cylindrical in shape, and rotated on vertical axes. Several rows of bobbins, set on the circ.u.mference, received the threads, and by a rapid rotary movement gave them the necessary twist. At the top the thrown silk was automatically wound on a winder, all ready to be made into hanks [coils] for sale. The workman's chief task was to reknot the threads whenever they broke. Each man was in charge of sixty threads. There were three hundred workmen.

Lombe made a fortune of 120,000 pounds and was knighted and made an alderman of London. After his patent expired in 1732, his mill became the prototype for later cotton and wool spinning mills in the later 1700s. There were many woolen manufacture towns. Clothiers might employ up to three thousand workers. At these, the spinning was done by unskilled labor, especially women and children in villages and towns.

Weaving, wool combing, and carding were skilled occupations.

In 1733, clockmaker and weaver John Kay invented a flying shuttle for weaving. It was fitted with small wheels and set in a kind of wooden groove. On either side there were two wooden hammers hung on horizontal rods to give the shuttle and to and fro action. The two hammers were bound together by two strings attached to a single handle, so that with one hand the shuttle could be driven either way. With a sharp tap by the weaver, first one and then the other hammer moved on its rod. It hit the shuttle, which slid along its groove. At the end of each rod there was a spring to stop the hammer and replace it in position. The flying shuttle doubled the weavers' output. Now the broadest cloth could be woven by one man instead of two. This shuttle was used in a machine for cotton.

But the manufacturers who used the flying shuttle combined together and refused to pay royalties to Kay, who was ruined by legal expenses. Now the price of thread rose because of increased demand for it. The weavers, who had to pay the spinners, then found it hard to make a living. But the process of spinning was soon to catch up.

In 1738, John Wyatt, a s.h.i.+p's carpenter who also invented the harpoon shot from a gun, patented a spinning machine whereby carded wool or cotton was joined together to make a long and narrow ma.s.s. One end of this ma.s.s was drawn in between a pair of rotating rollers, of which one surface was smooth and the other rough, indented, or covered with leather, cloth, s.h.a.gg, hair, brushes, or points of metal. From here, the ma.s.s went between another set of rollers, which were moving faster than the first pair. This stretched the ma.s.s and drew it into any degree of fineness of thread by adjusting the speed of the second pair of rollers.

Then the thread went by a flier, which twisted it. After this the thread was wound off onto spindles or bobbins, whose rotation was regulated by the faster pair of rollers. Or the ma.s.s could be drawn by rotating spindles directly from one pair of rollers. This machine was worked by two donkeys and was tended by ten female workers. Because of bankruptcy in 1742, the invention was sold to Edward Cave, the editor of "Gentleman's Magazine". He set up a workshop with five machines, each fitted with fifty spindles and worked by water wheels. Carding was done by cylindrical carding machines invented by Lewis Paul.

In 1764, the plant was bought by carpenter and weaver James Hargreaves.

He was watching his wife spin when the spinning wheel tipped over onto its side. It continued to revolve, while the thread, held between two fingers, seemed to be spinning itself, even though the spindle was in a vertical instead of a horizontal position. It occurred to him that a large number of vertical spindles arranged side by side could be turned by the same wheel and that, therefore, many threads could be spun at once. He named his machine the "the Jenny" after his wife. This "spinning Jenny" could spin a hundred threads at a time. He patented it about 1770. The machine consisted of a rectangular frame on four legs.

At one end was a row of vertical spindles. Across the frame were two parallel wooden rails, lying close together, which were mounted on a sort of carriage and slid backwards and forwards as desired. The cotton, which had been previously carded, stretched, and twisted pa.s.sed between the two rails and then was wound on spindles. With one hand the spinner worked the carriage backwards and forwards, and with the other he turned the handle which worked the spindles. In this way, the thread was drawn and twisted at the same time. The jenny did the work of about 30 spinning wheels. No longer did it take ten spinners to keep one weaver busy. But manufacturers refused to pay him royalties for his invention.

He was offered 3,000 pounds for his rights in the jenny, but refused it.

The courts held that the model of his jenny had been used in industry before it was patented and any rights he may have had were declared to have lapsed. Nevertheless, he made over 4,000 pounds. The spinning jenny was used in many homes.

Richard Arkwright came from a poor family and was taught to read by an uncle. He became a barber and made wigs. He taught himself crafts necessary to invent and patent in 1769 a spinning frame worked by a water wheel, which he called a" water frame". He strengthened cotton thread by adding rollers to the spinning process which were able to strengthen the cotton thread and make it of even thickness so that it could be used instead of costly linen as the warp. With capital from two rich hosiers, he set up a workshop next to a swift and powerful river running down a narrow gorge. Then he turned his attention to weaving this thread with multiple spinning wheels in the first practical cotton mill factory. In 1773, he set up weaving workshops making pure cotton calicoes which were as good as Indian calicoes. This was the first all-cotton cloth made in England. He had confronted and solved the problem of a statute of 1721 which proscribed wearing or using printed, painted, stained or dyed calicoes e.g. in apparel, bed, chair, cus.h.i.+on, window curtain, and furniture, except those dyed all in blue, or else forfeit 20 pounds by a seller, 5 pounds by a wearer, and 20 pounds by other users. The purpose was to provide wool-working jobs to the poor, whose numbers had been increasing excessively because of lack of work.

Arkwright argued that the statute should not include printed or painted cloth made in Great Britain in its ancient tradition of fustians with an all linen warp for strength and a cotton weft for fineness. This statute was so "clarified" in 1735. When wool-weavers had expressed their opposition to imported printed cottons and calicoes by tearing them off people, a statute of 1720 provided that any one who willfully and maliciously a.s.saulted a person in the public streets or highways with an intent to tear, spoil, cut, burn, or deface the garments or clothes of such person and carried this out was guilty of felony punishable by transportation for seven years. The prohibition against the manufacture and wearing and using of pure cotton fabrics came to an end in 1774 on arguments of Arkwright made to Parliament that his pure cottons would bleach, print, wash and wear better than fustians.

In 1775, Arkwright added machines to do work prefatory to spinning. Raw cotton was first fed by a sloping hose to a feeder that was perpetually revolving. From here it went a carding machine of three rollers of different diameters covered with bent metal teeth. The first, with teeth bent in the direction of its revolution, caught up the cotton fibers.

The second, revolving in the same direction but much faster, carded the fibers into the requisite fineness by contact with the third, whose teeth and motion were in the opposite direction. Next, a crank and comb detached the carded cotton so that it came off as a continuous ribbon.

Then the ribbon went into a revolving cone, which twisted it on itself.

Eventually Arkwright became rich from his creation of the modern factory, which was widely copied. He established discipline in his mills and he made his presence felt everywhere there, watching his men and obtaining from them the steadiest and most careful work. He provided housing and services to attract workers.

After cotton, the inventions of the spinning jenny and the water- powered frame were applied to wool. Silk and cotton manufacture led the way in using new machinery because they were recently imported industries so not bound down by tradition and legal restraint. Yarn production so improved that weavers became very prosperous. Cards with metal teeth challenged the use of wood and horn cards with thistles on them in carding wool. Merchants who traveled all over the world and saw new selling opportunities, and therefore kept encouraging the manufacturers to increase their production and improve their methods.

Factory owners united to present suggestions to Parliament.

Manufacturing broke loose from traditional confines in several ways. To avoid the monopolistic confines of chartered towns, many entrepreneurs set up new industries in Birmingham or Manchester, which grew enormously. Manchester had no munic.i.p.al corporation and was still under the jurisdiction of a manor court. It sent no representative to the House of Commons. All over the country the Justices of the Peace had largely ceased regulating wages, especially in the newer industries such as cotton, where apprentices.h.i.+p was optional. Apprentices.h.i.+p lapsed in many industries, excepting the older crafts. Several legal decisions had declared seven years practice of a trade as good as an apprentices.h.i.+p.

Apprentices still lived in their masters' houses and were still treated as family members. The regulations of the Cutlers' Company remained in force as its masters used their great manual skill to make cutlery in their own homes with the help of their children and apprentices. Trades in some towns which had guild regulations that had the force of law hung on to their customs with difficulty.

Although there were few large factories in the country under effective management of a capitalist, trade unionism was beginning as two distinct cla.s.ses of men were being formed in factories. The factory owner was so high above his workmen that he found himself on the same level as other capitalists, the banker, who gave him credit, and the merchant, who gave him customers. Journeymen in factories could no longer aspire to become masters of their trade and no longer socialized with their employers.

Hard and fast rules replaced the freedom of the small workshops. Each worker had his allotted place and his strictly defined and invariable duty. Everyone had to work, steadily and without stopping, under the vigilant eye of a foreman who secured obedience by means of fines, physical means, or dismissals. Work started, meals were eaten, and work stopped at fixed hours, signaled by the ringing of a bell. Factory hours were typically fourteen hours or more. Organized resistance, as usual, began not with those most ill-treated, but with those men who had some bargaining power through their skills.

Wool-combers, who worked next to a charcoal stove where they heated the teeth of the comb, were the most skilled of the cloth industry were hard to replace. Since they were nomadic, they quickly organized nation-wide.

They agreed that if any employer hired a comber not in their organization, none of them would work for him. They also would beat up and destroy the comb-pot of the outsider. In 1720 and 1749, the Tiverton wool-combers objected to the import of combed wool from Ireland by burning Irish wool in clothiers' stores and attacking several houses.

They had strike funds and went on strike in 1749. Their b.l.o.o.d.y brawls caused the military to intervene. Then many of them left town in a body, harming the local industry. The earnings of wool-combers was high, reaching from 10s. to 12s. a week in 1770, the highest rate of a weaver.

In 1716, the Colchester weavers accused their employers of taking on too many apprentices. When the weavers organized and sought to regulate the weaving trade, a statute was pa.s.sed in 1725 making their combinations void. Strike offenses such as housebreaking and destruction of goods or personal threats had penalties of transportation for seven years. Still in 1728, the Gloucester weavers protested against men being employed who had not served their apprentices.h.i.+p.

When the journeymen tailors in and around London organized a union, a statute made their agreements entering into combinations to advance their wages to unreasonable prices and to lessen their usual hours of work, illegal and void, because this had encouraged idleness and increased the number of poor. Tailors' wages were not to exceed 2s. per day and their hours of work were to be 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the next three months, and 1s.8d. per day for the rest of the year. A master tailor paying more would forfeit 5 pounds. A journeyman receiving more was sent to the House of Correction for 2 months. Justices of the Peace could still alter these wages and hours depending on local scarcity or plenty. Despite this statute, the journeymen tailors complained to Parliament of their low wages and lack of work due to their masters calling them to work only about half the year. There was much seasonal fluctuation in their trade as there was in all trades. The slack period for the tailors was the winter, when the people of fas.h.i.+on retired to their country estates. After their complaint, their wages then rose from 1s.10d. per day in 1720, to 1s.8d.- 2s. in 1721, to 2s.- 2s.6d. in 1751, to 2s.2d.- 2s.6d. in 1763, to up to 2s.7 1/2 d. in 1767, and to 3s. in 1775. Foremen were excluded from wage control. When they complained of their long hours, which were two hours longer than the 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

of most handicraft trades, their hours were reduced in 1767 by one hour to 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and their pay was set at 6d. per hour for overtime work at night during periods of general mourning, e.g. mourning for a deceased courtier. Their work hours were lowered another hour to 6 a.m.

to 6 p.m. in 1768.

The stocking frame-knitters guild, which had been chartered in 1663, went on strike to protest the use of workhouse children as an abuse of apprentices.h.i.+p which lowered their wages. They broke many of their frames, which belonged to their employers, to limit their number.

In 1749, combinations to advance wages, decrease hours of work, or regulate prices were declared void for journeymen dyers, journeyman hot pressers, all wool workers, brickmakers and tilemakers, journeymen servants, workmen, laborers, felt and hat makers, and silk, linen, cotton, iron, leather, and fur workers in and around London. The penalty was prison or hard labor at a House of Correction for three months without bail. In 1756, Justices of the Peace were to determine the rates of wages of wool workers according to numbers of yards. But this was repealed the next year to prevent combinations of workers. Wage agreements between clothiers and weavers were declared binding.

Clothiers not paying wages within two days of delivery of work forfeited 40s.

In 1763 the silk weavers in east London drew up a scale of wages, and upon its being rejected, 2000 of them broke their tools, destroyed the materials, and left their workshops. A battalion of guards had to take possession of the area. In 1765, the silk weavers marched on Westminster to stop the import of French silks. In 1768, the weavers rebelled against a 4d. per yard reduction in their wages, filling the streets in riotous crowds and pillaging houses. After the garrison of the Tower came, the workmen resisted with cudgels and cutla.s.ses, resulting in deaths and woundings. The throwsters [those who pulled the silk fibers from the coc.o.o.ns of the silk worms and twisted them together to make a thread] and the handkerchief weavers also became discontent. A battle between soldiers and silk weavers at their meeting place resulted in several men on both sides being killed. In 1773, wages and prices for the work of journeymen silk weavers in and around London were designated to be regulated by the Mayor and Justices of the Peace. Foremen were excluded. No silk weaver could have more than two apprentices or else forfeit 20 pounds. Journeymen weavers entering into combinations forfeited 40s. This statute satisfied the weavers, but they formed a union to ensure that it was followed.