West Riding – Western Rhineprovince, 1790-1840: Diverse Paths to ...

West Riding – West of the Rhineland, 1780-1840 38
Alfred Reckendrees, University of Cologne reckendrees@wiso.uni-koeln.de
list is biased towards small firms (the manufacturing establishments counted in the 1851
census returns probably included employees of the domestic industry but the total number
of establishments (and workers) should than be higher than the number of the mills (establishments
that employ water or steam engines). However, it seems to be evident that the
small mill dominated in the West Riding cloth industry in the first half of the 19 th century.
In general, this applies to the Rhenish district, too.
The account of Jenkins (table 8, above), however biased towards larger establishments,
suggests that about 50% of the workforce of the West Riding was employed in mills with
more than 50 employees. Apart from Jenikin’s findings there are no other published data
that provide further information concerning the size range of the factories. The published
accounts of Jenkins & Ponting and Julia de Lacy Mann (table 10) only provide total figures
of mills and employees of the woollen cloth manufacture.
Table 10: Mills and employees of the English woollen cloth industry, 1835-1867
England
&Wales Yorkshire
mills employees, 1000 employes per mill
West of
England**
England
&Wales Yorkshire
West of
England**
England
&Wales Yorkshire
West of
England**
1835 995 406 205 47,8 23,6 12,6 48,0 58,1 61,5
1850 1306 880 147 64,4 40,6 11,1 49,3 46,1 75,5
1856 1282 806 115 69,1 43,0 10,0 53,9 53,3 87,0
1861 1456 924 107 76,3 50,5 10,1 52,4 54,7 94,4
1867 1420 818 116 105,1 62,3 12,1 74,0 76,2 104,3
Figures for England/Wales (1835, 1850) exclude a figure (~100?) for spinning and weaving mills in Lancashire
** Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucester. Totals for 1835 are not complete
The figures for Yorkshire are the figures for the West Riding.
Sources: Jenkins/Ponting, British Wool (1987), 80, Table 14: United Kingdom woollen industry; Mann, Cloth (1971), 220p.
However, regarding the figures of the average employment per mill it seems as if the cloth
factories in the west of the Rhineland (defined as establishments that use power machines
and work machines) were at least as large as the factories of the West Riding. This may be
concluded by the information on Aix-la-Chapelle concerning the year 1849 (table 11). For
this year there is the most comprehensive collection of data for one year; however, this are
the figures about which Haßlacher, the district administrator and chief of police, complained
so much (see above). Probably the employment and the number of looms are overestimated,
but I will take this figures for granted for my preliminary considerations.
According to the definition of the factory there were 19 cloth factories which employed
more than 8.200 working people (13% children); these mills had 27.440 spindels for woollen
yarn (either jennies or mules?) and about 1.150 of the working people were occupied
with spinning and wool preparation and the mills. 142 Spinning and finishing machinery was
operated by only one steam engine at 15 h.p. 143
142
Gewerbe-Tabelle der Fabrikations-Anstalten und Fabrik-Unternehmungen aller Art des Regierungs-
Bezirks Aachen für das Jahr 1849, in: DSTA BR 2116-48, F.319pp.
143
Nachweisung derjenigen Fabrikationszweige, welche zusammen eine Anstalt bilden, in der Gewerbe-
Tabelle der Fabrikations-Anstalten pp. des Regierungs-Bezirks für das Jahr 1849/50 aber in verschiedenen
Kolumnen vertheilt sind. DSTA BR 2116-49, F. 80pp.