Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

extensive network, linking local consumers and artisans with the supra-regional and
international trade. 89
Although no weaver appears in probate in Period C or in the 1792 directory, the
odd weaver appears in other records. Three members of the Clarson family advertise in
1792; two were hosiers and one a dyer. They were men of capital and status, sometimes
referred to as gentry, and it is likely that they employed several people in their
businesses. 90
Maybe some work was put out to workers in local villages, but, if the
Clarsons’ employees were in Alcester, they go unmentioned in the records. The poor in
the workhouse were employed in carding and spinning in a small, unprofitable way,
while the 1792 directory lists one wool-carder. 91
By Period D weavers as such seem to have now almost vanished from the town’s
records. 92
However, in 1835 Thomas Hooper advertised as a worsted manufacturer, and
various sources indicate the continued presence of a handful of male textile workers such
as a wool-stapler cum skinner and a spinner. 93
But the town’s textile industry was not
what it was in earlier times.
Before 1800 the textile trade was well supported by womenfolk spinning yarn
(both flaxen and woollen), as is evident from probate inventories. Occasionally,
references to women spinning are more specific: in 1694 Ann Lowder was apprenticed
89 Edward Morgan, dyer, mercer and gent, is mentioned in many property deeds: WaRO, CR1886/BL/1873,
417/50 and 417/A/150/1 and SCLA, ER3/4132, 4150.
90 UBD 1792. Thomas and Robert Clarson are the only persons involved in textile manufacture who appear
in the jurors’ lists for Alcester from 1772-1799. (WaRO, QS76/3).
91 Rogers, The State of the Poor, p. 325. UBD 1792 lists Philip Hooper, wool-carder. According to WoRO,
probate of Philip Hooper, Alcester, woolcomber, 1799, he owned property in the town. Local records do
not explain to what extent flax, hemp, wool and the yarn made from them were used by families to make
their own clothes (as remained usual in the north of England in the late eighteenth century) or were
supplied to dealers or clothiers for money. See J. Styles, The Dress of the People, (London, Yale
University Press, 2007), p. 149.
92 Only one weaver appears in this period (WaRO, Alcester baptisms 1837, John Hill).
93 WaRO, Alcester baptisms 1837 for Richard Pritchard, spinner.
92