Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

apparent. 119
If they were added to the male-only figures in the tables above, the clothing
trade would feature more prominently in the data.
The female lace-maker (not born in the county), the male silk-twister (born in
Coventry) and the male stocking-weaver (born in Tewkesbury) are isolated examples of
specialist trades from other parts. However, continued links with their places of birth are
implied, either to source raw materials or to market their finished products. 120
Leather, horn and tallow
Clarkson stresses the importance of the leather industry in Stuart England.
‘Contemporaries usually took the leather industry for granted…’, but it was ‘second or
third only to the manufacture of woollen cloth as an industrial occupation.’ 121
The
leather trade was found in the countryside, but was even more concentrated on market
towns, where the raw products were available from the butchers. 122
The triangle between
Bristol, Oxford and the Mersey was particularly significant for leather production and
there was a certain symbiosis between the leather and metal trades. Bark used in tanning
was a by-product of the felling of timber for iron-working, and the harness industry of
Walsall and Birmingham ‘created a joint demand for leather and metal goods’. 123 Since
Alcester is a market town within this pastoral triangle and near to the midland hardware
district, it is not surprising that references to leatherworkers are abundant in Alcester in
Stuart times. The processing of leather played a significant role in the town’s economy.
119 The 1851 census lists a female mop-maker. It is not known what material was used for the head of the
mop.
120 The lace-maker in the 1841 census, the others in 1851.
121 Clarkson, ‘The leather crafts in Tudor and Stuart England’, p. 25. The building trade was its rival for
second or third place.
122 Clarkson, ibid., p. 26.
123 Clarkson, ibid., pp. 27, 29 and 30.
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