Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

involved in textile or paper sector (apart from tailors who are discussed separately
below), while the 1841 census gives a figure of 1% of adult males for this sector. 76
In the main weavers apparently operated as small family businesses with less than
four looms. Those with more looms do appear to be slightly better off. Sons (or
apprentices) could work the additional looms. However, to purchase an extra loom a
weaver needed more capital. James Poole of Dormston lived in a dwelling with four
rooms and a weaving shop in which he had ‘three loomes with gutrs and warping trough’,
but his farming assets were worth more than his household possessions and his weaving
gear together. 77
Although not well-off, in comparison with labourers the weavers
enjoyed some semblance of independence from the land-owning classes. For example,
James Poole’s son, John, a narrow-weaver, held baptist meetings at his house. 78
The weavers in the west (around Inkberrow) may have sold their cloth through
Worcester or Bromsgrove, while the cloth produced in the east (around Aston Cantlow)
was perhaps marketed via Coventry. 79
Coventry underwent a collapse in its textile trade
in the seventeenth century, and in the early eighteenth century Worcester’s trade declined
substantially too. 80
How this affected the rural artificers is difficult to ascertain. Perhaps
they found alternative markets and switched to making different types of cloth. One
Yorkshire clothier had local links, while one local weaver cum clothier perhaps acted as a
76 Table 6.6 shows that this sector declined further between 1813 and 1840. See Table 6.8 for the 1841
census.
77 WoRO, probate and miscellaneous probate (813/2570) of James Poole, weaver, Dormston, 1665, £39-10-
0. He had a stockpile of both wool and tow. Tow was used to make canvas, rope or sheets. It was quite
usual to combine weaving and agriculture, as exemplified by WoRO, probate of John Mordick, Oldberrow,
yeoman, 1669, £30-12-8. Mordick is referred to as yeoman, but had two weaving looms.
78 WoRO, BA2289/7, Dormston churchwardens’ presentments, 1674, concerning John Poole, narrowweaver.
79 Buchanan, ‘Studies in the localisation of seventeenth century Worcestershire industries’, 18, p. 35, states
that most of the county’s dyers and particularly the clothiers were based in the towns, especially Worcester.
80 The decline in Worcester’s textile trade after the 1720s is described in J. de L. Mann, The Cloth Industry
in the West of England, (Gloucester, Alan Sutton, 1987), pp. 42-3.
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