Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

prospered well enough to own three freehold houses. 67
In Period D brickmakers were
more numerous in the records than in earlier periods; at least one still combined
brickmaking with building. 68
The 1841 census shows the important role of young adult
males in the building and brickmaking trades. 69
Textiles, clothing and paper
Knitting had been an important source of employment for Alcestrians before the
Civil War. 70
It is uncertain what exactly had been knitted, but probably the knitters
produced items such as stockings either by hand or using a primitive framework-knitting
machine. How many townsfolk had been employed in this way is not clear, but it was
obviously a significant enough number to merit concern by the overseers of the poor,
who regretted the collapse of the trade. Perhaps, as noted in other areas, ‘cloth
production created a peculiar and proletarianised social order’ reflected in ‘higher levels
of poverty than surrounding, non-industrial settlements’. 71
Maybe the retreat of the
knitting industry from Alcester heralded more geographical specialisation in
manufacturing, as the east midlands, Worcester and Tewkesbury were able to stifle
Alcester’s competition.
The most important industry in Stuart England ‘was the woollen textile
industry’. 72
What part did Alcester play in this vital trade? Despite the disappearance of
67 WoRO, probate of Joseph Ankers, Alcester, brickmaker, 1775. WaRO, Alcester apprenticeship
indentures, DR360/79/72 shows that William Hiam was apprenticed to his own father to learn brickmaking
in 1789. WaRO, QS76/3, 1799 jurors’ list includes William Anker, brickmaker. No brickmakers appear in
UBD1792.
68 See the discussion of masons in other zones who were both quarrymen and builders.
69 Table 4.8 (1841 census) shows 6.7% of adult males and 7.3% of males under 20 in either the building or
extractive industries. As expected, no women were listed in these sectors.
70 VCH Warwickshire, iii, p. 13.
71 French, ‘Urban agriculture, commons and commoners’, p. 180.
72 Clarkson, ‘The leather crafts in Tudor and Stuart England’, p. 25.
88