working life of women seventeenth century - School of Economics ...

TEXTILESchildren were said to be employed in the clothingtrade in Tiverton alone.' While giving 933,966 handsas the number properly employed in woollen manufacture,another writer says that women and children(girls and boys) were employed in the proportion ofabout eight to one man.'Such figures must be taken with reserve, for theproportions of men and women employed variedaccording to the quality of the stuff woven, andpamphleteers of the seventeenth century handledfigures with little regard to scientific accuracy.' Butthe uncertainty only refers to the exact proportion ;there can be no doubt that the Woollen Trade dependedchiefly upon women and children for its labour supply.For the student of social organization it is noteworthythat in the two textile trades through whichcapitalism made in England its most striking advances-the woollen trade, and in later years, the cottontrade, the labour of women predominated,-a factwhich suggests obscure actions and reactions betweencapitalism and the economic position of women, worthyof more careful investigation than they have as yetreceived.The woollen trade passed through a period of rapidprogress and development in the sixteenth century. Itwas then that the Clothiers of Wiltshire and Somersetacquired wealth and fame, building as a memorialfor posterity the Tudor houses and churches which' Dunsford. Hist. Tiverton, p. 408.Short Essay upon Trade, p. 18, 1741.' The following estimates were made by different writers : out of 1187 penonssupposed to be employed for one week in making up 1200 Ibs weight of wool, gmare given as spinners. (Wearers True Case, p. 42, 1714.)One pack of short wool finds employment for 63 persons for one week, viz : 28 menand boys : 35 women and girls who are only expected to do the carding and spinning.A similar pack made into stockings would protide work for 82 men and 102 spinnersand if made up for the Spanish trade, a pack of wool would employ 52 men and 250women.(Haynes (John) Great Britain's Glory, p. 6, p. 8. 1715.)TEXTILESstill adorn these counties. Leland, writing of a typicalclothier and his successful enterprises and ambitions,describes at Malmesbury, Wiltshire " a litle chirchjoining to the South side of the Trans~ptum of thabbychirch,. . . Wevers hath now lomes in this litlechirch, but it stondith . . . the hole loggingesof thabbay be now longging to one Stumpe, an excedingriche clothiar that boute them of the king. ThisStumpes sunne hath maried Sir Edward Baynton7sdoughter. This Stumpe was the chef causer andcontributer to have thabbay chirch made a parochchirch. At this present tyme every corner of the vasrehouses of office that belongid to thabbay be fulleof lumbes to weve clooth yn, and this S tumpe entendithto make a stret or 2 for clothier in the bak vacantground of the abbay that is withyn the toune waulles."'There must have been a marked tendency at this timeto bring the wage-earners of the woollen industryunder factory control, for a description which is givenof John Winchcombe's household says that" Within one room being large and longThere stood two hundred Looms full strong,Two hundred men the truth is soWrought in these looms all in a row,By evry one a pretty boySate maklng quills with mickle joy.And in another place hard by,An hundred women merrily,Were carding hard w~th joyf~ll cheerWho singing sate with voices clear.And in a chamher close beside,Two hundred madens d~d ab~de,In petticoats of Stammell red,And m~lk-white kerchers on their head." aThese experiments were discontinued, partly becausethey were discountenanced by the Government, whichconsidered the factory system rendered the wage-earnerstoo dependent on the clothiers ; and also becausethe collection of large numbers of workpeople under one' Leland (John) Itinerary, 1535-1543 ; Part 11, pp. 131-2.%lpson, Econ. IZist. of England, p. 420.