Spitalfields (Part IV)
From: "The Copartnership Herald", Vol. I, no. 13 (March 1932)
Among the picturesque features which
remain in the neighbourhood and remind the passer-by of
its days of prosperity is, notably, that of the beautiful
shop front - a grocer's - of 56 Artillery Lane. As there
are few frontages of the kind left to be seen in London,
it is hoped that this attractive specimen will be long
preserved. The large house to which it belongs contains
much of architectural beauty, and it suggests that the
original occupant must have been a cultured merchant.
Besides, there is Elder Street, full of tall,
staid-looking houses with distinguished doorways showing
variety and charm of design. This street has an air of
detachment, not to say aloofness, as though it did not
desire the acquaintance of the market which has
contributed to the disfigurement of Spital Square. All
that is left of the latter place presents a melancholy
sight, yet it can still be proud of the fine house in
which for a while lived Henry St. John, Viscount
Bolingbroke, a famous figure in the political world of
his day, whose writings, once freely quoted, are
well-nigh forgotten. His name will always be associated
with that of Alexander Pope, of whom he was friend and
patron.
It was in another house in the Square which, by
the way, had never the shape of one, that Thomas
Stothard, R.A., whose mother lived on Stepney Green,
served his seven years' apprenticeship as a designer of
silk fabrics. He became a profuse illustrator of many
popular books such as Robinson Crusoe and The
Pilgrim's Progress, and his pictures are known to
many who do not know the artist's name, though it
appeared often enough below the steel engravings in
publications issued in the early nineteenth century. He
exhibited numerous pictures at the Royal Academy, of
which institution he became librarian. Of all his
pictures, his "Canterbury Pilgrims" is perhaps
the best known.
When Spitalfields became a parish (in 1729), nearly a
half-century had passed since the coming of the
Huguenots, and in the meantime not only had the aspect of
the neighbourhood been altered in its appearance, but the
inhabitants themselves had undergone a marked change. Of
the refugees a few remained, and they were mostly
represented by adults who as young children had
accompanied their parents from France. The descendants of
the old people formed the majority of the population, and
those of the artisan class particularly were fast losing
the characteristics of their foreign origin, except an
excitability which may be taken into account when
considering their subsequent excesses against law and
order.
The manufacture of silk was esteemed, and rightly so,
to be of national importance. It was the solitary
industry of the Metropolis, and the centre of it and of
the trade generally was Spitalfields. From the earliest
days, Parliament was constantly agitated by proposals to
assist it against the danger of foreign competition. In
order to encourage it, high protective duties were
imposed not only against the goods from France but also
those from India. From the latter, the East India Company
not only imported beautiful silks but printed calicoes
which became fashionable.
"Our Ladies all were set
a-gadding;
After these Toys they ran a-madding.
And like gay Peacocks proudly strut it,
When in our Streets they foot it."
Weavers attacked in the open street wearers of cotton
stuffs - the "Calico Madams" - even tearing the
clothes off their backs. In petitions to Parliament the
calicoes were denounced "as a worthless, scandalous,
unprofitable sort of goods embraced by a luxuriant humour
among the women, prompted by the art and fraud of the
drapers and the East India Company to whom alone they are
profitable." In 1721, to encourage the woollen and
silk industry, Parliament passed what is known as the
Calico Act which prohibited the use and wear of all such
printed stuffs. (This Act was repealed in 1774.) The
protection from importation of fabrics from the East,
except silk and velvet from India, and crepe and tiffany
from Italy, gave rise to much turmoil among the woollen
weavers who exported their goods in exchange. It also
caused dissensions among the other branches of commerce
whose vested interests were at variance with those of the
weavers.
It must not be thought that the silk industry was
merely confined to weaving, for all branches of the trade
were represented in Spitalfields. There was the silkman,
or merchant, who bought and sold raw silk, and who was
the actual importer of it - principally from Italy and
Turkey, and after 1741 from Persia, Russia and China.
Then there was the throwster to whom reference has
already been made.
Some silk was thrown or spun locally, and some at
Braintree, Bocking, and other places in East Anglia.
After 1720, silk mills worked by water power began to be
erected in various parts of the country. The
establishment of these mills originated the factory
system which years afterwards spread to other industries
on the application of steam power to machinery. It may
here be remarked that the English spun
"organzine" was not considered by the weavers
of high-class material to be as good as that supplied
from Italy. Then there was the dyer, a man of importance
in the locality. To these are added the designer and the
pattern maker. Finally, there were the master weaver, the
journeyman weaver, and the persons engaged in a number of
subsidiary occupations. Some were skilled - highly
skilled - and some were engaged in work to which no
apprenticeship was necessary.
The relations which had formerly existed between
masters and journeyman became with the new generation
which had grown up less cordial, and were at times
strained. The master weaver might be one who employed
many operatives, or he might be in quite a small way of
business, but each existed side by side in distinction to
the journeymen. The latter, if he were fortunate, might
acquire a loom, but usually he was too poor to possess
one of his own.
There was a progressive tendency as time went on
towards capitalisation, somewhat due to the fact that the
mercers who bought the wrought silks demanded long credit
- usually not less than twelve months. There were slight
banking facilities in those days for the small man, and
at times it would happen that the master weavers were
straightened for money, and payment of wages was
withheld. This economic condition brought into the
industry certain persons who were solely, and for the
time being only, financially interested in the production
of the goods for a monetary return, which relaxed the
once close interests between master and man. It may be
added, however, that the manufacture while it was carried
on in Spitalfields was never organised into large units,
and perhaps it would have been well if this had been
possible, at least if there had been some co-operation
between the master weavers for the pooling of their
resources.
The industry was subject to the fluctuations produced
by the demands of fashion, and it was often arrested by
the difficulty of obtaining raw silk, a fact that may
appear surprising until the uncertainty of the passage of
sailing ships is brought to mind. A sudden stoppage of a
number of looms would cause immediate distress throughout
Spitalfields. The wages were never high enough to enable
the journeyman weaver to tide over periods of
unemployment. Time of prosperity due to the expansion of
trade attracted into the neighbourhood persons who worked
in the less skilled branches of the industry, many of
whom had not served an apprenticeship, which added to the
difficulties of affording relief to the unemployed when
work was scarce.
The work of the old craft weaver engaged on plain
fabric included three distinct operations: First, the
winding or quilling, which was the initial operation;
secondly, the pulling of the warp on the loom beam; and
thirdly, the actual weaving or passing the shuttle
through the warp. The first two operations required
considerable skill, but the last demanded little more
than reasonable ingenuity. It was said that an apt person
who had never seen a loom would be able to figure out the
nature of the operation in the course of an hour without
any help, and with a week of practice might become a
journeyman worker. If this were so, and it would appear
to have been the case, it is not surprising that an
invasion by Irishmen at the time of pressure, and their
subsequent swelling the ranks of the distressed, should
have provoked resentment and ill-will.
The rivalry of England and France in America and
India, and the efforts of both nations at colonial
expansion produced open hostilities between them during
the years 1740-48 and 1756-1763, which stopped the
importation of French silk fabrics and gave the great
opportunity for the development of the industry in
Spitalfields. At the end of the war in 1763 trouble
occurred by the appearance of French goods in large
quantities in the English market despite the high duties
levied upon them. In fact, for the greater part they were
smuggled. A commission was appointed to inquire into the
grievances of the Spitalfields silk-weavers, and it
recommended the exclusion of foreign silks. A bill to
that effect was brought into the Commons and passed by
them, but it was rejected by the Lords. The
disappointment of the weavers took the form of a riot. A
deputation waited on the King with a petition
representing the miserable condtition of the silk
manufacture from the clandestine importation of French
silks, praying for relief. They were kindly received by
the King, and soon afterwards a large number of French
patterns were seized by the Government, containing
several thousand patterns ranging in value from 5s.
to £5 a yard, which were being handed about to the
mercers by French emissaries. As the weavers appeared
ready to commit any kind of outrage, the principal silk
mercers, fearing riot, undertook to countermand all their
orders for foreign silk. The discontent of the weavers,
which was encouraged by the masters, was only at length
pacified by the promise of the redress of their
grievances, and in the following year a Bill passed
through Parliament prohibiting the importation of foreign
silks.
The journeymen had for some years, under the guise of
their benefit societies, combined with the object of
compelling the masters to raise wages, and on one
occasion several thousand journeymen assembled in
Spitalfields, "and in riotous manner broke open the
house of one of their masters, destoyed his looms, and
cut a great quantity of silk to pieces, after which they
placed his effigy in a cart, with a halter about his
neck, an executioner on one side, and a coffin on the
other; and after drawing it through the streets they
hanged it on a gibbet, then burnt it to ashes and
afterwards dispersed." [From the
"Gentleman's Magazine", November 1763]
Throughout the years 1765-70 there was serious trouble.
The protection from foreign competition did not bring
about the increase of wages as immediately expected, and
this, and certain dislocations in the industry, disturbed
the centre of the trade and caused it to be in a state of
ferment and riot. In 1768 an Act was passed declaring it
to be a felony and punishable with death to break into
any house or shop with the intention of maliciously
damaging or destroying silk goods in the process of
manufacture, but the frequent acts of violence upon the
employers continued.
Some evidence of the organisation among the journeyman
weavers is afforded by the incident in September 1769,
when an attempt was made to arrest an entire meeting. An
officer with a party of soldiers invested an alehouse,
the "Dolphin," in Spitalfields, "where a
number of riotous weavers, commonly called cutters, were
assembled to collect contributions from their brethren
towards supporting themselves in order to distress their
masters and oblige them to advance their wages." (Annual
Register, 1769.) Meeting with desperate
resistance, the soldiers fired on the weavers and killed
two, and captured four. The remainder fled and lay
concealed in cellars of houses and in the vaults of the
churches throughout the night of terror not only for them
but for their womenfolk. Two of the captured weavers were
sentenced to death and were hanged at the cross roads on
Bethnal Green.
Among the picturesque features which
remain in the neighbourhood and remind the passer-by of
its days of prosperity is, notably, that of the beautiful
shop front - a grocer's - of 56 Artillery Lane. As there
are few frontages of the kind left to be seen in London,
it is hoped that this attractive specimen will be long
preserved. The large house to which it belongs contains
much of architectural beauty, and it suggests that the
original occupant must have been a cultured merchant.
Besides, there is Elder Street, full of tall,
staid-looking houses with distinguished doorways showing
variety and charm of design. This street has an air of
detachment, not to say aloofness, as though it did not
desire the acquaintance of the market which has
contributed to the disfigurement of Spital Square. All
that is left of the latter place presents a melancholy
sight, yet it can still be proud of the fine house in
which for a while lived Henry St. John, Viscount
Bolingbroke, a famous figure in the political world of
his day, whose writings, once freely quoted, are
well-nigh forgotten. His name will always be associated
with that of Alexander Pope, of whom he was friend and
patron.