Spitalfields (Part V)
From: "The Copartnership Herald", Vol. I, no. 14 (April 1932)
The unrest among
the journeymen weavers, and the frequent outbreaks of
violence, led, in 1778, to the passing of an Act
generally known as the Spitalfields Act. This was brought
about by the masters in the hope that it would bring to
an end disputes regarding wages, and that better
relations would ensue. It provided that wages should be
settled by local justices. In practice, the
representatives of the masters and the men met together,
and, after they had argued and reached an agreement as to
what constituted a fair price of labour, the wages list
was submitted to the magistrates. Upon ratification by
them it became by law a fixed rate until altered by
subsequent agreement. Masters paying more or less wages
than that decreed were liable to a penalty of £50 which
would be distributed among distressed journeymen. On the
other hand, if the journeymen should ask or take greater
or less wages, or enter into combinations to raise them,
or assemble to petition on the subject of them in numbers
of more than ten (except when going to the magistrates),
they were subjected to a fine of 40 shillings.
The
original Act, which applied to silk weavers, was extended
in 1792 to those engaged in the manufacture of mixed
goods, such as those which were formed of silk and
worsted; and in 1811, to women as well as men. These Acts
were intended to protect both masters and wage earners
from injustice, but they incidentally involved
restrictions on the conduct of the trade, and, being
considered to have done more harm than good, they were
repealed in 1824. Until then, the magistrates had the
power of limiting the number of threads to an inch in the
fabric, of deciding the widths of many sorts of work, and
of determining the quantity of labour not to be exceeded
without extra wages. In a petition to Parliament to
repeal these statutes, it was set forth that "these
Acts by not permitting the masters to reward such of
their work man as exhibit superior skill and ingenuity,
but compelling them to pay an equal price for all work
well or ill-performed, have materially retarded the
progress of improvement and repressed industry and
emulation."
That the operation of these Acts was confined to a
prescribed locality was extremely unfavourable to
Spitalfields; for manufacturers were at liberty to
undertake elsewhere the same kind of work and pay for it,
without breaking the law, at a great reduction. There was
also no medium between full regulation wages and the
total absence of employment. The wages were only enough
to eke out a bare existence, and there was a continuous
state of distress, for the weavers were dependent on the
fluctuating basis of trade in respect of the different
sorts of material which included those of the richest
quality - as well as the poorest and thinnest. Among the
former were the costly brocades, damask, velvets, gauzes
and satins, and those termed mixed goods, because of the
fabrics being woven with the warp of silk and the woof,
or shute of worsted such as bombazines and poplins, all
of which employed intermittently a vast number of looms.
About 1790 the industry began to spread to other parts of
the country, at first to the Eastern Counties, where it
could be carried on without statutory restrictions.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century attempts
were made through the leaders of fashion to provide
steady employment for the Spitalfields weavers by
inducing the wearing of silk fabrics at balls and
assemblies. A lady, if she had not a silk dress, felt she
had forfeited her self-respect. Under the influence
exerted for so good a purpose, bombazine, once used
solely for the making of mourning garments, threw off its
sombre hue, became gay in divers colours and adorned not
only the living fair but those within the pages of the
romances of the day. This fabric, with the poplins and
the gauzes, once employed a vast number of looms in
Spitalfields, but their manufacture respectively passed
afterwards to Norwich, Dublin, and Paisley.
The fashionable demand for silk promoted smuggling on
an extensive scale from France, the importation of which
was prohibited. So audacious was this illicit trading,
that the payment of a premium of £28 on stuff to the
value of one hundred pounds would guarantee delivery in
London. In 1826 the prohibition of their importation was
removed and a duty of 80 per cent. imposed. It was
perhaps better that the Customs should receive the money
rather than that it should go into the pockets of the
intermediate agents.
In 1831 there were working 14,000 to 17,000 looms in
the Spitalfields district, which had a population of
about 100,000 persons, half of which number were entirely
dependent on the weaving industry. This district
comprised parts of Mile End New Town and Bethnal Green
where the erection of many one-storied cottages had been
already begun for the weaving families who were employed
as out-workers. By the invention of the steam engine,
mechanical power challenged hand-loom weaving as a
commercial undertaking, and the trade of Spitalfields
suffered. Many weavers of technical skill in the spirit
of enterprise went to Macclesfield, Coventry, Braintree
and other places where, after 1880, steam machinery had
been set up, by which the output was not only increased
but cheapened, and where the drudgery of long hours of
labour was removed and the uncertainty of irregular
employment was to a large extent lessened.
This was followed by another blow in 1860, when in
consequence of the commercial Treaty with France the
English market became overcrowded with attractive and
low-priced foreign-made fabrics. Thousands of
Spitalfields weavers found their livelihood taken from
them. Some migrated to the centre of textile manufactures
in the North, but many remained in an impoverished state,
to be relieved by public charity. The distribution of
funds raised for this purpose attracted into the
neighbourhood persons who claimed to be distressed
weavers and who further pauperised the district.
A few large firms, who had adopted the factory system,
and some master weavers continued to find work for some
of the best skilled weaving families. They were engaged
in the production of high grade fabrics, the manufacture
of which was not so much affected by foreign competition.
These employers gradually left the neighbourhood, and one
of the firms last to leave transferred, in 1895, some
sixty families to their works at Braintree.
This brief account of the Spitalfields silk industry
is of a somewhat gloomy nature, but it is the aspect from
the economic point of view. Another, and one more
agreeable, will probably be presented if the reader will
visit the Bethnal Green Museum where are shown pieces of
brocade and figured silks which offer a fairly
representative survey of the work done by the
Spitalfields weavers between the years of 1698 and 1875.
These fabrics, exquisitely designed and executed with
technical skill, will bring to mind the thought that Art
and Industry are not merely assessable in terms of money,
but that there is a different kind of value to be found
in the appreciation and enjoyment of beauty and
craftsmanship.
by Sydney Maddocks
Reprinted with permission of David Rich, Tower Hamlets History On Line.
