Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229 www.eastanglianlife.org.uk
Object(s): Sewing Machine Object Number(s): STMEA:A.5739 Researcher details: Lydia Gascoigne, Volunteer
The ‘Shakespear’ Sewing Machine and Female Industry in the 1870s
This machine, used in the small village of Mendlesham, was manufactured and used within a significant period of na onal whistleblowing of the reali es of female industry, as newspapers exposed the lives and working condi ons of ‘Sewing Machine Girls’.
This lock-s tch sewing machine was first produced in the early-1870s by The Royal Sewing Machine Co. Ltd. (named The Royal Sewing Machine Manufacturing Co. from 1882), formed by Thomas Shakespear and George Illston in 1868, in Smallheath, Birmingham. Named the ’Shakespear' machine, a er the founder, it features the patented shu le mechanism and is hand-powered by a wheel. It was used at A. & M. Cu ng’s grocer and draper in Front Street, Mendlesham for working with tex les, such as making calico sheets and altera ons to garments. Images of the shop front can be found within the Museum of East Anglian Life’s collec on (STMEA:A.5724-5726).
The machine is not simply func onal but also highly decorated, with details such as gold embellishment and lions’ feet suppor ng it on its base. It also features the head of William Shakespeare, punning on its namesake and connec ng the machine to the model’s catchphrase, ‘Not for an age but for all me’. The image below depicts a similar machine to that in the collec on, sold at Eastbourne Auc ons in January 2019.
Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229 www.eastanglianlife.org.uk
FIg. 1: A ‘Shakespear’ sewing machine.1
Adver sed frequently throughout the 1870s, the machine sold for £4 4s, situa ng it in the mid-to-high range of machines which was also occupied by brands such as Singer and Atlas. Other machines were adver sed for as li le as 30s or 40s, and thus the Cu ngs’ purchase of the ‘Shaksepear’ can be viewed as an investment into a machine of higher quality. A the of a sewing machine, valued at ‘6lbs’, was recounted at the Bury Borough Quarter Sessions in the Bury and Norwich Post on 12 January, 1875.2 Similarly, an account of a court session at Mildenhall on 1 December, 1874 tells of a platelayer, James Cu ng’s, the of a ‘Europa’ treadle sewing machine manufactured by Smith, Starley & Co. ’of the value of 4l. 4s’.3 Such instances highlight the status of such machines within their contemporary society as valuable commodi es.
1 LiveAuc oneers, ‘19th Century Royal Sewing Machine Company Shakespeare’. Available from: h ps:// www.liveauc oneers.com/en-gb/item/67758088_19th-century-royal-sewing-machine-company-shakespeare [Accessed 15 April 2020). A ribu on © LiveAuc oneers. 2 Anon., ‘Bury Borough Quarter Sessions’, Bury and Norwich Post, Iss. 4829 (Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1875), p.6. 3 Anon., ‘Mildenhall’, Bury and Norwich Post, Iss. 4823 (Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1874), p. 5.
Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229 www.eastanglianlife.org.uk
Fig. 2: Adver sement (1873).4
Fig. 3: Adver sement (1871).5
A. & M. Cu ng’s shop opened in 1872 and they adver sed jobs in The Ipswich Journal frequently in the following years. Many adverts sought young women to assist in the shop’s drapery. On 31 May, 1873, they adver sed for ‘a Young Lady for the Millinery, to assist in the shop when required’;6 on 25 September, 1875, ‘ a Young Lady as Improver to Dressmaking and to serve in Drapery’;7 and on 28 October, 1876, ‘a Young Lady as Milliner, and to serve behind the counter when required’.8 On 30 September, 1876, they also sought a ‘highly- respectable Cu er and Tailor’, for whom there would be ‘a House found, or Board and
4 Anon., ‘Mul ple Classified Adver sements’, Le Follet, Vol. 27, Iss. 318 (Saturday, March 1, 1873), p. 5. 5 Anon., ‘Mul ple Classified Adver sements’, John Bull, Vol. LI, Iss. 2639 (Saturday, July 8, 1871), p. 462. 6 Anon., ‘Adver sements & No ces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7115 (Saturday, May 31, 1873), p. 4. 7 Anon., ‘Adver sements & No ces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7356 (Saturday, Sept. 25, 1875), p. 5. 8 Anon., ‘Adver sements & No ces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7470 (Saturday, Oct. 28, 1876), p. 3.
Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229 www.eastanglianlife.org.uk
Lodging’.9 This high-turnover or accumula on of staff indicates success in the business, whose group of employees would have consisted of a variety of genders and ages. It seems likely that this would have included more than one woman working as a seamstress in the drapery. These adverts reinforce John Burne ’s asser on that, despite their likely dras c underes ma on in censuses, ‘Victorian women provided a vast reservoir of labour’.10
In the wider cultural context of the 1870s, the sewing machine stood at the centre of debates surrounding female industry and unionisa on. Whilst this machine would have been used in a much smaller establishment than the vast factories of the ci es, the role of the seamstress would s ll have inevitably been ed to issues of female pay, the valuing of skill, and industrial mechanisa on. Many adverts for sewing machines presented them as libera ng women due to their efficiency compared to hand-sewing, evidenced for example in John Sco ’s booklet Genius Rewarded; or the Story of the Sewing Machine for Singer in 1880, which proclaims ‘the importance of the Sewing Machine […] in the countless hours it has added to woman’s leisure for rest and refinement; [and] in the increase of me and opportunity for that early training of children’.11
However, as Julie Wosk recognises, ‘Singer’s sanguine adver sing also belied an industry in which the working condi ons for both men and women were o en very grim’.12 The truth of the toil of many women working at sewing machines began to enter newspapers shortly before the founding of A. & M. Cu ng's store. On 17 June, 1863, a ‘Tired Dressmaker’ had her le er published in The Times, a ribu ng the death of one of her companions to ‘long hours and close confinement’ in the workroom.13 The le er sent shockwaves through
9 Anon., ‘Adver sements & No ces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7462 (Saturday, Sept. 30, 1876), p. 3. 10 John Burne , ‘Introduc on’, in The Annals of Labour: Autobiographies of Bri sh Working Class People, 1820-1920 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974), p. 48. 11 John Sco , Genius Rewarded: or, the Story of the Sewing Machine (New York, NY: J. J. Caulon, 1880), p. 9. 12 Julie Wosk, Women and the Machine: Representa ons from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age (Bal more, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2001) p. 32. 13 Le er from a ‘Tired Dressmaker’, first published in The Times (June 17, 1863), quoted from its reprin ng under the tle ‘Death in the Work-Room in London’, in the Dundee Courier, Iss. 3077 (Saturday, June 20, 1863), p. 4.
Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229 www.eastanglianlife.org.uk
society and the spreading of truth of the industry gained momentum. A le er from ‘A Sewing Machine Girl’ to the editor of the Manchester Guardian was also widely reprinted, for example in The Women’s Union Journal on April 1, 1876, in which the writer exposed the reality of her occupa on:
It is not the fingers only that are “weary and worn” in our business; it is the feet, the legs, the body, arms, hands, fingers, and head. All have to be ac vely and incessantly employed while manipula ng such a delicate instrument as a sewing machine.14
Her call that ‘it is high me for some one to take us in hand, organise us and drill us into some kind of a “union”’ was shortly answered in a public mee ng which took place in Manchester the following month.15 An account of the event, also published in The Women’s Union Journal, states that ‘About 500 persons were present, nearly all of them girls’.16 The ar cle also quotes Mrs Paterson, founder of the Women’s Protec ve and Provident League, who spoke at the mee ng:
The le er signed ‘A Sewing Machine Girl’ ought to be read far and wide. They in London had reprinted it, and every rich and idle lady who thought that women were well cared for should read it to see what some of her sex had to contend with.17
This mee ng represents a key act of female mobilisa on in the interest of workers’ rights. At this point in the nineteenth century, the sewing machine operated at the centre of a discourse on female industry which incorporated all women, working or idle, poor or rich, into its sphere.
14 Anon., ’Sewing Machine Workers’, The Women’s Union Journal: Organ of the Women’s Protec ve and Provident Associa on, Iss. 3 (Saturday, April 1, 1876), p. 9. 15 Ibid. 16 Anon., ’Projected Union of Manchester Sewing Machine Workers’, The Women’s Union Journal: Organ of the Women’s Protec ve and Provident Associa on, Iss. 4 (Wednesday, May 31, 1876), p. 19 . 17 Ibid.
Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229 www.eastanglianlife.org.uk
Although the workers in A. & M. Cu ng’s grocer and draper may have been unaware of such s rrings of unionisa on elsewhere in the country, even their local papers can be seen to describe the significance of the ‘Sewing Machine Girl’. For example, an ar cle in The Ipswich Journal from 29 June, 1875 commends the gi of Mrs Ogilvie of Sizewell House, thirty miles east of Mendlesham, as an ins tu on for the training of young girls for occupa ons outside of domes c service. The author notes that
the sewing machine, the electric telegraph, the workshop, and the counter are all bidding briskly for young women of the class which formerly took to domes c service as naturally as ducks take to the water. The consequence is that young women no longer need to look to service as a career.18
It is not implausible that girls trained at this ins tu on would have later applied to work for A. & M. Cu ng. Further to this, an advert by the sewing machine manufacturer Wheeler & Wilson in The Ipswich Journal on 8 August, 1868 employed many of the same tropes as the aforemen oned booklet by Singer. It compares the ‘drudgery [of] the old hand-sewing’ to the ‘posi vely fascina ng [..] click, click, of the merry machine needle’ which ‘excites rather than depresses the spirits’.19 This passage u lises similar language to an an the cally cri cal poem, ‘The Sewing Machine’, published in Funny Folks on 17 July, 1875:
Click — click — click — Answer the martyrs of trade — Click — click — click — “That skilful machine is made To quicken the labour of brain and hands, And seems to hasten Life’s very sands In compe on keen, Tasking our weary fingers more Than our pallid mothers’ were tasked before The curse of the Sewing Machine.20
18 Anon., ‘The Social and Moral Effect of Mrs Ogilvie’s Gi ’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7331 (June 29, 1875), p. 2. 19 Anon., ‘A Wife’s Comfort’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 6745 (Saturday, Aug. 8, 1868), p. 12. 20 Anon., ’The Sewing Machine’, Funny Folks: A Weekly Budget of Funny Pictures, Funny Notes, Funny Jokes, and Funny Stories, Vol. III, Iss. 32 (Saturday, July 17, 1875), lines 21-30.
Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229 www.eastanglianlife.org.uk
We cannot know on what terms the seamstresses at A. & M. Cu ng’s grocer and draper knew or viewed such polari es of the debate surrounding sewing machines. Nevertheless, the ‘Shakespear’ machine in the collec on of the Museum of East Anglian Life func ons as a valuable lens through which burgeoning debates on the work of seamstresses in the 1870s can be explored. Certainly, despite being used in a shop within a small village, it remains part of a unique movement which amplified the voices of Victorian working women.