Week 8

Dr Frances Richardson [email protected]. uk Fashion industries http://open.conted.ox.ac.uk/series/ manufactures-industrial-revolution Take-aways from Week 7, metal industries

• Metal manufactures developed as proto-industries in 16th and 17th centuries due to increasing demand and benefits of specialization • Long process of industrialization – a significant alternative to factory mass production • Diversity of organisation – small workshop manufacture survived alongside powered factories • New opportunities for men as new processes and products emerged, fewer opportunities for married women and mothers • Involution in less skilled, rural, and feminized trades such as hand nailmaking and chainmaking Outline

• The Devon and Buckinghamshire industries • Nottingham machine-made lace – new hand work during partial mechanisation • The straw plait and straw hat trades • Conclusions on the growth and decline of hand manufactures Fashion industries

Discussion topics: • What caused the rise and decline of hand lacemaking or straw plaiting? • What was the impact of child labour in these proto-industries? Mary, Countess of Pembroke, 1621 Lace, ornamental, openwork fabric formed by looping, interlacing, braiding (plaiting), or twisting threads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRd958Xtd9Y&t=253s

Portrait of a Gentleman Wearing a Green Jacket th Mount Edgecumbe House • English lacemaking started 16 century • Devon lacemaking area around Honiton • Pillow or bone lace, made using lace sprigs joined together on a pillow or by needlework • Protection against imports

Honiton lace sprigs

17c Honiton lace Buckinghamshire lace

• Introduction attributed to Catherine of Aragon • Poor Law officers paid teachers to teach poor children lacemaking • Midlands lace district extended into Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and east Oxfordshire • Produced fine pillow lace, especially edgings • 100,000 women and children employed by 1700 • Decline after Napoleonic Wars with foreign competition and machine-made ‘A young woman must work hard for 14 or 15 hours a day to earn 3s 6d a week’ (1843 Royal Commission on children’s employment)

Olney lacemakers Organisation of hand lace industry

• Lace buyers sold lace in the Monday lace market at the Bull and Mouth London coaching inn

• In 1863, Midlands hand-lace dominated by 3 or 4 large manufacturers

• High Wycombe manufacturer gave George Shepherd, Yard at the Bull and Mouth Inn, St employment to 3,000 lace-makers, sold Martin's le Grand, City of them materials and patterns, bought London, 1817 finished goods

• Travelled round villages or employed putting-out agents Child labour

• What was the impact of child labour in the lacemaking and straw plaiting proto- industries? Jack be nimble Lace schools Jack be quick • Victorians thought a child must start to learn Jack jump over lacemaking at 6 to acquire dexterity The candlestick. • 20% of lace made by children • Girls and some boys attended lace schools, A in Olney, Buckinghamshire often did not attend village schools before 1871 • Daughters of farm labourers worked up to 12 hours • Children’s parents received earnings from sale of lace, less cost of teacher and light • In 1830s and 1840s, experienced girls earned 2s 3d a week • Used lace tells and races • Schools promoted by manufacturers to improve standards John Heathcoat's Tiverton Lace Manufactory c. 1836 Machine lace

• Two stage mechanisation:

1. Machine-made net, hand embroidered

2. Machine-made lace 1820-60 Tamboured lace table mat, Coggeshall Museum Partial mechanisation greatly extended Tambouring lace c. 1900, market for lace, allowed production of Coggeshall Museum, Essex dress material, veils, home decorations

• Created large workforce of hand-finishers

• Nottingham the main centre, also Essex and Limerick, Ireland

Mid-19c John Heathcoat's Tiverton Lace Manufactory c. 1836 lace

• Point lace stocking frames invented 1760s - problem of laddering

• Around 1,800 point net lace machines in Nottingham in 1810

• lace machine with twisted thread patented by John Heathcote in 1809 Tulle

• Heathcote’s mill at Loughborough attacked by Luddites in 1816, moved production to Tiverton, Devon

• One machine produced in one minute the quantity of net which took a fortnight by hand Bobbinet tulle structure Embroidered net, 1830-60 Lace finishing

• Adult male twisters worked the lace machines – a working-class elite

Tamboured lace and tambour hooks • Women and children involved in embroidering and finishing

• Tambouring introduced in Early slitting millEmployment on hand Coggeshall, Essex, by French of machine net émigré family 160,000 140,000 120,000 • Tambouring also used in Midlands 100,000 80,000 and West Country, and outsourced 60,000

WORKERS 40,000 to Ireland 20,000 0 1812 1831 1833 1865 Midlands West Country Total Hand finishing continues

Machines replaced stocking frames 1820-60: https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=AwrP 4o516IdcfSoAXxUM34lQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZmVxM3N0BG NvbG8DaXIyBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw-- • Plain net continued on Heathcote-type ?p=leavers+jacquard&fr=mcafee#id=1&vid=9273a74aac6b 357380f22af99692300e&action=view machines Finishers • Leavers machine invented 1813

• Jacquard attachment mechanised pattern lacemaking from 1841

• Big increase in machine lacemaking for curtains etc.

• Tambouring and embroidery declined rapidly, but hand finishing still required Organisation of machine-lace finishing

• Nottingham lace market became the centre of the machine lace trade from 1820s

• Finishing a mix of workshop and outwork hand labour

Nottingham Lace Market • Embroidery done at home or in workshops

• Dressing – starching and pressing

• An outworker mistress collected work from warehouse, distributed it out to other women - the second and third-hand mistresses - or assembled a group in her own home

• Workers complained of only getting half the rate paid by manufacturers Child labour in machine-lace finishing

• In 1812, girls and boys from age 5 employed at lace embroidery, often in own home

• Domestic workers assisted by children in drawing – removing threads by needle

• Children earned 1s 6d-3s a week, experienced girls 7-12s

• Girls started at spotting at age 6 or 7, then moved on to running

• In 1843, children under 13 limited to 10 hours a day in factories – no limit in outwork

• By 1862 the average starting age had risen to about eight years old Queen Victoria revives fashion for hand lace

Princess Alice 1862

The Princess Royal also wore Princess, later Queen, Alexandra, 1863 Royal Collection Honiton lace How did hand industry survive alongside machine lace?

• 30,000 pillow lacemakers in 1851 – industry did not decline till 1860s

• Enormous demand for all kinds of lace in 1840s and 1850s, including luxury hand-made

• Honiton lacemakers appliqued sprigs onto machine net

• New fashion for - ‘cheap and showy’

Maltese lace made in Midlands • Dealers sold to London wholesalers drapers and lace merchants, department stores or private clients Decline of hand lace after 1860

• Maltese lace successfully produced by machine • Fashion for baby lace declined and loss of American market during American Civil War •Mansfield’sAbolition shoe of factory, protective Northampton duties in 1840s

• Few remaining skilled lacemakers Midlands baby lace • Competition from better, cheaper French and Belgian hand-made lace • Small dealers reduced piece-rates or paid truck • End of lace schools after 1871 Education Act introduced free schooling, soon compulsory • Took 4-5 years to learn lacemaking – better employment prospects as servants Straw plaiting and hat making

• Straw plaiting the 46th largest employer in 1851, 32k workers • Straw hatmaking 22k workers John Sanders, Mrs Jeffrey, nee Mary • Major employerWilkes in Bedfordshire (c.1794), Victoria Art Gallery and Hertfordshire • Started late 17th century, grew till 1815 • Affected by fashion, protection, foreign competition • Encouraged by Poor Law officers and philanthropists like the Marchioness of Buckingham

The Marchioness of Buckingham Straw work • Straw plait and hatmaking • Italian competition in fine straw plaiting • Expansion during Napoleonic Wars • Invention of straw-splitter in 1801 • Provided new employment after decline of spinning • Italian competition after war • Withdrawal of protective tariffs in 1840s • Plaiting declined in 1870s due to foreign competition • Hat-making continued – 8m straw hats exported yearly Straw workers • 93% female • In early 19c, women could earn up to 16s a week, more than their husbands • By 1830s, earnings fell to 1s 6d to 3s 6d a week • Improved to 7s a week in 1860s • High proportion of working women (25%) in plaiting areas • Partly seasonal • More sought work in Luton or Hitchin hatmaking after decline of plaiting A Luton Girl plaiting straw Organisation of the industry

• Most plaiters independent artisan producers till 19th century • Often a by-employment • Sold in local markets • By 1813, middlemen bought straw, split it and put out to plaiters • Luton plait halls major supplier for hat trade in 1860s

Nicholls' Plait Stall, 1885, Luton plait halls Luton plait halls, opened 1869 Child labour in the plaiting industry

• Children learned plaiting with mother from age 4 • Started plait school at age 5 –mistress supervised work Mansfield’s shoe factory, Northampton • Boys left at 10-12 to go into farm work • Girls left when competent • In 1860s, young children earned 1s to 1s 6d a week, 2-3s at age 8 or 9, 7s when competent • Children most likely to work when mother widowed • Workshops Act 1867 intended to prevent children under 8 working, but loopholes • Decline in plaiting in 1870s due to foreign competition enabled children to go to school Summary

LACE STRAW PLAIT • Hand-made lace a skilled domestic craft • Deliberate attempts by Poor Law officers, but never well paid philanthropists and the RSA to foster • Grew when sheltered from foreign industry to give women alternative competition employment to spinning • MainlyMansfield’s putting shoe factory,-out Northampton system • Grew when sheltered from foreign • Machine-made lace generated large competition amount of hand finishing • Straw plaiting moved from artisan to putting- • Hand-made lace survived till 1860s in a out system niche market, but became internationally • Declined due to foreign competition, but uncompetitive hatmaking peaked in 1890s • Child labour endemic due to need for lace • Female dominated - generally below- schools subsistence earnings • Child labour throughout plaiting district till 1870s due to low male earnings in agriculture Conclusions on pre-factory manufactures

THEORY DISCUSSION Proto-industrial manufactures in the 1. What factors facilitated the growth of pre- countrysideMansfield’s serving shoe factory, national Northampton and factory manufacturing? international markets paved the way 2. What factors were important in its success? for factory industrialization 3. Why did hand manufacturing continue alongside factory mechanisation? 4. What factors brought about its decline? Prep for Week 9, Impact on population Discussion topics: • What impact did the growth of pre-factory manufactures have on population? • Tell the class about examples of particular industries.

• Clarkson, L. A., Proto-Industrialization: The First Phase of Industrialization? (Basingstoke, 1985), Ch. 4. Conted. Library, 2 class copies. • Hopkins, E., 'The decline of the family work unit in Black Country nailing', International Review of Social History 22 (1977). In class Google drive, one class copy. • *Kriedte, P., Medick, H., and Schlumbohm, J., 'Proto-industrialization revisited: demography, social structure, and modern domestic industry', Continuity and Change 8 (1993), Section I. In class Google drive, 2 class copies. • Levine, D., Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism (London, 1977), part Ch. 2 & 5. Conted. Library, one class copy. • Levine, D., 'Industrialization and the proletarian family in England', Past & Present 107 (1985), (you can skip section VI). In class Google drive, one class copy. • Sharpe, P., 'The shiners: framework-knitting households in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, 1840- 1890', Family and Community History 3 (2000). In class Google drive, one class copy.