The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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LEGAL AND ILLEGAL WOOLLEN WEAVERS 659 that, when employment was scarce, the fully trained weavers A.D. 1776 . . —1850. should endeavour to take a stand upon their legal rights, and > insist that only duly qualified men should be set to work, The clothiers, on the other hand, would have been unwilling to dismiss good workmen in order to take on men, who had served an apprenticeship, but who were not better workmen than the others. The complaints of the weavers received very full consideration from Parliament, but it was not possible in the then state of public opinion to comply with their demands, The House of Commons decided to set aside the necessity of eg i . . . aside tem- apprenticeship, first tentatively®, and then permanently, in the porarily clothing trades®. There were somewhat similar difficulties in other trades, from the manner in which the apprenticeship system was carried out‘; and Parliament was petitioned to render the old system more effectual ; but when the question had been once raised, it became clear that the House of Commons was in favour of settling it in another fashion. Still, no immediate action was taken; a Select Committee was appointed to take evidence, with the result that the chairman's view of the case was entirely altered; he had been in favour of sweeping away the legal enforcement of the apprenticeship system, but he was convinced by what he heard, that this would be a serious wrong in all sorts of trade, that it would tend to a deterioration in the quality of goods, necessary ; a Youth from Sixteen to Eighteen Years of Age would learn the Art of Weaving in Twelve Months. That he has some persons now in his Employ- ment that have been actually engaged for Seven Years, but does not by any means consider them as more competent workmen than others who have not been apprenticed for so long a Time; the Consequence of being obliged to employ none but legally apprenticed Weavers must reduce the Business to One-tenth of its present Extent; That he knows of no legal Weavers now out of Employment, in consequence of others who have not been legally apprenticed being employed ; on the contrary Weavers are wanted: That he apprehends Nine tenths of the present workmen would be thrown out of employ if the Statute of the Fifth of Elizabeth, Chapter Four, should be enforced.” Reports, 1802-8, v. 305. 1 The weavers of Yorkshire, who regarded apprenticeship as the bulwark of the domestic system and desired to maintain it against the encroachments of the factory system, hed not really adhered to the Statute of Elizabeth, as the Trustees of the Cloth Halls at Leeds had allowed the custom of five years’ apprenticeship “0 spring up, in place of the seven years demanded by law. Reports (Woollen Yanufacture), 1806, mx. 581, printed pagination 13. % 43 Geo. IIL. ¢. 136 and continuing Acts. 8 49 Geo. IIL. ec. 109. + See above on the calico printers, p. 641, also Reports (Committee on Ap- prentice Laws), 1812-13. rv. 991. AY

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