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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

J 4 7 Wr a a a8 7. 8, 2. a6 n ne nt re +d. ier nd mn ad THE SHEARMEN AND THE FRAMEWORK KNITTERS 663 had been no considerable improvement in the stocking frame. AD ie [t continued to be worked by human power, and the trade was ’ for the most part carried on by men who hired machines and worked them in their cottages. Still it was true that the stockingers and the shearmen were alike suffering from capitalist oppression—though in different forms—that the implements in their respective trades were known as frames, and that the destruction of these frames offered the most obvious means of revenging themselves on their employers. Framework knitting was carried on both in the hosiery and When the lace trades, and the circumstances of the industry had hardly redylation altered during sixty years preceding 1812% New machines the were being devised in the lace trade, but had hardly Gompany been introduced, and did not affect the stockingers. Up till the middle of the eighteenth century the Framework Knitters’ Company had been successful in exercising a certain control over the trade, in Godalming, Tewkesbury and Not- tingham, as well as in London ; but there was good reason for saying that they acted as a mere monopoly’, and passed regulations which restricted the trade, while they did little to improve it in any way. After a long enquiry the House of Commons resolved to set their by-laws altogether aside in 17534 Shortly after this time, however, there were serious complaints complaints from the workmen in London, Nottingham, of rg Leicester, Tewkesbury, and other places, of the hardships to the hands. which they were subjected? especially by the fact that they 1 The evidence appears to show that the Luddites were engaged in executing popular vengeance ob wealthy, or hard, owners of frames, and it is difficult to see that their action was in any way connected with the great mechanical progress of the time. On the other hand, the riots in Yorkshire were directed against a newly introduced machine. The mob in the West Riding was carefully discriminating, and concentrated its attention almost exclusively on those parts of the buildings where shearing frames and gig-mills were in operation (Annual Register, 1812, 54; Chronicle, pp. 89, 51, 114). As the work done by the machines was cheaper and better, the rioters were unfortunate in trying to secure a position which Parliament had treated as untenable. 1 Btrutt’s apparatus had been patented in 1758 (Felkin, History of Machine. wrought Hosiery, 93) ; and Heathcote applied power to the frames in 1816, £5. 243. 8 In 1720, they had attempted to raise a capital of £2,000,000 and carry on the rade as a joint-stock company. Commons Journals, Xxv1. 785. 4 Tb. 788. b In 1779 John Long, a frame-work knitter, gave evidence to the effect that whereas workmen used to be able to earn 2s. 1d. per day now they could only earn lg. 6d. Out of that they had to pay 3d. for frame-rent and about 3d. more for

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Industrial Revolution

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation