JAPITALIST AND DOMESTIC SYSTEMS IN CLOTHING TRADE 509
bine for the purposes above mention’d, in particular, or for A-D. 16%
any other illegal Purposes contrary to the Tenour of the
aforesaid Acts!” There were troubles in Gloucestershire in,
1727, when the method of paying for piece-work was carefully stire,
specified?, and in 1756, when a new statute was passed con-
ferring on the Justices the power of regulating wages’. We
hear of occasional strikes such as that in 1754 at Norwich, we
when three hundred wool-weavers, discontented with their
wages, quitted their business, retreated to a hill three miles
off, built huts and stayed six weeks there, supported by the
contributions of their fellow workmen*, The organisations
of workmen were becoming so powerful that they were pro-
hibited by legislative enactment. “Whereas great numbers
of weavers and others concerned in the woollen manufactures
in several towns and parishes in this kingdom, have lately
formed themselves into unlawful clubs and societies, and have
presuined, contrary to law, to enter into combinations, and to
make by-laws or orders, by which they pretend to regulate
the trade and the prices of their goods and to advance their
wages unreasonably, and many other things to the like
purpose ”......it was enacted that “all contracts, covenants or
agreements, and all by-laws, ordinances, rules or orders. in
such unlawful clubs and societies, heretofore made or entred
into, or hereafter to be made or entred into by or between
any persons brought up in or professing, using or exercising
the art and mystery of a wool-comber, or weaver, or journey-
man wool-comber, or journeyman weaver, in any parish or
place within this kingdom, for regulating the said trade or
mystery, or for regulating or settling the prices of goods, or
for advancing their wages, or for lessening their usual hours
1 Quoted from the Historical Register, issued by the Sun Fire Office, in Notes
and Queries, 3rd Series, xm. 224. On the troubles at this time, see also The
Weavers' Pretences examined, being a Full and Impartall Enquiry into the
Complaints of their Wanting Work and the true Causes assigned. By a Merchant
1719). Brit. Mus. 1029. e. 17 (3). Additional information about early combina-
sions in Devonshire will be found in Martin Dunsford’s History of Tiverton, 205.
2 13 Geo. L. c. 23.
8 99 Geo. IL. ¢. 33. This action on the part of the legislature seems to show
that the practice of assessing wages had fallen altogether into neglect, but it
appears to have been maintained in Lincolnshire as late as 1754. See p. 897 below.
4 Sir J. Nickolls’ Remarks on the advantages and disadvantages of France and
Great Britain with respect to commerce (1754), p. 139,
