152
CREFELD.
Inspector for 1906, which is confined to workers engaged in undertakings
subject to inspection, and is as follows :—
Group of Trades.
Number of
Establishments.
Number of Workpeople.
Male.
Female.
Total.
Huildm^ ... ... ... ... ...
Metal-working ...
Machine, implement and apparatus
making.
Textiles ...
Clothing and cleaning
Printing, lithography, bookbinding, &c
Paper ... ... ... ...
Wood-working and carving
Chemicals
Resins, varnishes, oil, soap, candles,
&c.
Stone and earth ...
Food, drink and tobacco
Leather ... ... ... ... ...
Total ... ... ...
189
70
80
200
241
44
24
80
13
13
17
300
6
402
975
1,987
8,060
365
609
315
565
240
183
224
679
85
73
62
5,391
1,007
304
123
87
31
28
1
105
402
1.048
2.049
13,451
1,372
913
438
652
271
211
225
784
85
1,277
14,689
7,212
21,901
The textile trades will be seen to employ 6T4 per cent, of all the work
people here enumerated, while of these textile workers 60 per cent, were
males.
Reference has already been made to the fact that during the decade 1880
to 1890 there was in the silk industry a transition from domestic industry to
the factory system, resulting from the substitution of machinery for hand
weaving.* This substitution is not yet quite complete, and in fact for some
special branches (such as the weaving of special art-fabrics, g.y., for churches
and ecclesiastical vestments) it cannot well be made. The following Table
ives the numbers of hand-loom weavers in the various local Sickness Insurance
dices in 1904 :—
Area.
Men.
Women.
Total.
Whole Lower-Rhine Industrial District
Of these :—
(1) In Crefeld Town
(2) In Crefeld Rural District ...
2,825
347
223
993
167
112
3,818
514
335
There are others not included in this return, and the total number of
hand-loom weavers in the Lower Rhenish district has been estimated at 4,500.
They are engaged in ordinary home industry, ou waistcoat stuffs, in the
weaving of the art-fabrics already mentioned, and in the preparation of patterns
in the factories. The weavers engaged in the last two of these occupations are
a specially skilled class ; the others are either women with whom weaving is
often a subsidiary employment, or elderly men who have been unable^ or
disinclined, to adapt themselves to the new conditions.
With these exceptions weaving in Crefeld itself has become entirely
a factory occupation, carried on with machinery. The appended Tables give
the number of factories, and the employees classified according to sex, and in
the case of women according to age, in the three districts which make up the
silk industry area ; the division is into the two great branches, silk stuff and
ribbon weaving, and silk velvet and velvet-ribbon weaving. The figures
include all occupations, and not merely weaving ; the men, however, are mainly
engaged in the last branch :—
* Use has been made in this report of Dr. Heinrich Brauns’ “ Der Uebergang von
der Handweberei zum Fabrikbetrieb in der Niederrheinischen Samt- und Seiden
industrie ” (1906).
