Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of diagrams, graphs and maps
- List of tables
- Foreword by François Crouzet
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part 1 INTRODUCTION
- Part 2 THE PRIMARY ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL
- Part 3 THE WEB OF CREDIT
- INTRODUCTION
- 5 WOOL PURCHASE
- 6 MATERIALS, PLANT, SERVICES AND LABOUR
- 7 THE TRADE IN WOOLLEN AND WORSTED PRODUCTS
- 8 TRADE CREDIT AND GROWTH
- Part 4 EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FINANCE
- Part 5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
- APPENDIX: TABLES RELATING TO CHAPTER 10
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Name and place index
- Subject index
6 - MATERIALS, PLANT, SERVICES AND LABOUR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of diagrams, graphs and maps
- List of tables
- Foreword by François Crouzet
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part 1 INTRODUCTION
- Part 2 THE PRIMARY ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL
- Part 3 THE WEB OF CREDIT
- INTRODUCTION
- 5 WOOL PURCHASE
- 6 MATERIALS, PLANT, SERVICES AND LABOUR
- 7 THE TRADE IN WOOLLEN AND WORSTED PRODUCTS
- 8 TRADE CREDIT AND GROWTH
- Part 4 EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FINANCE
- Part 5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
- APPENDIX: TABLES RELATING TO CHAPTER 10
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Name and place index
- Subject index
Summary
This chapter deals with credit practice in the supply of important inputs to wool textile production other than raw wool. The first two sections deal with raw materials and capital equipment respectively whilst the third section concerns itself with the supply of services such as fulling, scribbling, dyeing, dressing and carriage. The final section deals with that most important of production costs: labour, with the complex nature of ‘wages’ at this time, and with the devices used by manufacturers to create credit for themselves in this sphere.
Raw materials
At the end of the eighteenth century the use of fibres other than wool was insignificant in the woollen and worsted trades, but by the 1850s cotton warps accounted for about 6–7% of prime costs in the worsted branch and 1% in the woollen branch of the industry nationally. In Yorkshire these proportions were higher as this was the first area to incorporate cotton warps on a large scale, from the 1830s, in the making of a wide range of cheap cloths. Even in woollen production cotton warps were used extensively in Yorkshire by the 1840s especially in the heavy woollen areas where they were found to mix well with shoddy wefts. Cotton warp purchases were thus of great importance to a large proportion of West Riding concerns, especially those making particular sorts of cheap cloths. For these firms, like Robert Clough of Keighley, cotton warps accounted for as much as a third of the cost of total fibres purchased by the 1840s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Genesis of Industrial CapitalA Study of West Riding Wool Textile Industry, c.1750-1850, pp. 131 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986