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Industrial Change and the Progress of Labor in the English Cotton Industry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
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By the time labor unrest in the Lancashire cotton industry had taken the form of the strike, trade-union development was being hindered by the Combination Laws of 1799–1800, which were to outlaw unions of workers (and supposedly employers) until their repeal in 1824–25. Although the cotton operatives resorted to the strike weapon during this period, the movements were indeed dismal failures. While the Lancashire handloom weavers seem to have won partial concessions from their employers in 1808, the raises were only temporary, and the weavers remained in their state of almost habitual poverty until being extinguished as a class of workmen by the power-loom. And the spinners, whose unions were noted for their superior organization, failed entirely in their strikes of 1810 and 1818. Given this set of circumstances, labor historians Sidney and Beatrice Webb have stressed the “ephemeral combinations” of the early cotton workers and their “passionate struggles to maintain a bare subsistence wage”, alternating with “intervals of abject submission”. Similarly, G. D. H. Cole has depicted the textile workers, along with the miners, as “latecomers to trade unionism”.
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- Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1977
References
page 241 note 1 Curiously, there exists no clear record of the final terms accepted by the weavers in 1808. Richard Needham, a weaver, merely observed that the strikers, demanding a 33 1/3% raise, got a 20% increase “for about one month, and then it all tumbled to ruins again”. See Report of the Select Committee on Handloom Weavers' Petitions [Parliamentary Papers, 1834, X], p. 426.Google Scholar
page 241 note 2 Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, The History of Trade Unionism (London, 1920), p. 87.Google Scholar
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page 244 note 1 HO 42/180, Aspinall, No 302, p. 300.
page 244 note 2 Report from the Committee on Artizans and Machinery [Parliamentary Papers, 1824, V], p. 409.
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page 246 note 1 Ibid., p. 577.
page 246 note 2 Ibid.
page 246 note 3 Ibid., p. 576.
page 246 note 4 Ibid., p. 577.
page 246 note 5 HO 42/178, Aspinall, No 232, p. 251.
page 246 note 6 HO 42/179, Aspinall, No 238, pp. 263–64.
page 246 note 7 HO 79/3/234–36, Aspinall, No 254, p. 270.
page 247 note 1 Tufnell, Character, Object, and Effects, op. cit., p. 14.
page 247 note 2 Report on Artizans and Machinery, p. 577.
page 247 note 3 HO 79/3/299–30, Aspinall, No 248, p. 268.
page 247 note 4 HO 42/178, Aspinall, No 236, p. 259.
page 247 note 5 Report on Artizans and Machinery, p. 577.
page 247 note 6 Ibid., p. 609.
page 247 note 7 M. D. George has, in fact, argued against the supposed oppression of the Combination Acts, emphasizing their lack of enforcement. See “The Combination Laws Reconsidered”, in: Economic Journal (Economic History Supplement), I (1929), pp. 214–28.Google Scholar
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page 248 note 1 Report on Artizans and Machinery, p. 359.
page 248 note 2 HO 42/180, Aspinall, No 302, p. 300.
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page 249 note 2 Ibid.
page 249 note 3 Ibid., p. 189.
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page 250 note 4 HO 42/95 and 180, Aspinall, Nos 100 and 302, pp. 102, 300. Unfortunately, we have no exact figures on the size of the funds, merely the impressions of contemporary observers.
page 250 note 5 For the complete text of the appeal, see Aspinall, No 294, p. 294.
page 251 note 1 For a complete listing of the contributions, too lengthy to print here, see Report on Artizans and Machinery, pp. 604–07.
page 251 note 2 HO 73/3/260, Aspinall, No 261, p. 274.
page 251 note 3 HO 42/178, Aspinall, No 234, p. 254.
page 251 note 4 HO 42/179, Aspinall, No 252, p. 269.
page 251 note 5 HO 42/179, Aspinall, No 247, p. 267.
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page 252 note 2 HO 42/180, Aspinall, No 298, p. 299.
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page 252 note 4 Bythell, op. cit., p. 187.
page 252 note 5 HO 42/95, Aspinall, No 96, p. 100.
page 252 note 6 Edwards, The Growth of the British Cotton Trade, op. cit., pp. 186–88.
page 253 note 1 Boyson, Rhodes, The Ashworth Cotton Enterprise (Oxford, 1970), p. 14.Google Scholar
page 253 note 2 Daniels, “The Early Records”, loc. cit., p. 178.
page 253 note 3 Report on Artizans and Machinery, p. 555.
page 253 note 4 Boyson, op. cit., map, p. 2.
page 253 note 5 Daniels, C. W., “Samuel Crompton's Census of the Cotton Industry in 1811”, in: Economic Journal (Economic History Supplement), II (1930), p. 108.Google Scholar
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page 253 note 7 Report on Handloom Weavers' Petitions, p. 419.
page 253 note 8 Report on Artizans and Machinery, p. 561.
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