Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-22 00:00:00

HISTORY OF THE WORKING

CLASSES..
THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS-SOCIAL
AND POLITICAL ;
FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD DOWN' TO THE

PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER FOURTH.
INTRODUCTION OF WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES-

"'EVIL

MAY DAY

- RECOGNITION OF FRE/

LABOURERS BY THE LEGISLATURE

-REI.IUNERA-

TION GIVEN •TO WORKMEN -RETROSPECTIVE

REMARKS.

The small quantity of woollen cloth found in
the town of Colchester shows that the cloth trade
had made but little progress in England ; though
several Flemish weavers had come over with.
William the Conqueror, and established them-
selves. (1.) Judging, however, from what little
trade there was in this department of industry, it
is not very easy to understand the curious regula-
tions which were made concerning it. One, for
instance, issued in the year eleven hundred and
ninety-seven, besides prescribing that all cloths
should •be one width, ordained likewise that no
cloth of any other colour than black should be sold
in any part of the country, except cities and
burghs. What the object of such a regulation as
this could have been for, it is difficult to discover.
But there was one which is more easy to under-
stand ;_ and perhaps it may be considered a
sort of comfort for us to know that our
good old Saxon ancestors had their tricks
of trade as well as we of the present day.
For it was ordered " that no trader in wool should
hang before his shop. or booth, a red or black
cloth, or anything by which the sight of the
buyers was often deceived in the choice-of good
cloth." How far such a device as this would
deceive our experienced eyes, Ido not know. If
it would, I have no doubt numbers would be glad
to turn it to account. From this time, until the
year thirteen hundred and thirty-one, the wool
trade seems not to have employed the attention of
the Legislature. Somewhere about this period,
however, an expert Flemish manufacturer, and his
workmen, came over to England, and were well
received by Edward the Third. It is probable
that the King was induced to patronise the new
comers in consequence of his connection with the
Flemings, by his marriage with Philippa,
daughter of the Earl of Hainault. Afteiwards
this King invited numerous Walloon families
over, who were engaged in the woollen trade, by
Royal Proclamation ; and though the English,
who looked upon them as rivals, were constantly
threatening and molesting them, these industrious
foreigners managed to settle themselves in the
kingdom, and succeeded in creating good native
workmen. Laws were immediately passed to
prevent the export of wool ; and the use of foreign
cloth was restricted to the Royal Family. This
exception would go to prove the great superiority
of the cloths manufactured abroad to those made
in England ; whilst the restriction may likewise
have had for its object an encouragement to the
immigration of foreign cloth makers. These laws
seemed to have worked so well, that in less than
forty years the manufacturers in this country
became so thriving that fulled woollen cloths were
allowed to be exported, thus shewing that we
were now in a position to compete with the
foreigners. (2.)
Here, therefore, we have a proof of how prone
men are in an age of ignorance—and, perhaps, in
all times, when blinded by an excessively selfish
concern for their own individual interest—to
mistake for evils, things which are pregnant with
the most unbounded advantage to themselves,
simply because they cannot, or will not, look
beyond the present inconvenience to the future
good. Had our ancestors, at the time we are
referring to, succeeded by violence in keeping out
the skill they so much dreaded,—but which, by its
teaching and patterns, conferred an inestimable
boon on them, they would, in all probability,
have been a century or two before they got out of
their ignorant and unprofitable ways. It may be
taken as a certain rule that, whenever we seek to
put down by violence that which is not violent of
itself, we are, somehow or other, committing
violence on ourselves. The records of ose times are
full of this mad spirit.

The first of May, fifteen hundred and seven-
teen, was long known in London as " Evil
May Day," and for many subsequent years
there was in painful remembrance the occur-
rence from whence it took its name. The reason
of its bad reputation was a tremendous riot,
growing out of the excitement against the
foreigners in London. Fortunately, the intended
victims, getting wind of the mischief preparing
against them, had. time to escape ; but their
property was pillaged in every direction, and the
work of destruction continued for some hours,
until checked by an armed force. Thirteen per-
sons were sentenced to be hung, but with the ex-
ception of the principal offenders, who were exe-
cuted, the remainder were permitted to escape
unpunished. Such was the mad animosity against
the industrious foreigners who were conferring
such benefits upon English manufactures. Luckily,
however, they did not succeed ; and the result, as
we shall afterwards see, was immense. It is
pleasing to observe, likewise, that even the most
senseless violence is over-ruled by good ends.
The springing up of manufactures, by drawing
the superfluous hands from the country into
towns and cities, is thought, more than any other
cause, to have ameliorated the condition of the
working classes, carried on principally by
foreigners, exposed to popular violence. The
Crown found it necessary to encourage them to
form themselves into guilds or compnies in
burghs and cities, and to grant them, not ouly
various immunities, but also many means of self-
protection against the barons and territorial
chiefs. For such was the lawlessness of the
times in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
that the King's retinue itself was often attacked
and pillaged by banditti, acting not unfrequently
at the instance of some powerful baron. Towns
during fairs were often pillaged and ransacked,
and men of property taken and carried off to the
castle of some turbulent chief, where they were
kept prisoners till ransomed. In the Rolls of
Parliament there are many complaints, on the part
of towns, of their corn being destroyed, their
houses burned, and their property carried off.
We whO are living at a period when perfect secu-
rity reigns amongst us, and who would hear with
amazement that any of our rich- neighbours had
come and carried off even our leanest pig or
toughest chicken, or the most broken worthless
pot in our houses, can hardly picture such a state
of society as then existed, and at the same time
not look back with just indignation on this
infamous violation of the working man's rights.
But mark ! how violence, as it always does, brought
its own discomfiture, and developed an antago-
nistic power of order and security that finally laid
it low.

Our monarchs, in order to protect the towns,
and make them ramparts against feudal violence,
not only gave them a perfect immunity from
feudal service, but allowed them to- raise troops
for their own defence. Nor were they satisfied

(1.) That the curfew bell came in with William the
Conqueror, is a common but erroneous supposition. It
is true that, by one of his laws, he ordered the people to
put out their fires and lights, and go to bed at the eight
o'clock curfew bell ; but shall, in his " History of
Oxford," states that Alfred the Great ordered the inhabi-
tants of that city to cover their fires on the ringing of
the bell, at Carfu, every night at eight o'clock, " which
custom," he adds, "is observed to this day, and the bell
as constantly rings at eight as the 'great Tom' follows
at nine."

(2.) The wool-combers, like the blacksmiths, had their
festival formerly in honour of Bishop Blaze, to whom
they attributed the invention of Wool-Combing. The
Leeds lfureury, speaking of this festival, held in 1825,
says :—" There is no place in the kingdom where the
Bishop is so splendidly commemorated as at Bradford.
In 1811, 1818, and at previous septennial periods, the
occasion was celebrated with great pomp and festivity,
each celebration surpassing the preceding ones in
numbers and brilliance. The celebration of 1825
eclipsed all hitherto seen, and it is most gratifying to
know, that is owing to the high presperity of lhe
woollen manufacturers, which are certainly Adding fresh
grcet§ auburban to the towns"