first form about 1787, but many corrections, improvements
and additions had to be effected before it became an unqualified
success. Cartwright’s original idea was elaborated by numerous
followers, and supplementary ideas were needed to make the
system complete. Of the latter the most important were
those due to William Radcliffe, and an ingenious mechanic
who worked with him, Thomas Johnson, which were patented in
1803 and 1804. They related to the dressing of the warp before it
was placed in the loom, and for the mechanical taking up of the
cloth and drawing forward of
the warp, so that the loom had
not to be stopped for the cloth
to be moved on and the warp
brought within play of the
shuttle to be sized. Looms
fitted with the latter of these
devices were known as
“dandy” looms. The looms
that followed need not be
described here, nor need we
concern ourselves with the
degree in which some were
imitations of others. It is of
interest to note, however, in
view of recent developments,
that one of Cartwright’s
patents included a warp-stop motion, though it was never tried
practically so far as the writer is aware. Looms with warp-stop
motions are now common in the United States, as are also
automatic looms, but both are still the exception in Lancashire
for reasons that will be sketched later.
Power-looms won their way only very gradually. Cartwright and others lost fortunes in trying to make them pay, but the former was compensated by a grant of £10,000 from government. In 1813 there were 2400 only in the whole of the United Kingdom; in 1820 there were 14,000, beside some 240,000 hand-looms; in 1829, 55,500; in 1833, 100,000; and in 1870, 440,700.[1] To-day there are about 700,000 in the cotton industry. The beginning, and the final consequences, of the competitive pressure of the power-looms may be read in the reports of official inquiries and in Rowbotham’s diary.[2] It was upon the fine work that the hand-loom weavers retained their last hold. In 1829 John Kennedy wrote in his paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on “The Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade,” “It is found ... that one person cannot attend upon more than two power-looms, and it is still problematical [even in 1829, observe] whether the saving of labour counterbalances the expense of power and machinery and the disadvantage of being obliged to keep an establishment of power-looms constantly at work.” It was not easy to obtain a sufficiency of good hands for the power-looms, because the operatives, who had acquired their habits under the domestic system, hated factory life. This, in conjunction with the ease with which the art of coarse weaving could be acquired and the cheapness of rough looms, helps to explain the wretched straits into which the hand-loom weavers were driven.
Improvements in machinery, which ultimately affected every process from cleaning the cotton to finishing the fabric, and the application of water and steam-power, so lowered the cost of production as to render Lancashire the cotton factory of the world. Figures are quoted in the table to show Growth. the rate of growth in different periods of England’s imports and exports as regards the raw material and products of this industry. It is important to remember when reading the last 6 columns that the value of money was the same in 1831–1835, 1851–1855 and 1876–1880: the sums of Sauerbeck’s index numbers for these periods were 454, 451 and 444 respectively. In the last two periods there were considerable depressions in prices. If prices had remained constant, in the periods 1891–1895 and 1896–1900 the figures of exports would have been £90 millions and £91 millions respectively. The growth in trade has been partly occasioned by the enormous increase in the volume of cotton goods consumed all over the world, which in turn has been due to (1) the growth of population, (2) the increase in productive efficiency and well-being, and (3) the substitution of cotton fabrics for woollen and linen fabrics. The rate of growth between the periods 1771–1781 and 1781–1791 (which is not shown in the above table) was particularly remarkable, and reached as high a figure (when measured by importations of weight of cotton) as 320%.
| Year. | Imports of Raw Cotton, Million ℔. |
Raw Cotton re-exported, Million ℔. |
Exports of Cotton Yarns and Manufactures, Million £. |
Imports of Cotton Yarns and Manufactures, Million £. | ||||
| Yarns. | Manu- factures. |
Total. | Yarns. | Manu- factures (excluding Lace). | Total. | |||
| 1700–1705 | 1.17 | · · | · · | · · | · · | · · | · · | · · |
| 1771–1775 | 4.76 | · · | · · | · · | · · | · · | · · | · · |
| 1785–1789 | · · | · · | · · | · · | 1.07* | · · | · · | · · |
| 1791–1795 | 26.00 | · · | · · | · · | 2.09* | · · | · · | · · |
| 1816–1820 | 139.00 | 10.6 | 2.5 | 13.8 | 16.30 | · · | · · | · · |
| 1831–1835 | 313.00 | 23.0 | 4.8 | 14.2 | 19.00 | · · | · · | · · |
| 1851–1855 | 872.00 | 124.0 | 6.8 | 24.9 | 31.70 | · · | · · | · · |
| 1876–1880 | 1456.00 | 180.0 | 12.4 | 56.1 | 68.30 | · · | 2.29 | 2.29 |
| 1891–1895 | 1746.00 | 217.0 | 9.7 | 56.6 | 66.30 | .42 | 2.78 | 3.20 |
| 1896–1900 | 1798.00 | 223.0 | 8.9 | 58.2 | 67.10 | .26 | 4.27 | 4.53 |
| 1901–1905 | 1920.00 | 265.0 | 8.4 | 70.7 | 79.10 | .22 | 5.10 | 5.32 |
Nothing is more interesting in the cotton industry than the
processes of differentiation and integration that have taken place
from time to time. Weaving and spinning had been to
a large extent united in the industry in its earliest form,
in that both were frequently conducted beneath the
Differen-
tiation and
Integration.
same roof. With mechanical improvements in spinning,
that branch of the industry became a separate business, and a
substantial section of it was brought under the factory régime.
Weaving continued to be performed in cottages or in hand-loom
sheds where no spinning at all was attempted. Cartwright’s
invention carried weaving back to spinning, because both operations
then needed power, and the trouble of marketing yarn was
largely spared by the reunion. Mr W. R. Grey stated in 1833
to the committee of the House of Commons on manufactures,
commerce and shipping, that he knew of no single person then
building a spinning mill who was not attaching to it a power-loom
factory. Some years later the weaving-shed split away
from spinning, partly no doubt because of the economies of
industrial specialism, partly because of commercial developments,
to be described later, which rendered dissociation less hazardous
than it had been, and partly because, in consequence of these
developments, much manufacturing (as weaving is termed) was
constituted a business strikingly dissimilar from spinning. The
manufacturer runs more risks in laying by stocks than the
spinner, because of the greater variety of his product and the
more frequent changes that it undergoes. The former, therefore,
must devote more time than the latter to keeping his order book
and the productive power of his shed in close correspondence.
The minute care of this kind that must be exercised in some
classes of businesses explains why the small manufacturer still
holds his own while the small spinner has been crushed out.
It also explains to some extent the prevalence of joint-stock
companies in spinning, and their comparative rarity in manufacturing.
Here we should notice, perhaps, that the only
combination of importance in the cotton industry proper (apart
from calico-printing, bleaching, &c., and the manufacture of
sewing-cotton) is the Fine Cotton Spinners and Doublers
Association, founded in 1898, which is practically coextensive
with fine spinning and doubling.
- ↑ Figures for the years above up to 1838 will be found in parliamentary reports (1840), xxiv. p. 611.
- ↑ This is the manuscript diary of a weaver of Oldham roughly covering the period 1787 to 1830. It is now in the Oldham public library. Mr S. Andrew edited extracts from it in a series of articles in the Standard (an Oldham paper), under the title Annals of Oldham, beginning January 1, 1887.
