A treatise on the origin, progressive improvement, and present state of the silk manufacture / [Anon].

  • Porter, George Richardson, 1792-1852.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the origin, progressive improvement, and present state of the silk manufacture / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    92/370 (page 68)
    laces, and girdles of silk, under the act of Henry VII., was now enforced with additional penalties. These compliances, on the part of the legislature, with the demands of the weavers, do not appear to have pro- duced all the beneficial results which were expected; as, in the very next year, it was rendered necessary, by their outrages, to pass an act, declaring it to be felony, and punishable with death, to break into any house or shop with the intention of maliciously damaging or destroying any silk goods in the process of manufacture. At the same time, the importation and sale were totally prohi- bited of all foreign made silks and velvets, with the only exceptions of those brought from India, and of silk crapes and tiffanies from Italy, hut which last were burdened with an additional duty of seventeen shillings and sixpence for every pound weight, one half only of which was to be drawn back on exportation. The journeymen weavers were, from this time, fre- quently led to form combinations for compelling the masters to raise the wages of their labour; and, in the month of October, 6Q, notwithstanding the severity of the enactment just recited, and in defiance of it, fre- quent acts of violence were committed upon the property of their employers, and looms, together with the goods in them, were often destroyed. These riots were not suppressed without bloodshed, several soldiers, as well as some of the misguided weavers, being killed in the skirmishes. The constant disputes which occurred between the journeymen and master weavers on the subject of wages, occasioned the passing of an act in the year 1773, whereby the aldermen of London for that city, and the magistrates of Middlesex for the county, were empowered to settle, in quarter sessions, the wages of journeymen silk weavers; and penalties were inflicted upon such masters as gave, and upon such journeymen as received or demanded, either more or less wages than should be thus settled by this authority. By the same act, all weavers of silk were restricted, under penalties, from