7.6. Low Wages and High Volumes around 1830-1834

The main point to be cleared up, is why the hand-loom weavers were receiving such low payments in the years around 1834, when the demand was very high, that is, the workers were forced by the demand to work 12 hours a day.

“The machine-makers of Lancashire are engaged to the full extent of their power in constructing power-looms, so that the number increases almost daily. We should be wrong however if we inferred that hand-looms are lying unemployed. Power looms have not hitherto been found applicable to the production of fine cloths, or what are called fancy goods. …. In the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed in the summer of 1834, ….. we find a statement given in evidence by Mr. Makin, a manufacturer of Bolton, to the following effect: “I know that there is at the present no surplus of weavers. …. But it is a strange fact that, whilst the demand for hand-loom cloth is greater than the production, yet the wages do not rise.””

(Porter, 1836, p. 219)

“At the present time there is no super-abundance of work-people in Manchester; there is an actual scarcity of weavers; I have now about twenty power-looms standing for want of hands, and have a great many unfit hands in the employment for want of better. I could, likewise, at this moment, and for the last two months, have given employment to 300 to 400 hand-loom weavers more than I have been able to get. These are plain calico weavers, and their average wages in a week are about seven or eight shillings; the wages of hand-loom weavers are higher now than they have been for six years.

I consider the insufficient supply of labour in this town one of the chief causes of the employment of children in the factories, and of the high rate of wages that they receive.”

(Commissioners for Enquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland, Report on the State of the Irish Poor in Great Britain, 1834, Appendix III, Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, p. 66, Evidence of John Guest, cotton manufacturer, of Manchester)

“Are the hand-loom weavers in full employment? “Yes.”

“Then it is not from scarcity of work that they are suffering, but from want of adequate wages?” “Yes.”

(Select Committee on Manufactures, Commerce, and Shipping, 1833; evidence of Mr. George Smith, Cotton Spinner, Manchester, p. 565)

“What is the condition of the hand-loom weavers generally in the borough of Bolton, with respect to wages and employment?” “Their wages are lower than ever I have known them at any former period; their employment is complete; I do not suppose there is or needs to be one weaver out of employment, and that has been the case for the last three or four years.”

(Select Committee on Hand-Loom Weavers Petitions, 1834, evidence of Mr. John Makin, Manufacturer, Bolton, p. 388)

“Have you constant employment just now?” “We have had a surplus of work for these six months.”

(Select Committee on Hand-Loom Weavers’ Petitions, 1834, p. 212, evidence of Mr. Thomas Mallock, Hand-loom weaver, Glasgow)

“Do you not think if we did not get an additional quantity of goods for the manufactures we sent abroad, still there would be additional employment, which would benefit them?” “We have too much employment already, they work till 12 o’clock at night.”

(Select Committee on Hand-Loom Weavers’ Petitions, 1834, p. 355, evidence of Mr. Thomas Myerscough, Manufacture with hand-loom weavers, Bolton)

“The hand-loom is, in fancy goods, more used than the power-loom; yet every year does the number of power-looms increase! Six years ago there were 150,000, and in the empire [Great Britain] now the number probably exceeds 220,000.”

(Whellan, Directory of Manchester & Salford, ….., Booth and Milthorp, London, 1853, p. xxviii)

This point of the excess of demand over production, can be seen in the following table, which reconstructs very approximately (using a number of estimates from different publications) the weights of woven cotton produced in hand-looms and in power-looms. The column of totals gives figures of the same magnitude as the consumption table some pages above (net of export of yarn, which obviously was not worked in a loom in England). The power-looms, after a long period of continuous improvement, reached a velocity of more than three times that of the hand-looms. The inference is that there is a very large volume of cotton being imported, and that all the available looms – hand-looms plus power-looms – are required. The hand weavers were working full out (until ca. 1838) because their volume was needed. It is not true that the weavers were working very long hours because there was competition between them to produce more cloth, and thus compensate for the low piece rates. The power-looms, which were being built as fast as possible, were giving the possibility of increasing the total production of the country.

Production of woven cotton cloth

Year	Hand Looms (*)	Lbs. / Loom /Year	Total Prod. ‘000 lbs.	Power Looms(*)	Lbs. / Loom /Year	Total Prod. ‘000 lbs.

1790	75,000	400	30,000	0	0	0
1800	160,000	400	64,000	0	0	0
1810	200,000	500	100,000	2,000	600	1,200
1820	240,000	500	120,000	14,000	1200	15,600
1830	240,000	500	120,000	60,000	1500	90,000
1835	210,000	500	105,000	110,000	1700	187,000
1840	120,000	400	48,000	150,000	2000	300,000
1849	25,000	400	10,000	240,000	2300	552,000

Year	Total Prod. Hand Looms ‘000 lbs.	Total Prod. Power Looms ‘000 lbs.	Sum of Prod. Hand and Power ‘000 lbs.

1790	30,000	0	30,000
1800	64,000	0	64,000
1810	100,000	1,200	101,200
1820	120,000	15,600	135,600
1830	120,000	90,000	210,000
1835	105,000	187,000	292,000
1840	48,000	300,000	348,000
1849	10,000	552,000	562,000

(*) All Great Britain, not only Lancashire

The Commissioner of the Report on Hand-loom Weavers in 1840 was surprised “at the discovery that notwithstanding the gigantic competition of the power loom the number of hand looms employed in this branch of the trade of weaving is not only considerable, but from almost universal testimony almost as great as at any former period. …. It would seem that the power loom has created for itself a market almost sufficient to carry its own production leaving the demand for cotton cloth nearly as great as before.”

(Knowles, 1922, p. 55)

Year	Consumption of Cotton (lbs.)	Export of Cloth (Value in Pounds)

1835	333,043,000	52,333,000
1836	363,684,000	58,578,000
1837	368,445,000	51,130,000
1838	455,036,000	64,812,000
1839	352,000,000	67,917,000
1840	528,142,000	73,152,000
1841	437,093,000	69,798,000
1842	473,976,000	68,684,000
1843	581,303,000	82,189,000
1844	554,196,000	91,039,000
1845	679,063,000	93,665,000

(Porter, 1851, p. 178)

Hand loom, Yorkshire, mid nineteenth century (this example was used for wool, but the design was similar for cotton); Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighly, West Yorkshire.