Economic Regulation and the Cloth Industry in seventeenth-century England

J. P. Cooper

doi:10.2307/3678763

Economic Regulation and the Cloth Industry in seventeenth-century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009

J. P. Cooper

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J. P. Cooper: Affiliation:
Trinity College, Oxford

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Preoccupation with the policies of governments as a major theme in the history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is now unfashionable with economic historians. However, masters of Oxford colleges and professors of social history can afford to be out of fashion. According to Mr Hill, ‘The Middle Ages in industry and internal trade also ended in 1641, when the central government lost its power to grant monopolies and to control the administration of poor relief. Attempts to prohibit the activities of middlemen, whether in industry or agriculture now ended…Guild regulations and the privileges of town oligarchies, long opposed by the common lawyers, became far more difficult to enforce…in the long run England's economic liberty, unique at that time in Europe, had a stimulating effect, especially noticeable after 1688 confirmed the political gains of the earlier revolution.’ Or as Professor Perkin claims '… the landed rulers of England… from the Restoration adopted the dynamic policy of laissez-faire in internal industry which Adam Smith… was to advocate in foreign trade.’ ‘Laissez-faire… was the direct consequence of the breakdown at the Civil War of the “Privy Council” system of central control.

Type: Research Article
Information: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 20 , December 1970 , pp. 73 - 99

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3678763 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1970

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References

^{page 73 note 1} Hill, C., Reformation to Industrial Revolution (London, 1967), p. 135.Google Scholar

^{page 73 note 2} Perkin, H., The Origins of Modern English Society 1380–1880 (London, 1969), pp. 183, 65–66.Google Scholar

^{page 74 note 1} Lipson, E., Economic History of England, ii (London, 1931), pp. 313, 324, 265, 288–89.Google Scholar

^{page 74 note 2} The Growth of English Society (London, 1949), pp. 176–80. This appears to be the source of some of Professor Perkin's phrases.Google Scholar

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^{page 76 note 1} E.g. Haines, R., The Prevention of Poverty (1674), Hodges, W., An Humble Proposal…(1693).Google Scholar

^{page 76 note 2} Supple, B. E., Commercial Crisis and Change in England 1600–42 (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 169–71, 189–92.Google Scholar

^{page 76 note 3} Commons Debates 1621, ed. Notestein, W.Relf, F. H., Simpson, H., vi (New Haven, 1935), pp. 436, 6.Google Scholar

^{page 76 note 4} ibid., ii, p. 75, J. Guy's speech and vii, pp. 574–75. iv, PP. 175–77.

^{page 76 note 5} ibid., iv, pp. 97–98.

^{page 77 note 1} ibid., ii, pp. 75–78; v, pp. 457–58.

^{page 77 note 2} ibid., iii, pp. 46, 48–49; iv, p. 228; other complaints about false making of cloth, probably to the 1622 commission, from Exeter, Bristol, Plymouth, Totnes, Dartmouth; B[ritish] M[useum] Hargrave MS. 321, pp. 87, 106, 133–-34.

^{page 77 note 3} Commons Debates 1621, vii, pp. 123–29.

^{page 77 note 4} Price, W. H., English Patents of Monopoly (Cambridge, Mass., 1913), pp. 27–28Google Scholar; Allison, K. J., The Wool Supply and Worsted Cloth Industry in Norfolk (Leeds Ph.D. thesis, 1955), pp. 613–47.Google Scholar

^{page 77 note 5} Commons Debates…iv, p. 175.

^{page 77 note 6} ibid., vii, pp. 197–201. Search was to take place when the cloth was sold which suggests merchants’ influence.

^{page 78 note 1} Their inclusion in the Merchant Adventurers' new charter had been a major grievance.

^{page 78 note 2} Friis, A., Alderman Cockayneg's Project and the Cloth Trade (Copenhagen, 1927), PP. 412–13.Google Scholar

^{page 78 note 3} A[cts of the] P[rivy] C[ouncil of England] 1621–23 (London, 1932), p. 201.Google Scholar

^{page 78 note 4} MS. of the Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle, Correspondence, vol. 16, fos. 196–99; May 1622. ‘Further considerations touchinge the clothiers and trade.’

^{page 78 note 5} ibid., fo. 194, April and May 1622, ‘Remedies proposed by the clothiers for their grievances…’

^{page 78 note 6} Bowden, P. J., The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1962), pp. 135–38, 165–66CrossRef Google Scholar; Unwin, G., Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford, 1904), pp. 234–36.Google Scholar

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^{page 79 note 2} ibid., pp. 147–53.

^{page 79 note 3} Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, ed. Steele, R. R. (Oxford, 1910), i, no. 1334.Google Scholar

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^{page 80 note 4} ibid., fo. 197, 25 Nov. 1622.

^{page 80 note 5} J. H. Commons, i, p. 749.

^{page 80 note 6} Wagner, D. O., ‘Coke and the Rise of Economic Liberalism’, Econ. Hist. Rev., vi (1937), pp. 30–44Google Scholar; Hill, C., The Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (Oxford, 1965), pp. 233–36, claims him as an advocate of laissez-faire for saying husbandmen would not work unless they made enough to support their families.Google Scholar

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^{page 81 note 2} House of Lords Papers, Supplementary 7 Apr. 1 May 1624, fo. 113.

^{page 81 note 3} B.M., Stowe MS. 360, fo. 7, 21 Mar.; J. H. Commons, i, p. 873.

^{page 81 note 4} P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], S.P. 14/166, fo. 211,15 May, Nicholas’ Diary.

^{page 81 note 5} ibid., fo. 216, 19 May.

^{page 81 note 6} J. H. Commons, i, p. 771.

^{page 81 note 7} Supple, Commercial Crisis, pp. 70–71, J. H. Commons, i, p. 793, A.P.C. 1623–25, pp. 268–69. The imprest money levied by the Adventurers was drastically reduced, not completely abolished, as the Commons wished. Their resolution that white cloth could be freely exported, if left unsold in Blackwell Hall beyond a month, was ignored, but free trade in coloured cloths and the cheaper old draperies was allowed.

^{page 81 note 8} Bodleian, Bankes MS., Bdle. 22/3.

^{page 82 note 1} B.M., Add. MS. 48,091, fos 9–11, 6^V.

^{page 82 note 2} Foster, E. R., ‘The Procedure of the House of Commons against Patents and Monopolies 1621–24’, Conflict in Stuart England, ed. Aiken, W. A., Henning, B. D. (London, 1960), pp. 59–85.Google Scholar

^{page 82 note 3} Commercial Crisis, p. 71 and n. 2.

^{page 82 note 4} J. H. Commons, i, pp. 775, 769.

^{page 82 note 5} ibid., p. 771; Hist. Ms. Comm. Exeter (1916), p. 166; John Prouse to the Mayor.

^{page 82 note 6} K. J. Allison, thesis, pp. 654 n. 4,674.

^{page 82 note 7} A.P.C. 1623–25, pp. 40–41, 248, 25 June 1623.

^{page 82 note 8} Commons Debates 1621, vii, p. 202.

^{page 83 note 1} Stephens, W. B., ‘Merchant Companies and Commercial Policy in Exeter’, Trans. of the Devonshire Association, lxxxvi (1954), pp. 139–40.Google Scholar

^{page 83 note 2} Heaton, H., The Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries (Oxford, 1920), pp. 220–24.Google Scholar

^{page 83 note 3} It is fair to add that Savile defended the Merchant Adventurers in the Commons in 1624, an attitude which survived in Leeds until the 1690s.

^{page 83 note 4} J. H. Commons, i, pp. 882, 887; April 1628.

^{page 83 note 5} Mann, J. de L. ‘Textile Industries since 1550’, Victoria County History, Wiltshire, iv (London, 1959), p. 149.Google Scholar

^{page 84 note 1} P.R.O., S.P. 16/155, no. 53. This is a n undated draft report of a commission of trade, part of which clearly refers to the 1622 commission's activities, cf. ibid., no 52.

^{page 84 note 2} P.R.O., S.P. 16/1, nos. 24, 62; /533, no. 86. Fisher, F. J., ‘Some experiments in Company Organization in the Seventeenth Century’, Econ. Hist. Rev., iv (1932–34), pp. 191–93.Google Scholar

^{page 84 note 3} Warwickshire County Record Office, Newdegate Parliamentary Diary 1628, fo. 52^v.

^{page 85 note 1} Reformation to Industrial Revolution, p. 139.

^{page 85 note 2} Bodleian, Bankes MS., Bdle 37/1, 34, estimates of the old custom on native commodities exported, suggest that no licences were given 1639–40.

^{page 85 note 3} P.R.O., S.P. 16/155, no. 54.

^{page 85 note 4} Bodleian, Bankes MS., Bdle 44/1, 57. The informer was paid to exhibit annual information which were not pursued and barred genuine prosecutions. The prosecutions were in 1634–35.

^{page 85 note 5} Supple, Commercial Crisis, pp. 121–22.

^{page 85 note 6} Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, pp. 85–98.

^{page 86 note 1} Foedera, xx, pp. 221–22; Privy Council Register {Facsimile) iii (London, 1967), PP. 59 93; 214–15 (Norwich).Google Scholar

^{page 86 note 2} Ramsay, op. cit., pp. 55–58; their victory was perhaps less definitive than this suggests as a proclamation of 1613 (Steele, i, no. 1140) tried to enforce search there and partly, if ineffectively, anticipated that of 1638.

^{page 86 note 3} P.C. Register Facsim., v, pp. 170–71.

^{page 86 note 4} Ramsay, G. D., ‘The Report of the Royal Commission on the Clothing Industry, 1640’, Eng. Hist. Rev., lvii (1942), pp. 485–93.CrossRef Google Scholar

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^{page 86 note 6} Ashton, R., ‘Charles I and the City‘, Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, ed. Fisher, F. J. (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 148, 151, 155–58.Google Scholar

^{page 87 note 1} Bodleian, Bankes MS., Bdle 58/7, Bdle 44/48, Bdle 23/4.

^{page 87 note 2} P.C. Register Facsim., xi, pp. 655–56, July 1640.Google Scholar

^{page 87 note 3} B.M., Stowe MS. 132, fo. 298; Bodleian, North MS. a. 1, fos. 123–25, Adventurers’ petition, undated and incomplete, states Spanish cloth is ‘become the greatest of all the drapperies…’

^{page 87 note 4} Allison, K. J., ‘The Norfolk Worsted Industry in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, pt. 2, Yorkshire Bulletin of Social and. Economic Research, xii (1961), p. 73.Google Scholar

^{page 87 note 5} ‘Sir Thomas Roe his Speech in Parliament…’ Harleian Miscellany, iv (London, 1744), pp. 414–16.Google Scholar

^{page 87 note 6} Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, ed. Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S., i (London, 1911), pp. 301–2.Google Scholar

^{page 87 note 7} Of a Free Trade (London, 1648), p. 16.Google Scholar

^{page 88 note 1} ‘Legall Fundamentall Liberties…’, 1649, The Leveller Tracts 1647–1633, ed. Haller, W. and Davies, G. (New York, 1944), pp. 436–37Google Scholar; Good Work for a Good Magistrate (London, 1651), pp. 80–81. In The Charters of London (1646) Lilburne included a petition for free trade by two merchants who wanted ‘both government and order in a solid and just way’ (p. 67), as did A Discourse…for the Enlargement and Freedom of Trade, especially that of Cloth (1645), p. 25.Google Scholar

^{page 88 note 2} Farnell, J. E., The Politics of the City of London 1649–57 (University of Chicago Ph.D. thesis, 1963), pp. 289, 195–99.Google Scholar

^{page 88 note 3} England's safety in trade s encrease (London, 1641), pp. 45–46, 3–6, 17–19, 55–56Google Scholar; Certain proposalls in order to the peoples freedome…(London, 1652), p. 22.Google Scholar

^{page 88 note 4} Letwin, W., The Origins of Scientific Economics (London, 1963), p. 240.Google Scholar

^{page 89 note 1} ‘The Advocate’ (1652) in Hinton, R. W. K., The Eastland Trade and the Common Weal (Cambridge, 1959), appendix B, p. 210.Google Scholar

^{page 89 note 2} James, M., Social Problems and Policy during the Puritan Revolution 1640–1660 (London, 1930), pp. 393–94.Google Scholar

^{page 89 note 3} P.R.O., S.P. 18/16, no. 138; by the end of 1651 the council was still awaiting a reply to its report on regulation of 22 September.

^{page 89 note 4} See note 4, p. 87 above.

^{page 89 note 5} ‘Industrial laissez-faire and the Policy of Cromwell’. Econ. Hist. Review, xvi(1946), pp. 93–110.Google Scholar

^{page 89 note 6} J. H. Commons, vii, p. 588. In the debate Mr Ash said ‘our manufactures are almost lost…into Holland for want of regulation’. His family had pioneered making medley cloths before 1640 and had obtained orders from the Privy Council to prevent imitations by say-dyed cloth.

^{page 90 note 1} Andrews, C. M., British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622–75 (Baltimore, 1908), pp. 66–70,72.1 am indebted to an unpublished paper by Dr P. Kelly of Peterhouse, for Worsley's authorship of the draft (pp. 71–74).Google Scholar

^{page 90 note 2} J. H. Commons, viii, pp. 340–41, 438, 480, 483.

^{page 90 note 3} ibid., pp. 375, 501, 505.

^{page 90 note 4} 14 Charles II c. 32; 14 Charles II c. 5; 12 Charles II c. 22.

^{page 90 note 5} Haley, K. H. D., Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968), p. 255.Google Scholar

^{page 91 note 1} P.R.O., S.P. 29/247, fo. 24; C. M. Andrews, op. cit., pp. 115, 127.

^{page 91 note 2} House of Lords, Main Papers, no. 215, fos. [121^A]^v, 122, 124–28.

^{page 91 note 3} ibid., fos. 129, 119^v, 132.

^{page 91 note 4} ibid., fos. 120^v, 131^v; A New Discourse of Trade (London, 1694), pp. 148–51.Google Scholar

^{page 91 note 5} P.R.O., CO. 389/1, fo. 38, none to be compelled to join the company which was to have an exclusive seal; S.P. 29/255, fo. 235.

^{page 92 note 1} House of Lords, Main Papers, no. 106, 8 November 1667.

^{page 92 note 2} ibid., no. 182, 20 April 1668.

^{page 92 note 3} J. H. Commons, ix, pp. 175, 229, 232; Youings, J., Tucker's Hall (Exeter, 1968), p. 121.Google Scholar

^{page 92 note 4} 22 and 23 Charles II c. 8.

^{page 92 note 5} Historical MS. Commission 9th Report, pt. ii, p. 109, House of Lords, Parchment collection, Box 17, no. 526.

^{page 92 note 6} Burley, K. H., The Economic Development of Essex in the Later Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries (London Ph.D. thesis, 1957), pp. 128–31.Google Scholar

^{page 93 note 1} J. H. Commons, ix, pp. 455, 504.

^{page 93 note 2} B.M., Add. MS., 25, 115, fos. 168–69, 175–76.

^{page 93 note 3} A Discourse of Trade in two Parts (London, 1670), pp. 14–15, 33–37, 44–45Google Scholar; England's Improvements Treatise III(London, 1675), pp. 24, 29–35, 46, 60–61, 66–67Google Scholar. Later he urged general freedom from regulation, but allowed apprenticeship for some industries, A Detection of the Court and State of England, ii (London, 1694), pp. 487–93.Google Scholar PubMed

^{page 93 note 4} Pp. 70–74.

^{page 93 note 5} The True English Interest (London, 1674), pp. ix–x, 6, 8, 80–84.Google Scholar PubMed

^{page 94 note 1} J. H. Commons, viii, p. 557; ix, pp. 175, 230, 275, 696.

^{page 94 note 2} All Souls College, MS. 156 b, pp. 315–18, Narcissus Luttrell's parliamentary diary. The Trade ofEngland Revived (1681) advocated regulation, naturalization and suppression of pedlars.

^{page 94 note 3} Considerations offered to all the Corporations of England (London, 1681).Google Scholar

^{page 94 note 4} Bodleian, MS., Aubrey 2, fo. 122; B.M., Add. MS. 32, 523, fo. 85.

^{page 94 note 5} ibid., fo. 54.

^{page 95 note 1} B.M., Add. MS. 34, 510, fo.113; cf. the programme associated with the 1672 Declaration in The Grand Concern of England Explained in Several Proposalls…By a Lover of his Country…(London, 1673).Google Scholar

^{page 95 note 2} Heaton, Yorkshire…Industries, pp. 235–40.

^{page 95 note 3} K. H. Burley, thesis, pp. 153–54.

^{page 95 note 4} I am indebted to Miss P. Corfield of the University of Birmingham for dispelling much of my ignorance about Norwich.

^{page 95 note 5} Edwards, J. K., The Economic Development of Norwich 1750–1850 (Leeds Ph.D. thesis, 1963).Google Scholar

^{page 96 note 1} J. H. Commons, x, p. 639; xi, pp. 17–18; J. H. Lords, xiv, p. 77; xv, PP–49, 53, 56, 81,410, 713, 715.

^{page 96 note 2} All Souls MS. 158a, pp. 224, 324; 158b, p. 379; Bodleian MS., Eng. Hist, b 209, fo. 90, Sir Richard Cockes.

^{page 96 note 3} J. H. Commons, xiii, pp. 182, 283, 447, 655; xiv, p. 558; P.R.O.; CO. 391/11, fos. 341–42, 3455 391/1 2, fos. 305, 329 393, 399–400.

^{page 97 note 1} Bodleian MS Locke c. 8, fo. 227; J. H. Commons, xi, pp. 766, 773.

^{page 97 note 2} P.R.O., CO. 389/14, pp. 1–22.

^{page 97 note 3} MS. of the House of Lords, New Series, v, p. 72; vii, p. 252.

^{page 97 note 4} Journal of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations 1708–15, pp. 137–139, 154–55, 157–59; Plummer, A., The Witney Blanket Industry (London, 1938).Google Scholar

^{page 97 note 5} Pollexfen, Henry, A Discourse of Trade and Coin (London, 1697), pp. 54–55, 150.Google Scholar

^{page 97 note 6} Reasons of the Decay of the Clothing-Trade humbly offered to the Parliament (1691); James Whiston, A Discourse of the Decay of Trade (1693); J. Haynes, A View of the Present State of the Clothing Trade (1706); Bulstrode Whitelocke's proposal for taxing, sealing and measuring cloth, 1695 (B.M. Broadsides 816 m. 14[115]).

^{page 97 note 7} J. H. Commons, xii, pp. 291, 294.

^{page 97 note 8} Heaton, op. cit., pp. 406–15; V.C.H. Wilts., iv, p. 158.

^{page 98 note 1} 2 and 3 Anne c. 4, 6 Anne c. 62. At least seven bills for general registries had been introduced into the Commons, three of them after 1689.

^{page 98 note 2} J. H. Commons, xiii, p. 783; xiv, pp. 17–18.I am indebted to Miss J. de L. Mann for these references and for other generous help.

^{page 98 note 3} K. H. Burley, thesis, pp. 128–31, 376–82; Brown, A. F. J., Essex at Work 1700–1815 (Chelmsford, 1969), pp. 18–19, II.Google Scholar

^{page 98 note 4} Davies, M. G., The Enforcement of English Apprenticeship 1563–1642 (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), pp. 235–43.Google Scholar

^{page 99 note 1} ‘Clothiers and Weavers in Wiltshire during the eighteenth century’, Studies in the Industrial Revolution, ed. Pressnell, L. S. (London, 1960), pp. 66–96.Google Scholar

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