The Natural History of Wiltshire Part 23

WOOLL.

[THE author appears to have merely commenced this chapter; which, as it now stands in the ma.n.u.script, contains little more than is here printed. The three succeeding chapters are connected in their subjects with the present. - J. B.]

THIS nation is the most famous for the great quant.i.ty of wooll of any in the world; and this county hath the most sheep and wooll of any other. The down-wooll is not of the finest of England, but of about the second rate. That of the common-field is the finest.

Quaere, if Castle Comb was not a staple for wooll, or else a very great wooll-market?

Mr. Ludlowe, of the Devises, and his predecessours have been wooll- breakers [brokers] 80 or 90 yeares, and hath promised to a.s.sist me.

Quaere, if it would not bee the better way to send our wooll beyond the sea again, as in the time of the staple? For the Dutch and French doe spinn finer, work cheaper, and die better. Our cloathiers combine against the wooll-masters, and keep their spinners but just alive: they steale hedges, spoile coppices, and are trained up as nurseries of sedition and rebellion.

[For a long series of years the clothiers, or manufacturers, and the wool-growers, or landowners, entertained opposite opinions respecting the propriety of exporting wool; and numerous acts of parliament were pa.s.sed at different times encouraging or restricting its exportation, as either of these conflicting interests happened to prevail for the time with the legislature. The landowners were generally desirous to export their produce, without restriction, to foreign markets, and to limit the importation of competing wool from abroad. The manufacturers, on the contrary, wished for the free importation of those foreign wools, without an admixture of which the native produce cannot be successfully manufactured; whilst they were anxious to restrain the exportation of British wool, from an absurd fear of injury to their own trade. Some curious particulars of the contest between these parties, and of the history of legislation on the subject, will be found in Porter's Progress of the Nation and McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary and Statistical Account of the British Empire; and more particularly in Bischoff's History of Wool (1842). The wool trade is now free from either import or export duties.

- J. B.]

PART II. - CHAPTER X.

FALLING OF RENTS.

[AUBREY addressed to his friend Mr. Francis Lodwyck, merchant of London, a project on the wool trade; proposing, amongst other things, a duty on the importation of Spanish wool, with a view to raise the price of English wool, and consequently the rent of land. (See the Note on this subject in the preceding page.) Mr. Lodwyck's letter in reply, fully discussing the question, may be consulted in Aubrey's ma.n.u.script by any one interested in the subject It is inserted in the chapter now under consideration; which contains also a printed pamphlet with the following t.i.tle:- "A Treatise on Wool, and the Manufacture of it; in a letter to a friend: occasioned upon a discourse concerning the great abatements and low value of lands.

Wherein it is shewed how their worth and value may be advanced by the improvement of the manufacture and price of our English wooll.

Together with the Presentment of the Grand Jury of the County of Somerset at the General Quarter Sessions begun at Brewton the 13th day of January 1684. London. Printed for William Crooke, at the Green Dragon without Temple Bar. 1685." (Sm. 4to. pp. 32.) - J. B.]

THE falling of rents is a consequence of the decay of the Turky-trade; which is the princ.i.p.all cause of the falling of the price of wooll.

Another reason that conduces to the falling of the prices of wooll is our women's wearing so much silk and Indian ware as they doe. By these meanes my farme at Chalke is worse by sixty pounds per annum than it was before the civill warres.

The gentry living in London, and the dayly concourse of servants out of the country to London, makes servants' wages deare in the countrey, and makes scarcity of labourers.

Sir William Petty told me, that when he was a boy a seeds-man had five pounds per annum wages, and a countrey servant-maid between 30 and 40s. wages. [40s. per ann. to a servant-maid is now, 1743, good wages in Worcesters.h.i.+re.- MS. NOTE, ANONYMOUS.]

Memorandum. Great increase of sanfoine now, in most places fitt for itt; improvements of meadowes by watering; ploughing up of the King's forrests and parkes, &c. But as to all these, as ten thousand pounds is gained in the hill barren countrey, so the vale does lose as much, which brings it to an equation.

The Indians doe worke for a penny a day; so their silkes are exceeding cheap; and rice is sold in India for four pence per bush.e.l.l.

PART II - CHAPTER XL

HISTORIE OF CLOATHING.

[THE following are the only essential parts of this chapter, which is very short.-J. B.]

KING Edward the Third first settled the staples of wooll in Flanders.

See Hollinshead, Stowe, Speed, and the Statute Book, de hoc.

Staple, "estape", i e. a market place; so the wooll staple at Westminster, which is now a great market for flesh and fish.

When King Henry the Seventh lived in Flanders with his aunt the Dutchess of Burgundie, he considered that all or most of the wooll that was manufactured there into cloath was brought out of England; and observing what great profit did arise by it, when he came to the crown he sent into Flanders for cloathing manufacturers, whom he placed in the west, and particularly at Send in Wilts.h.i.+re, where they built severall good houses yet remaining: I know not any village so remote from London that can shew the like. The cloathing trade did flourish here till about 1580, when they removed to Troubridge, by reason of (I thinke) a plague; but I conjecture the main reason was that the water here was not proper for the fulling and was.h.i.+ng of their cloath; for this water, being impregnated with iron, did give the white cloath a yellowish tincture. Mem. In the country hereabout are severall families that still retaine Walloun names, as Goupy, &c.

The best white cloaths in England are made at Salisbury, where the water, running through chalke, becomes very nitrous, and therefore abstersive. These fine cloathes are died black or scarlet, at London or in Holland.

Malmesbury, a very neat town, hath a great name for cloathing.

The Art of Cloathing and Dyeing is already donn by Sir William Petty, and is printed in the History of the Royall Society, writt by Dr.

Spratt, since Bishop of Rochester.

PART II.-CHAPTER XII.

EMINENT CLOATHIERS OF THIS COUNTY.

[IN this chapter there is a long "Digression of Cloathiers of other Counties," full of curious matter, which is here necessarily omitted.

- J. B.]

.. . SUTTON of Salisbury, was an eminent cloathier: what is become of his family I know not.

[John] Hall, I doe believe, was a merchant of the staple, at Salisbury, where he had many houses. His dwelling house, now a taverne (1669), was on the Ditch, where in the gla.s.se windowes are many scutchions of his armes yet remaining, and severall merchant markes.

Quaere, if there are not also wooll-sacks in the pannells of gla.s.s?

[Of this house and family the reader will find many interesting particulars in a volume by my friend the Rev. Edward Duke, of Lake House, near Amesbury. Its t.i.tle will explain the work, viz.

"Prolusiones Historicae; or, Essays Ill.u.s.trative of the Halle of John Halle, citizen and merchant of Salisbury in the reigns of Henry VI.

and Edward IV.; with Notes ill.u.s.trative and explanatory. By the Rev.

Edward Duke, M.A., F.S.A., and L.S. in two vols. 8vo. 1837." (Only one volume has been published.) - J. B.]

The ancestor of Sir William Webb of Odstock, near Salisbury, was a merchant of the staple in Salisbury. As Grevill and Wenman bought all the Coteswold wooll, so did Hall and Webb the wooll of Salisbury plaines; but these families are Roman Catholiques.

The ancestor of Mr. Long, of Rood Ashton, was a very great cloathier.

He built great part of that handsome church, as appeares by the inscription there, between 1480 and 1500.

[William] Stump was a wealthy cloathier at Malmesbury, tempore Henrici VIII. His father was the parish clarke of North Nibley, in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and was a weaver, and at last grew up to be a cloathier. This cloathier at Malmesbury, at the dissolution of the abbeys, bought a great deale of the abbey lands thereabout. When King Henry 8th hunted in Bradon Forest, he gave his majesty and the court a great entertainment at his house (the abbey). The King told him he was afraid he had undone himself; he replied that his own servants should only want their supper for it. [See this anecdote also in Fuller's Worthies, Wilts.h.i.+re. - J. B.] Leland sayes that when he was there the dortures and other great roomes were filled with weavers' loomes. [The following is the pa.s.sage referred to (Leland's Itinerary, vol. ii. p.

27.) "The hole logginges of th' abbay be now longging to one Stumpe, an exceeding rich clothiar, that boute them of the king. This Stumpe was the chef causer and contributor to have th' abbay chirch made a paroch chirch. At this present tyme every corner of the vaste houses of office that belongid to th' abbay be full of lumbes to weeve cloth yn, and this Stumpe entendith to make a strete or 2 for cloathiers in the back vacant ground of the abbay that is withyn the town waulles.

There be made now every yere in the town a 3,000 clothes." See "Memorials of the Family of Stumpe", by Mr. J. G. Nichols, in "Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica", vol. vii. - J. B.]

Mr. Paul Methwin of Bradford succeeded his father-in-law in the trade, and was the greatest cloathier of his time (tempore Caroli 2nd). He was a worthy gentleman, and died about 1667. Now (temp. Jacobi II.) Mr. Brewer of Troubridge driveth the greatest trade for medleys of any cloathier in England.

PART II.-CHAPTER XIII.

FAIRES AND MARKETTS.

FAIRES. The most celebrated faire in North Wilts.h.i.+re for sheep is at Castle Combe, on St. George's Day (23 April), whither sheep-masters doe come as far as from Northamptons.h.i.+re. Here is a good crosse and market-house; and heretofore was a staple of wooll, as John Scrope, Esq. Lord of this mannour, affirmes to me. The market here now is very inconsiderable. [Part of the cross and market-house remain, but there is not any wool fair, market, or trade at Castle Combe, which is a retired, secluded village, of a romantic character, seated in a narrow valley, with steep acclivities, covered with woods. The house, gardens, &c. of George Poulett Scrope, Esq. M.P., the Lord of the Manor, are peculiar features in this scene. - J. B.]