Chapter II: The Organisation of the Cotton Manufacture 30-71

I.--Clothiers in the Northern cloth district; Martin
Byrom of Manchester (1520); statute (1543) refers
to Irish merchants and others who sell linen-yarn
and wool on credit in Manchester; petition of
Lancashire clothiers against restrictions on middlemen
(1577), 30-31; wealthy men engaged in
Lancashire cloth trade--_e.g._ the Tippings, Mosleys,
Chethams; their charitable bequests; extent of
their concerns, 32-34; Humphrey Chetham bought
goods for London market; employed workpeople
in spinning yarn and in weaving and finishing cloth;
typical clothier of the domestic system, 35-36;
small independent producers not typical workpeople
in Manchester district in early eighteenth
century; evidence of statutes; changes in
organisation of fustian manufacture; testimony
of Ogden and Guest, 36-39.

II.--Organisation of smallware trade; manufacturers,
undertakers, journeymen, apprentices; changes
in first half of eighteenth century; combination of
workpeople; articles (1747-1753) aim at enforcing
apprenticeship and limiting number of apprentices,
40-42; increasing price of food and consequent
disturbances; smallware weavers attempt to
raise wages; prosecution and submission at
Lancaster Assizes (1760), 42-45; Lord Mansfield’s
charge on combinations in Lancashire (1758);
combination of check-weavers; dispute with
employers and strike in Manchester area; the
“document”; demand regulation of trade under
statute 5 Eliz.; proposals for settlement of dispute
by weavers and Mr. Percival; submission and
prosecution at Lancaster Assizes (1759); Lord
Mansfield’s comments on Statute of Apprentices;
later history of smallware weavers’ combination;
economic and social significance of the combinations;
their relation to earlier associations and to
modern trade unions, 45-55.

III.--Distribution of manufacturers and workpeople in
Manchester area in first half of eighteenth century;
connections maintained by “putting out” system,
56; trade in raw materials; cotton imported
through London, Liverpool, Whitehaven, Lancaster;
wool reached manufacturers through inland traders;
linen yarn spun in England and Scotland, but
Ireland and the Continent most important sources
of supply; qualities of yarn, and goods in which
used; cotton merchants and yarn merchants in
Manchester; foreign trading-connections; Manchester
goods exported to West Indies, Africa, Italy,
Germany, North America, Russia, Asiatic Turkey,
57-60; inland trade carried on by travelling merchants
with pack-horses; partly displaced from early
eighteenth century by “riders-out” who solicited
orders; goods forwarded by carriers; development
of communications; importance of petty-chapmen;
links between manufacturing centres
and country districts; organisation of their trade
and capital involved; economic development
during century preceding great inventions in
cotton industry, 60-66; tables relating to manufacturers,
merchants, crofters, and carriers in
Manchester area (1772), 67-71.