gave rise to a feeling of intense bitterness between masters and men. Wages were low, but not so low as in the cotton trade. Factory weavers earned in 1838 nearly twelve shillings a week; outdoor master weavers eight, and outdoor journeymen six.[1] These wages were much lower than those of 1825[2] and of 1808, and the Assistant Commissioner estimated that seven weavers out of ten had to seek occasional relief from the poor rates.[3]
The hosiery trade affords another example of the abuses to which the domestic organisation of production may lead when the domestic, semi-paternal motive has gone out of it and given place to a purely commercial and competitive spirit. This change seems to have begun in the hosiery trade about the middle of the eighteenth century when the old Chartered Company lost its privileges. The trade then fell largely into the hands of large hosiers of Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester. The two former localities produced both silk and cotton hosiery, but Leicester specialised in worsted goods. The raw material, that is spun yarn, was of course purchased from Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire. At the time of the Government inquiry in 1844–45[4] these large houses were both merchants, purchasing goods from outside makers, and manufacturers on their own account, employing knitters in their own factories. But the bulk of the labour was still performed in domestic workshops, scattered all over the three counties. The knitting was done by a frame which was a complicated piece of machinery, costly to purchase when new, and costly also to maintain in repair. Thus it was rarer than in the handloom-weaving trade for the knitter to own a frame, and the custom had obtained throughout a century for frames to be hired by the worker at a fixed rent which was deducted from wages.[5]
In 1844, therefore, employment in the hosiery trade could be obtained from two sources. The first was the hosier himself, either in his factory or as direct employer at home. The hosier supplied frame and yarn, and the price of labour was usually stated on a "ticket." In the second case, which was the more common, the work was obtained from a middleman or "bagman" who received yarn from the wholesale dealer, distributed it to knitters, and deducted from the market price of labour certain expenses which represented the wages of his
