The Victoria History of the County of Lincoln/Industries: Introduction

by William Oswald Massingberd

Layout 2

INDUSTRIES

THE most important early industries of Lincolnshire were connected with a great agricultural product of the county—that of wool. Foremost amongst the craftsmen were the Lincoln weavers, who had a charter from Henry II, which was unfortunately burnt, but which is stated to have provided that no one should exercise the office of weaver in the city of Lincoln or 12 miles^[1] round unless he be in the guild of weavers.^[2] But there were also weavers at Stamford,^[3] Grantham,^[4] and other places. It was provided by the regulations of the Lincoln weavers' guild that no brother exercise his trade of weaving by night, that is to say from evening to dawn of day, under the penalty of one pound of wax, and that no master of the said art pay more to his servant for his salary than has been of ancient custom 'by the mayor and commonalty of the city of Lincoln, and the gracemen of the said guild' under the penalty of one pound of wax.^[5] It has been stated on the authority of Lord Hale that the manufacture of cloth was in a great measure lost during the civil wars of King John and King Henry III, wool being transported in its raw state into foreign parts and there made into cloth:^[6] and the statement is confirmed by the very large exports of wool from Boston, and the collapse of the prosperity of Lincoln when the Staple was withdrawn,^[7] which would hardly have taken place had the clothmaking there been in as flourishing condition as in the time of Henry II. Still, clothmaking went on, and in the middle of the thirteenth century Lincoln was noted for its manufacture of scarlet cloth.^[8] But, as we have seen,^[9] Lincoln was unable to compete with the western counties in the manufacture of the finer kinds of cloth.

In 1516 an attempt was made to improve matters, the mayor brought to Lincoln a clothier who was to teach the improved methods of the art, and the leading citizens contributed to the supply of a stock of wool for his use, and next year it was ordered by the corporation that all spinners of wool and other clothmakers who shall come to the city shall have their freedom as long as they dwell there,^[10] this being meant as an encouragement to skilful craftsmen to take up their abode in Lincoln. In 1551 the question of clothmaking was discussed at an assembly of citizens at a common-council, it was believed that the manufactory would be 'a grette comodytye, releyff, weale and profight' to the city and to all the poor people within the same, and an agreement was made with the clothiers that they should have the late church of the Holy Rood with the churchyard and other land for the making a walk mill and a dye-house of the same church, so long as twenty broad cloths should be made yearly at the least, paying £10 if these were not made, any great plague being admitted as a reasonable excuse; all persons, who came to buy cloth, or bring wool, woad, madder, oil, alum or other necessaries for clothmaking were to be free of toll for seven years, the clothiers were to have a seal for sealing their cloths and such letters as they might desire to noblemen or worshipful men for help, and any lawful means found by anyone for improving the trade was to be sanctioned.^[11] It was directed that as the clothiers could not have the Shoemakers' Hall, as was granted to them, they should have a house at Butter-Cross for 40s. yearly.^[12] It was also provided that every one of the clothiers should pay to the gracemen and fellowship of the mystery of weavers of the city, for their upset to be sworn brethren unto the said fellowship, 3s. 4d., and 12d. yearly for their looms' farm, and should not work or cause to be wrought any other cloths but their own or the work of other clothiers upon pain of the penalties contained in the charter of the weavers.^[13] The expectations of the citizens were, however, never realized, although they directed their member in 1553 to apply to Parliament on behalf of the clothiers for licence to buy and sell their wool through Lincolnshire, shipping at Boston Haven.^[14]

In 1559 it was found that in diverse (sic) years then past the clothiers in the broad looms, so far from making twenty broad cloths, had made few or none.^[15] But the citizens, if they could not set up a profitable manufactory, would attempt to keep the poor employed, so in 1591–2 a knitting school was established, and John Cheseman, the knitter, undertook to set on work in his science all such as were willing to come to him or were sent to him by the aldermen, and to hide nothing from them 'that belongeth to the knowledge of the said science.' Spinning, dressing of wool, and keeping a mill were included, as well as knitting, and Cheseman provided ten wheels for which he was paid 4s. 8d.^[16] In 1624 Gregory Lawcock undertook to set all the poor of Lincoln upon work to spin, knit stockings, weave garterings, make stuffs and other manufactures of wool, and out of the gain to clothe the same poor; and £60 was to be lent him and £20 given to provide tools, bring workmen, and establish manufacturies, besides £10 yearly for teaching young spinners, while every citizen and other inhabitant of ability should wear at least one suit of apparel and one pair of stockings of such cloth or stuff as should be made in the city. But in 1629 this agreement with Lawcock was found to be so generally disliked that he was dismissed.^[17] Meanwhile the guild of the Lincoln weavers still maintained and enforced its privileges and regulations.

In a suit in 1635 the society of Weavers asserted their privileges within 12 miles of the city. A Scothorne weaver, a witness on their behalf, said that he knew the defendant, and he was brought up in the trade of a weaver under a Scothorne weaver, 3 miles from Lincoln, within the compass, jurisdiction, and power of the corporation of the society of weavers, and there was a custom used, 'and hath been time out of mind within the said city and compass,' that everyone setting up the said trade within the said compass of 12 miles shall pay for his upset 6s. 8d., and 6d. yearly towards the paying of the king's fee farm rent,^[18] and he had heard of a custom belonging to the said society that no weaver within the said 12 miles should take, fetch, or entertain any work or things to work out of the city and carry it into the country and there work it into cloth, and he himself was punished for this offence by the graceman, warden, assistants and society. It appears from other evidence that the defendant was a weaver, living at Greetwell, and that he had received yarn into his house and made it into cloth or 'Linsey woolsey,' and that Robert Peake, the graceman, with two others of the company of weavers, went to his house and did then and there threaten him that they would seal up his looms, unless he would give them a mark for every piece that he wrought of Lincoln work. It was stated that the weavers of the city took greater wages for weaving cloth than the country weavers did, and a country weaver said a weaver of Lincoln took 4d. for work for which he would take 3d.^[19] The weaving trade still went on, the evidence now being for the country districts. We find two young men put as apprentices to a weaver at Irby in 1676, a weaver at Lissington in 1668, one at Sutton in 1677, and one at Kirton in 1788.^[20] In 1787 the well-known Stuff Ball was established for the encouragement of native woollen manufacture, and held for two years at Alford, and afterwards at Lincoln. The ladies used to wear stuff gowns, and the gentlemen stuff coats, waistcoats, and breeches.^[21]

Amongst other craft-guilds at Lincoln were those of the fullers and the tailors. A provision of the Fullers' Guild in 1297 was that none of the craft should work in the trough, and none should work at the wooden bar with a woman, unless with the wife of a master or her handmaid.^[22] It seems that the fullers' work had then already risen to beating the newly-made cloth, lying in a trough, with bars or poles, and was no longer 'cloth walking.' Other provisions were, that none should work after dinner on Saturdays, nor on any days which they ought to keep as festivals, according to the law of the church: and that if a stranger to the city came in he might, upon giving 1d. to the wax, work with the brethren and sisters, and his name should be written on the roll, the penalty for not keeping the ordinances being half a pound of wax.^[23] The Tailors' Guild in 1328 ordained^[24] that if any master [tailor] took anyone to live with him as apprentice in order to learn the work of the tailor's craft, the apprentice should pay 2s. to the guild, or his master for him, or else the master should lose his guildship: and that if any master of the craft kept any lad or 'sewer' of another master for one day after he had well known that the lad wrongfully left his master, and that they had not parted in a friendly and reasonable manner, he should pay a stone of wax.

The ordinances of the company of Tailers were confirmed in 1679.^[25] They are too long to quote, but it is noticeable that the religious sanctions of the older guild are altogether omitted, there is no procession of the members to the cathedral church, no provision that each brother and sister should give 1d. for charity when the dean of the guild demanded, though there is an ordinance concerning the burying of poor brethren and allowance while living, as was of old. The fact seems to be that, while the religious character of the society ceased, it continued in some degree at least to be a benefit society.

The bulk and weight of the chief manufactures, and still more of the agricultural products of Lincolnshire, such as corn and wool, made the question of carriage of special importance even in the earliest times. How was wool to be brought to Lincoln to be made into cloth? How was wool to be sent to Boston for export to Flanders or elsewhere? How was cloth to be conveyed from Lincoln to purchasers in different counties? How were foreign merchants to get their cloth and other heavy goods to Lincoln and other places for sale? How was corn to be conveyed to markets for sale, or to ports for exportation? These were questions which had much to do with the early prosperity of our county. Of course there were the roads, but it can hardly be believed that they were good as a rule; sometimes they were impassable through floods, and some were mere 'causeys' along which only pack-horses could pass; so we must conclude that the larger portion of the goods was carried by water, and a study of the map of Lincolnshire will impress this upon our minds. To the north was the Humber. To the north-west were the Trent and the Don. From near South Witham, past Grantham to Lincoln and thence to Boston, was the Witham. In South Lincolnshire the Welland runs from Stamford to Spalding and thence to Boston. And there were the Glen and several natural streams. Nor was that all; there was the Fosse Dyke, an artificial canal, made for trade purposes, from Lincoln to Torksey on the Trent, and the Car Dyke, a catch-water drain, which was also used for boats and small ships. And it seems almost certain that drains made to carry off the water in the low districts were often used for the carriage of corn and merchandise. We can now see how well the principal places of trade in the county, and especially Lincoln and Boston, were provided with water communication. It was in 1121 that King Henry I made a way for ships by making a dyke from Torksey to Lincoln, turning in the waters of the Trent.^[26] Whether this was a new cut, or, as is generally believed, the opening out of an old one, the advantage to the trade of Lincoln is obvious. Foreign merchants could come up the Humber and the Trent to Torksey, and thence to Lincoln with their goods, and merchandise could be conveyed backwards and forwards by water between Lincoln and many parts of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. This was in the days when there was great clothmaking at Lincoln.

In 1365 the citizens of Lincoln made great complaint to the king in Parliament concerning the damage they suffered because ships and boats could not pass to and fro in the Fosse Dyke with merchandise and victuals as they were wont to do, and judges were commissioned to view the channel, and inquire by the oaths of honest and lawful men of the county who ought to cleanse the same, and to distrain those found liable and compel them to make good defects.^[27] But little or nothing was done, for ten years later the jurors of divers wapentakes presented that Fosse Dyke, having been anciently full of water, so that ships and boats used to pass to and from Nottingham, York, Kingston-upon-Hull, and other places by the River Trent, and so by this channel to Lincoln and from Lincoln to Boston, to the great benefit of the city of Lincoln and the advantage of all tradesmen passing that way, was choked up, and that the prior of Torksey and the town of Torksey, the prioress of Fosse, John bishop of Lincoln, Gilbert earl of Angus and his tenants Sir Ralph Daubney and other lords of towns lying on each side of the channel, ought to repair it.^[28] A commission was appointed, but again without definite result. In 1518 a commission was issued by the king for the cleansing of Fosse Dyke, and it was agreed at a common council held at Lincoln that as the sum required would be as large as 100 marks from the city alone it should be defrayed by such amounts as every man would give of his own good will: this plan was not, however, very successful, as several times citizens of credit were sent to ride to different places to collect sums to keep the dykers at work, attempts were made to obtain money by way of loan, and Bishop Atwater, who was the chief promoter of the undertaking, directed all curates and others in the diocese to be helpful in the same, and granted a pardon to all who would assist.^[29] An Act of Parliament was obtained in 1671 for improving the navigation between Boston and the Trent, and an agreement was made in 1672 with Samuel Fortrey, esq., that he should have one-third of the profits of the tolls in return for his help in carrying out the improvements, and the maintenance of a bridge in Saxilby, and his bearing one-third part of charges and losses,^[30] but nothing effective was done until the Fosse Dyke was leased to Mr. Richard Ellison in 1741 for 999 years. In the lease between the mayor and commonalty of the city of Lincoln and Richard Ellison of Thorne, co. York, merchant, the Act 22 and 23 Charles II for the improving of the navigation between Boston and the Trent is quoted, and it is stated that the citizens were empowered in consideration of tolls and duties thereby allowed to be taken to make navigable the ancient channels of the Witham and Fosse Dyke, so as they should within two years undertake the same, which as regards Fosse Dyke they did, and whereas the locks on the Fosse were in so ruinous a condition and the channel so warped and silted up that the navigation was in a great measure rendered useless, and the said Richard Ellison had agreed to make new locks and all other new works, and to deepen the channel so that boats drawing 3 ft. 6 in. might pass from the Trent to Lincoln, and to rent of them their two-third parts of the said channel and have therefor the tolls for 999 years, for the yearly rent of £50, the mayor, &c., had demised the same to him. The lessee was to repair and maintain the navigation, and all the locks and wharves, and keep the channel scoured. He was to maintain Saxilby Bridge, and if he should take down or alter Torksey Bridge, so that there should be any dispute with the lord of the manor, he was to save the citizens harmless. In dry seasons he might let in water from the Witham into Brayford sufficient for the navigation. Another lease assigned in 1741 to the same lessee at a rent of £25 the remaining third part of the channel of Fosse Dyke and its dues for 999 years, which had before been let to James Humberstone of New Inn, Middlesex.^[31] About Car Dyke there is little to say. It is mentioned in proceedings of the Commissioners of Sewers in the fourteenth century,^[32] but is generally supposed to have been made many years before that time. When Louth Spire was built 1501–16, stone purchased at Wilsford, south-west of Sleaford, was conveyed to Louth partly by water and partly by land, the carriage to Dogdyke being 1s. 6d. a load, that from Coningsby to Louth 2s.^[33] The price appears to be 1d. a mile per load whether by water or road.

The utility of the various rivers for commerce is undoubted. But a word seems necessary about the Witham. It was the great water-way between Lincoln and Boston in the palmiest days of those towns. There were two places on the Witham, Calscroft and Dogdyke, where the bailiffs of the city of Lincoln used to collect tolls in aid of the farm of the city. A complaint is made in 1275^[34] that the abbot of Kirstead appropriated to himself five years since a place called Calscroft, to the east of Sheepwash [Sepwas], where ships used to load and unload wool and other merchandise, and the bailiffs of Lincoln collected customs. A complaint was also made^[35] that the bailiffs used to take toll at Dogdyke [Dockedig] of divers men taking their merchandise to Boston, but that the steward of the Lord of Kyme had driven them away and forcefully seized the tolls they ought and used to take. In much later times we find Daniel Disney, esqr., lord in 1719 of the manor of Kirkstead, claiming a toll of 4d. a load of goods and merchandise landed from the River Witham upon certain 'Waths,' or brought to them to be put on board any vessel on the river, when a witness from Lincoln deposed that his custom had been to send goods to Horncastle Fair by water carriage as far as Kirkstead 'Wath,' where they were landed and carried on by land.^[36] Unfortunately the River Witham was sluggish and easily silted up, and we hear of numerous complaints^[37] in the fourteenth century about its condition, so that ships laden with wine, wool, and other merchandise could no longer pass as they used to do; but nothing really effectual was done until the eighteenth century. It is, as might be expected, difficult to obtain evidence about the use of streams and drains for commercial purposes, but an occasional notice may be found. In 1342 the earl of Angus informed the king that the Kyme Eau was so obstructed^[38] that ships laden with merchandise could not pass as they used to do, and offered to scour out the channel provided he was allowed to take certain dues from the goods passing in ships. Hammond Beck used to be navigable for boats laden with corn, and the inhabitants of Holland Fen in quite modern days used to bring their dairy and other produce down to Boston to market by this stream or drain.^[39] At the end of the eighteenth century a good deal of enterprise was shown in constructing canals in Lincolnshire. In 1794 an Act was obtained for making a canal from the Witham near Chapel Hill, along the course of the Kyme Eau and the River Slea, to Sleaford. In 1792 an Act was obtained for a canal from Horncastle to the Witham near Tattershall Ferry.^[40] In 1781 an Act was obtained for the improvement of the navigation of the Bourne Eau,^[41] from Bourne to the River Glen. In 1794 an Act was passed for the Caistor Canal to the Ancholme,^[42] which in earlier days had been so straightened as to be really a canal also. In 1763 an Act was obtained for a canal from Louth to Tetney, and it was completed in 1770 at a cost of £28,000.^[43] In 1792 an Act was procured for a canal from Stainforth, where the River Don had been stopped, to the Trent at Keadby, to restore the communication of the Isle of Axholme with Thorne and Doncaster.^[44] In 1793 an Act was passed for a canal from Grantham by Woolsthorpe to the Trent at Nottingham.^[45] Of these, the Louth, Horncastle, Bourne, and Sleaford Canals are derelict.

About the Lincolnshire roads in early days little is known for certain. Possibly the great main road through Stamford and Lincoln may have been in fair condition, but probably most roads were bad, many being mere tracks across the country. To repair the roads was doubtless the duty of landowners, lay and religious alike, and for those who had to pass from estate to estate to maintain themselves and their retinue, or to look after their affairs, this was their interest also. Yet it was by no means easy to enforce this obligation, the difficulty being naturally increased in the low districts, where the expense was the greatest. In 1316 the men of Claypole and the adjoining parts complained that the bridge of Oldehebrigge, which is on the confines of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, and which they passed on their way to Newark, was dilapidated, and the way so deteriorated that men passing that way could not examine the metes of the said way, whereby many losses and dangers befell them: and commissioners were appointed to view the bridge and way and inquire into the entire matter.^[46] In 1329 commissioners, appointed on the petition of the bishop of Lincoln and others, had ordered the bridge and road to be repaired and maintained at the cost of the township of Claypole; but the jurors, contrary to such advice, made a new bridge and a new road on the land of the bishop and others; commissioners were to examine into the facts, and if a new bridge and road had been made on the land of the bishop to remove them and replace the old ones, and do all they should think necessary therein.^[47] In 1332 twelve jurors had presented before the sheriff in his 'turn' at the hospital on the Strete (Spittal) that the abbot of of Louth Park had not repaired the causey at Flixborough, and had narrowed the common way by raising a bank; but the abbot said he had no lands by reason of which he ought to do the repairs, and that he raised the bank on his own soil without narrowing the way, and eventually a jury found in his favour.^[48] The abbot was also discharged of the liability to repair the causey of Louth Park. In 1333 it was found that the priory of St. Saviour de Ponte Aslaci had been given the site and certain lands for the maintenance of the brethren there, and that only what was over was to be devoted to the reparation of Holandbrigg, so the order that the prior was to repair and maintain the causey of Holandbrigg and thirty bridges over the same is amended, and the judges are to find out a way by which the bridge may be repaired.^[49] In 1337, a petition having been presented to Parliament that the ways between Croyland and Spalding were in a very dangerous state, and that this could be remedied by the abbot of Croyland making a causey on his soil between Croyland and 'le Brotherhous' on the understanding that he and his successors should take tolls for making and maintaining it from the persons using it, and the king having commanded the abbot to certify him whether he would bind himself to do this, the abbot wrote back that between the great bridge at Croyland and 'le Brotherhous,' where the dangerous part of the way is, there were 3 miles [leucae] of marshy land along the bank of the Welland on which it would be difficult to make a causey, inasmuch as, the land lying deep in a morass, the causey would have to be by the said bank, and since the bank was liable to be flooded in winter, the land whereon it would be made was at such times greatly loosened, as well by the passing of sailors and boatmen as by the force of the wind, and fell away to such an extent that any causey on it would be destroyed unless built deep and high and well protected: that for the convenience of the people of those parts there would also have to be several bridges across the Welland both at Croyland and across the causey, which must be built at great cost to be high enough for laden ships and boats to pass under them, and strong enough for carts to pass over them: that persons passing over there by ship in rough weather then paid for every cart laden 12d., for every horse laden 2d., for every man 1d., and for beasts and other things as the boatmen agree, and that these tolls are often doubled in time of flood and wind: but that he would undertake the work if the king would grant him corresponding tolls not exceeding half those now paid, and at the end of seven years some tolls of less amount for ever for the maintenance of the causey. The men of Kesteven and Holland petitioned Parliament that the king would call upon the abbot to carry out his answer. The king thereupon appointed commissioners to find out what tolls had been paid, on whose land the ships and boats making the passage landed, what tolls for seven years would enable the abbot to carry out the work, and what tolls would then suffice for the maintenance of the causey, how many causeys and bridges would be required and of what dimensions, and whether the work would be to the loss or prejudice of any.^[50] In 1332 commissioners were appointed to supervise the causeway between the Withebrigg by Langwath and the Claybrig towards Wragby, and the bridge of Claybrig, which were reported to be in a dangerous state by default of those who were bound to repair them, and to make inquisition who are to blame in the matter.

In later days Mr. Stonehouse^[51] tells us the roads in the Isle of Axholme were in a very bad state, almost impassable during the winter even on horseback. Attempts were made to lay a causeway with Yorkshire flags wide enough for a horse to walk upon, and during the high prices of 1810–12 the causeways were completed from one village to another, and the corn was delivered on horseback. Mr. Stonehouse says a person may still walk on these flags from Owston to Haxey, thence to Epworth, through Belton to Crowle and Luddington. Even on the Wolds, where the conditions were better, the roads must have been very bad, for in 1709 Vincent Amcotts writes that his '4 mares and mother's 2 leaders were stuck between Brinkle and Harrington with a small load of hay, which I bought for 12s. 6d.'^[52]

Another point of interest relating to the Lincolnshire industries is their distribution. William of Malmesbury, writing in the time of King Henry I, speaks of Lincoln as one of the most populous places in England, 'an emporium of men coming by land and by sea.'^[53] And we find shops or stalls of a more of less permanent character at Stow, 1231–4.^[54] Still, in those times shops must have been few even in the large towns, and it was at markets and fairs that for the most part clothing and the necessaries of life were obtained. We have seen how the bishop of Lincoln advised the countess to purchase her robes, wines, &c., at Boston Fair;^[55] no doubt he himself did so. The canons of Bolton Abbey also constantly attended Boston Fair,^[56] and there they purchased their best cloth, which could be conveyed by water as far as York. The system that prevailed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries would of course be considered highly inconvenient now, but those were days of fewer wants, and people used to buy goods that would last.^[57]

Most necessaries of life were produced on the manor, and villagers purchased things they wanted of one another. Thus at Ingoldmells in the fourteenth century, while we read of bakers and 'tipplers,' as on every manor, we find the tenants purchasing of one another malt, beans, flour, corn, timber, nails, and divers 'merchandise'.^[58] The extremely coarse clothing of the villein or labourer was mostly made at home, and there too, as now, the pig was fed.^[59] So there was not much occasion to go to markets or fairs, the groceries which are now in every house did not exist, and if a man wanted to go he had better opportunities than now, for there were markets in several places where now there are none. Gradually, however, such a fair as that at Boston declined in importance. Instead of the large sums received in 1283,^[60] from 1591 to 1690 the rents received for the shops in the mart-yard were £51 to £72 a year, the next twenty years about £42, 1731–40 they dropped to £11 10s., in 1741 to £5 13s.^[61] Evidently the habit of 'going shopping' was coming in. The markets and fairs for horses, cattle, and sheep continued, but clothing, groceries, &c., were purchased at the shops as now. Hence the increase in the population of the market towns, followed by an increase also in the larger villages where there was custom enough for more than one small shop.

For the causes which led to the gradual decay and final extinction of certain other local industries we must look to the working of the two great factors which have been of supreme importance in shaping the economic destinies of the county—namely, the drainage of the fens, and the introduction of steam as a motive power.

The enclosure of the marsh and fen for example, and the consequent absorption of the reclaimed tracts for purely agricultural purposes, considerably curtailed and finally put an end to the vast number of decoys which had given employment to hundreds of the inhabitants. Only a few winters before its accomplishment, ten decoys (of which five were in the parish of Friskney) supplied the London markets with 31,200 birds, duck, teal, and widgeon, 5,000 being considered a good season's return.^[62]

On the East Fen, as many as 300 acres were formerly devoted to the cultivation of the cranberry, or 'moss-berry' as it was sometimes called, introduced at the beginning of the eighteenth century by a native of Westmorland, in which county, as well as in Cumberland, the fruit flourished to perfection. In the fens an average yield was 2,000 pecks a season, although as many as 4,000 pecks have been collected, the pickers earning 5s. a peck. The markets principally supplied were those of Cambridgeshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, where 'cranberry tarts' were much in vogue. Since the drainage and enclosure few have been gathered.^[63]

The large flocks of geese still kept in the Fens near Spalding are but diminished reminders of that bygone trade in goose feathers to which the county owes at least one proverb, as recorded by that industrious gatherer of proverbial curiosities, John Ray: 'The Fenman's dowry is threescore geese and a pelt,' whilst Wheeler, in his History of the Fens, places the 'goose-cote,' or feather-bed, in the ranks of family heirlooms. Several persons whose yearly rental was but £5 kept 1,500 birds.^[64] The geese were treated with all the honour due to a profitable investment. While the breeding season lasted they were kept in the cottages, sometimes even in the sleeping-rooms. The nests were in wicker pens, arranged in tiers, one over the other. Twice a day the gooseherd or gozzard lifted the birds off their nests, attended them to water, fed them, and afterwards replaced them on their nests. These men, it is said, knew every nest, and the bird to which each belonged, a very necessary qualification for their office, as the least error in the matter would have resulted in throwing the whole community into confusion.

The geese were plucked five times a year to increase their feathers—namely, at Lady Day, for quills and feathers; at Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and Martinmas, for feathers only. Those taken from the live birds were esteemed of better value, yielding at the rate of 3d. per head a year, whereas the yield from the feathers of a dead bird was only 6d., three giving a pound. In some places the geese were winged each quarter only, ten feathers being taken from each goose, which sold at 5s. a thousand. Plucked geese on Wildmore Fen paid in feathers 1s. a head. In 1813 goose-quills were selling at 20s. per thousand. Young records an instance of one man on the Fens whom he met in the course of his survey of the county whose stock of geese was 160. From these he reared, in good years 700, in a bad season 500, an average brood being 8. These sold at 2s., the feathers bringing 1s. 8d. The cost of keep for each bird was 2s. 6d., half of which was spent in corn, but his net profit every year amounted to £40.^[65]

The trade in rabbits was no less lucrative. 'Warrens', writes Young, 'are reckoned profitable, so that some fortunes have been made on them.' One farmer whom he met at Partney Fair killed 500 couple annually on his 1,000 acres. The warrens around Brigg exceeded, in 1810, the numbers of any locality in the kingdom, whilst the dressing of the skins afforded employment to a majority of the townspeople. The silver-grey skins, which were most in demand, fetched from 8d. to 16d. each.^[66] A variety of this rabbit, it may be noted in passing, is still occasionally to be met with on Santon and other commons. The fur was used for linings of robes, tippets, and muffs, the down in the manufacture of hats, though for the latter, it is worthy of note, the fur of the common rabbit was most esteemed. The trade was an ancient one. In Elizabethan times poor workmen, called 'tawyers,' were employed to collect rabbit-skins from the pedlars who hawked them about the country.^[67]

Silk throwsting was carried on at Stamford in 1822 by Mr. Gouger, who employed between 300 and 400 hands, mostly women and children, the latter earning by winding from 1s. to 2s. per week, the women's wages averaging from 2s. 6d. to 4s. a week. The silk arrived in its raw state from Italy, Turkey, Spain, Bengal, and China, the latter being esteemed the best, whilst the Bengal silk was considered the worst. Postlethwayt affirms that the greater part came from Piedmont, the price paid being 20s. per lb.^[68] The bales weighed from 140 to 330 lb., one of 200 lb. weight could be returned from the mill to London in about three weeks.^[69] The process of 'throwing' consisted of doubling and twisting two ends of the silk together, after which it was converted into 'tram' or 'organzine,' according to the fineness of the silk or the purpose for which it was required by the manufacturer. The machinery at Mr. Gouger's mill was worked by a steam-engine of low pressure, of about eight-horse power.^[70] The local name for the factory was the 'Silk-school.'^[71]

At Louth in 1849^[72] there was a carpet and blanket manufactory, employing eighty persons.^[73]

Young^[74] writes of a Mr. Chaplin who established at Raithby, near Louth, a 'Big Ben' for wool-combing.

Round Normanby and Burton flax was spun and woven into linen in the same writer's time.^[75] The earnings of the women were 3d. a day.

The crushing of linseed was formerly carried on on a large scale at Gainsborough, notably at Borwell's Mill; 60,000 quarters (one-eighth of whole imported into the kingdom) was yearly wrought up into cakes and oil, employing four mills and twenty presses. The cakes were used for feeding stock. Each quarter yielded 2½ cwt. of cake and 90 lb. of oil. In 1842 the cakes were selling at £11 per ton, the oil at £32 per ton, the seed being bought at 30s. to 33s. per quarter.^[76]

Bishop Hall's Satires, printed in 1597, contain the following allusion to what must now be evidently reckoned amongst the lost industries of Lincolnshire. The writer is satirizing the niggardly clergy of the day, who, whilst regaling themselves with royal fare, insist upon the strictest economy below stairs:

What though he quaffe pure in his bowle
Of March brew'd wheat; yet slakes my thirsty soul
With palish oat frothing in Boston Clay.

William Billingsley, the celebrated flower-painter, was at Torksey from 1803 to 1808, but the small pottery there, in which he was associated with his son-in-law Walker, was closed in the latter year, owing to lack of funds to carry on the manufacture.^[77] Specimens of the 'Torksey Ware' were to be found for many years after in the collections of various persons scattered up and down the country.^[78]

Feather factories are a distinctive Lincolnshire industry at the present time. The feathers are received at the factories in enormous sacks from the farmers and poultry dealers. By means of cyclone machinery the fine feathers are separated from the coarse, the former being then purified by condensed steam in special ovens. The waste material, which is yielded in very considerable quantities, is sold to the fruit-growers as manure for their land. The workers spend about ten minutes at a time, the heat being intense, in the rooms over the ovens, emptying the feathers into the purifiers at intervals of twenty minutes.^[79]

A growing industry of the county is that of pea-picking, which gives employment to a large number of girls and women, not only in factories and workshops, chiefly situated in Boston, but also in their own homes, the peas being in this instance delivered in sacks at the cottage doors. The development of the industry is due to the growing demand for green peas for the table as sold by grocers, and owes its success in Lincolnshire to the enterprise of a firm which has taken for its model the lines upon which it is carried out in Canada. In two years it has become the foremost industry of the town, the busiest time being the winter months. The work, which attracts the rougher class of girls and women, consists in separating the good from the bad, discoloured, or shrivelled peas, all of which are fieldgrown, and in order to suit the buyers must be fairly uniform in size and colour. In some factories the best are packed in small boxes and packets for sale. The packers sit in rooms at long tables, separated into compartments, one picker at each. The peas are piled before her, and with both hands she rapidly sorts the heap, letting them run, when sorted, through a hole in the table into a sack beneath, each of these sacks containing 18 stone.^[80]

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1. Leucas. A later document gives the distance as 12 miles.
2. Certificates of Guilds, No. 160.
3. See preceding article on 'Social and Economic History.'
4. In 1450 three weavers, a webster, two walkers [fullers], one dyer, and two mercers are mentioned as indicted at Grantham (Colonel Welby's papers).
5. Certificates of Guilds, No. 160.
6. Frost, Hull, quoting Lord Hale's Treatise concerning the customs.
7. See preceding article on 'Social and Economic History.'
8. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 105.
9. See preceding article on 'Social and Economic History.'
10. Hist. MSS. Commission 14th Report, Appendix viii, 26.
11. Ibid. 44. Ross, Civitas Lincolnia, 65.
12. Ibid. 45.
13. Ibid.
14. Hist. MSS. Commission 14th Report, Appendix viii, 47.
15. Ibid. 51.
16. Ibid. 17.
17. Ibid. 97, 98, 99.
18. The payment of £6 yearly for the weavers' guild, paid to the city of Lincoln since 1408 towards the rent due from the city to the king.
19. Excheq. K.R. Depos. 11 Car. I, Trin. 1, Linc
20. Quarter Session Minutes.
21. Sir C. Anderson, Lincoln Pocket Guide, 176.
22. Toulmin Smith, English Gilds, 180.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Hist. MSS. 14th Report, App. viii, 108.
26. Roger de Hoveden, Rerum Anglic. Scriptores post Bedam, 477.
27. Dugdale, Imbaking, &. 167.
28. Ibid. 167, quoting 'Plac. coram rege,' 49 Edw. III, rot. 17.
29. Ross, Civitas Lincolnia, 57–8.
30. Hist. MSS. 14th Report, App. viii, 18.
31. Lease of the Fossedike Navigation, etc. local pamphlets, Lincoln, 1826.
32. Wheeler, Fens, &. 248; Bishop Trollope, Sleaford, 69.
33. Louth Churchwardens' Accounts, per Mr. R. W. Goulding.
34. Hundred Rolls (Rec. Com.), i, 397.
35. Ibid. 315.
36. Exch. K. R. Depos. 5 Geo. I, fol. 28.
37. Wheeler, Fens, &. 140.
38. Ibid. 431.
39. P. Thompson, Boston, 264.
40. Wheeler, Fens, &c. 431.
41. Ibid. 435.
42. Brewster, Notes on S. Kelsey.
43. Goulding, Louth Records, 62.
44. Stonehouse, Isle of Axholme, 45.
45. Turnor, Grantham, xii.
46. Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1313–7, p. 430.
47. Ibid. 1327–30, p. 480. It was about this time that the two-spanned bridge over the Witham at Claypole was built, which has quite recently been so inexcusably destroyed by the district council. It was an exceedingly valuable specimen of a mediaeval bridge of which the county ought to have been proud.
48. Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1340–3, p. 137.
49. Ibid. 1334–8, pp. 3, 11.
50. Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1334–8, p. 449. In 1580 there was a suit concerning the right of the queen as lady of the manor of Deeping to levy tolls from persons passing along the bank by the water of Welland leading from Deeping to Crowland; there were three bars at three several places on the bank: at Waldron Hall, 'at ye crosse in the Eaye,' and at Crowland Hurne. [Excheq. K. R. Depos. 22 Eliz. Trin. 1, Lincoln.]
51. History of the Isle, 45.
52. Hist. of Ormsby, 176.
53. Rerum Angl. Scriptores post Bedam, 290.
54. Final Concords, 245, 259.
55. See preceding article on 'Social and Economic History.'
56. Whitaker, Craven, 458, 472. In 1313 the canons purchased at Boston Fair half a piece of cloth with fur for the lady of Stiveton, 71s. 4d.; one robe for Ralph de Otterburn, 19s. 4d.; furs for Sir Adam de Midelton for 2 years' wear, 19s. Ibid. 471.
57. In some instances our grandmothers' gowns, quite 100 years old, are in existence still, and very handsome they are; and Mr. Stonehouse tells us that fifty yeas or so before he wrote (1839) a servant girl got up at three o'clock in the morning to spin, and was clad chiefly in linsey woolsey garments, women in many instances wearing the same gowns and cloaks as their mothers. Hist. of the Isle of Axholme, 47.
58. Ingoldmells Court Rolls, 26, 50, 84, 99, 114.
59. The pedlars, too, with their packages must not be forgotten.
60. See preceding article on 'Social and Economic History.'
61. P. Thompson, Boston, 344, 346.
62. Oldfield, Hist. of Wainfleet, 180.
63. Ibid.
64. At Brothertoft a man's qualification for parochial office was the number of geese he owned (All the Year Round). Chronicles of English Counties, Nov. 1883, p. 511.
65. Young, Agric. Surv. 382.
66. Ibid. 890.
67. Strype, ii, 274.
68. Universal Dict. Trade, ii.
69. Harrod, Hist. of Stamford, 429.
70. Drakard, Hist. of Stamford, 422–3.
71. Harrod, op. cit. 429.
72. Hagar, Directory of Lincolnshire.
73. Founded by Mr. Adam Eve (Noble's Gazetteer, 1833, p. 71).
74. Young, Agric. Surv., 407.
75. Ibid.
76. Hist. of Gainsborough, 333.
77. W. Chaffers, Marks on Pottery, 931.
78. A relative of Billingsley's, Mrs. Wheeldon, had in her possession, amongst other deeds, one dated 25 October, 1805, in which Billingsley was described as of Torksey, 'China Manufacturer' (Haslem: The Old Derby China Factory, 51).
79. Factories and Workshops, Ann. Rep. 1904, 265.
80. Ibid. 234–35.