11th May, 2007
Decline in Income
The ever increasing use of mechanisation in the textile industry led to the decline in standards of living among hand-weavers.
There are many examples of the rapid decline of their income. For example, William Dodd, describes a Wigan hand-weaver whose income had fallen from 20s (100p) per week to just 7s. (35p). Other sources quote a decline in income of 40s (200p) per week to just 6s (30p). This came in tandem with a much longer working day.
Working Conditions
Even during the good times, life was difficult. Hand-weavers in Wigan worked in cellars which were often damp and prone to flooding.
In Hallgate, near the centre of town, in 1849, a weaver named Beamish, worked in a damp cellar with an unpaved earthen floor. The cellar suffered from inundations of untreated sewage from a ditch, which was prone to flooding in wet weather. Even when conditions were good, the ditch's contents "oozed through the walls", as it was 3ft above the floor of the houses.
The loom treadle was placed in a hole in the floor which flooded, so Beamish was obliged to work for long hours with his right foot dipping in and out of "putrescent filth".
Hand-weavers were not subjected to the horrendous accidents from which miners suffered, but the damp working conditions and the repetitive pumping of the foot treadle, must have caused health problems.
Standard of Living
Inevitably, with a severe decline in income came a severe decline in living standards.
In 1842, a weaver, William Houghton, had a wife and four children and worked in his house in "the Scholes or the Scows of Wigan". He earned just 7s (35p) per week. One of his boys was also a weaver and was obliged to work "from five in the morning till dark, and sometimes till 12 at night, in the dark, ill-ventilated cellar." He earned just 3s (15p) per week. The family were starving, in spite of receiving parochial relief.
This is how the Children's Employment Commission of 1842 describes their existence.
"No.112. - WILLIAM HOUGHTON, Weaver, Scholes, Wigan, May 15, 1841: This man's house is situated in the Scholes (or Scows) of Wigan. The family consists of a wife and four children.
The father earns by his loom, per week 7s 0d (35p), His eldest boy 3s (15p).
To earn this, the boy has to work from five o'clock in the morning till dark, and sometimes till 12 at night, in the dark ill-ventilated cellar.
This family is in the receipt of parochial relief.
Weekly earnings of the family: 11s (55p)
Deduct rent 2s 3d (11.5p)
Fire 1s (5p)
Total spent weekly: 10s 9d (53p).
This family was in the extreme of poverty, the woman declared to me that she could give no account of the way in which the money was spent; it all went in pence and half-pence. She told me that they had not seen flesh meat in the house for a long time, that the food was chiefly oatmeal, porridge, and bread; and that sometimes that they had nothing. The man told me that his children sometimes awoke him early in the morning, and whispered to him to give them some bread, and that often he had it not to give them."
Despite their low income and living standards, hand-weavers did not seem to have the same reputation as miners for "abject insolence, amidst filth, gross sensuality, and drunkenness."