Gloves are manufactured chiefly at Woodstock, Wor cester, where the manufacture is so extensive that it employs nearly 500 women besides men, and the returns are about 100,000/.; Stourbridge, Hereford, York, Swin don in Wiltshire, Yeovil in Somersetshire, Hexham, &c. a number of weakly people and children are employed in this trade ; but they arc now made by machinery in some places. Chamois leather is dressed by mills at Darlington.
The amount of the value of this manufacture, in all its branches, it is impossible to ascertain with any de gree of accuracy, though it must be very considerable. In the article of shoes alone, the home consumption must be great ; if we suppose that it costs each indivi dual only 108. a year, on an average of all classes and ages, and of both sexes, for shoes, this will bring the amount to above 5,000,000/. The value of all other articles made of leather, such as harness, saddlery, Sze. and what is consumed in coaches, must, at least, reach the same sum ; so that, on a moderate calculation, the annual value of this manufacture may be rated at 10,000,0001.; estimating the value of the raw material at the usual rate, that is, as equal to one third of the value of the manufactured article, this will give us 3,333,3331., leaving 6,666,667/. As in many branches of this manufacture, especially in the most extensive, the shoe trade, there is little outlay of capital, except for the purchase of the raw material, probably 15 per cent. on this sum of 6,666,667/. will be nearly tire amount of manufacturing profit ; this will be »early 1,000,000/., and the remainder, divided by 25/., (the probable average amount of the annual wages of the persons who work at this manufacture,) will give us about 227,000 as the num ber of persons employed in the leather manufacture.
In treating of the mines of England, we incidentally noticed some of the iron works in which that metal was brought into the state of what is called pig and bar iron, partly because this process could scarcely be called a manufacture, and partly because we wished to form an estimate of the probable produce of the English mines, by ascertaining the quantity of pig and bar iron that was made in the kingdom. But now that we are about to enter on a view of the hardware manufacture, which, in point of extent and importance, is probably next to the woollen and cotton manufactures, and certainly has con tributed along with them, to raise the national character in the estimation of foreigners very high, on the score of ingenuity and industry ; it will be proper to commence this branch of our subject, by a notice of the most im portant iron founderies.
Perhaps the most extensive arc those at Colebrook Dale, in Shropshire, and at Mossbrough, near Rotheram, in Yorkshire, in which iron in all its forms is manufac tured, from the ponderous iron bridge to small culinary utensils. At Bersham, near Wrexham, there are not only smelting furnaces, but furnaces for smelting the pig iron, and casting it into various articles, such as cy linders, for fire-engines, water pipes, boilers, pots and pans of all sizes, box and flat irons, and cannon and ball of all dimensions. Here also are forges for malleable iron, and wire works, as well as a brass foundery. At Walton, near Chesterfield, there are a furnace and foun de•y, in which nearly the same articles are manufactured as at the works near' Wrexham. There are likewise large iron Ibunderies at Bradford, Burton on Trent, Neath, Merthy, Tydvil, Swansea, Tavistock, and many other places, particularly in the counties of Lancashire, on the northern part near Ulverstone, Durham, particularly at Swalwell, Winlaton, Lumley, SUortley Bridge, Derwent Coat, and Blackball Mills : at the three latter places are manufactories of steel for sword blades;—Gateshead, Chester-le-Street, and Sunderland ; Yorkshire, Stafford shire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, and Monmouth. Copper works are established at Swansea, Aberaven, Cobham, (at these two places there are also iron works, indeed they are often united,) Wandsworth, St Helen's, (at which place a very extensive business was carried on, while the Anglesea mines were most productive) likewise in the district of Furness in Lancashire. Great Marlow, where brass and steel thimbles are also made. Holywell, where copper sheets for the bottoms of ships, copper-nails, bolts, brass, brass-wire and plate brass, are manufactured. Macclesfield, where also copper for sheathing ships is made, and a considerable quantity of brass, hi ass-wire, brass nails, &c.