Cotton yarns are obtained from Lancashire, and chiefly from Ashton, Stayley Bridge, and Bolton. Worsted yarns are mostly procured from Bradford and the neighbourhood, and merino or union yarns from Halifax and the localities around.
The Parliamentary Return for 1879, relating to the textile industries, gives the following figures concerning the number of manufacturing establishments and the people employed therein :— The Returns from which these figures are taken, being only those of the number of factories authorized to be inspected under the Factories and Workshops Acts, the persons still engaged in the domestic branch of the industry did not come within the cognizance of the enumerators, otherwise a considerable addition would have beeu made to these totals. A more important omission is the failure to give a census of the machinery employed in the various sections, or at least in the three broad divisions of worsted, cotton, and merino (union), productions.
That the above enumeration conveys a very inadequate idea of the importance of the hosiery trade, may be judged from the fact that, in the hosiery business of Notting ham alone, there were at work in 1865, 11,000 narrow hand machines, employing domestically 7500 men and 3500 women and youths, at wages ranging from 6s. to 26s. a week, averaging 10s. 6d.; also 4250 wide hand machines, domestically employing 4250 men earning 10s.-30s., and averaging 15s. a week. These 15,250 hand frames were scattered over eighty parishes in the county of Nottingham. These two classes of Notting hamshire hand machines give employment to about 20,000 women and girls as winders and seamers, earning about 4s. each on an average. There were also about 1000 wide power rotary frames employing 700 men, at 20s.-32s. a week ; and about 1600 girls and women seamers and winders, whose average earnings were 5s. weekly. There were in addition to these, 1200 sets of circular round power frames improved, employing 500 men and 500 youths, at 12s.-25s. weekly ; and 1000 women at 12s.-20s. weekly. The winders, cutters, menders, and others attached to
these were about 11,000 women and girls, averaging 7s.-12s. weekly. On about 400 warp machines, making hosiery by power, 400 men were engaged at 14s.-35s. a week, and 200 youths at 12s.-20s, ; besides 400 men warpers earning about 25s., and 2000 women and girls stitching, &c., at an average of 8s. a week. In bleaching, dyeing, and as porters, 2000 men were probably employed, at 20s.-35s. ; and 5000 menders, folders, &c., were occupied in the warehouses at 8s.-12s. weekly. To these should be added the staffs of warehousemen and clerks employed in the 80 establishments for finishing, and sale of goods, in Nottingham. These, all told, would make a total of fully 60,000 individuals.
The number of hands employed in the entire English hosiery trade in 1866 was computed to be as follows :-42,000 working narrow frames, 8000 at wide ones, and about 100,000 menders, winders, seamers, cutters, finishers, and makers-up, who are chiefly women and children—a total of 150,000 persons.
The value of the production in 1851 was estimated at 3,600,000/. ; in 1862, at 6,480,0001., and in 1865, at 7,795,0001,, which last advance was chiefly due to an increase in the price of the raw material. Afterwards there was a decline from this amount, but the subsequent growth of the trade will probably have carried it by this time to a point near 10,000,0001. per annum.
The hosiery industry has taken firm root in several foreign states, notably in France, and Saxony, and less firmly as yet in Russia, Austria, Spain, and Italy. In the United States of America, it has become comparatively flourishing, under the commercial policy adopted in that country. Several less important communities have also recently endeavoured to introduce the industry. When all chances of rivalry, however, are fully discounted, it is conclusively evident that there are no insurmountable obstacles to a still further great development of the English branch of the trade.
R. M.