Weavers and freemen in Coventry, 1820-1861 : social and political traditionalism in an early Victorian town

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with Coventry from about 1820
to 1861, and in particular with the social and political attitudes
that characterised it. The dominant industry in the city and the
area of Warwickshire to the north was the weaving of silk ribbons.
They were usually made in domestic workshops often by family
labour; piecework rates by a standard 'list' were the traditional
method of payment. A chronic surplus of labour threatened to
disrupt the list-system and depress earnings. Before 1835 the
list-system was several times generally abandoned; moreover, each
successive list was lower than the last, and real earnings fell
more rapidly than prices for those continuing on the same type of
loom. On the other hand, many weavers turned to more productive
looms and so increased their earnings. The home market for ribbons
expanded, Warwickshire had little competition from other domestic
producers, and much continental competition was effectively excluded
by the statutory prohibition of imports until 1826. Although the
tariff that then replaced it proved an inadequate barrier against
continental producers between 1828 and 1832 - and those years were
disastrous for Coventry as a result - it did suffice to guard and
preserve for Warwickshire a growing market for cheap ribbons from
the early 1830s onwards. Standard prices were not lowered after
1835, and were generally abandoned only once, from 1840 to 1842;
the continued adoption of more productive looms further increased
earnings.
Throughout the period, there was a strong tradition of support
for the list system from 'honourable’ manufacturers and citizens at
large, anxious for the prosperity of the weavers and the town itself.
The same tradition sustained a lavish system of statutory poor
relief until 1830; and though it became more frugal thereafter,
the fortunate exemption of Coventry from the close control of the
Poor Law Commission until 1844, owing to the autonomy conferred
by a local act, helped to preserve outdoor relief for the unemployed.
At times of distress relief funds were collected: but a far greater
amount of money was disbursed to the poor from the dole charities,
with which the city was exceptionally well endowed. Some charities
were a special preserve of the city's freemen, who also enjoyed
rights of pasture on land near the city. The freemen, a large and
growing group, were determined to retain their privileges or
convert them into rights as substantial. With the city’s
assistance or acquiescence, they did so.
Many weavers were freemen. Their common good fortune
helped to create complaisance and a pervasive moderation of conduct.
Although the city had a popular electorate because of its freeman
franchise, it was never predominantly radical; radical electors had
to coalesce with moderate liberals to return their candidates.
Radical movements that disavowed middle-class prescriptions were
numerically weak: and even these minorities were distinguished by
their constitutionality. There were scarcely any violent clashes
with authority. Industrially, the record is similar: of militant
yet disciplined conduct. Even in the one act of Luddism that
occurred there was little violence to person.
The weavers were always characterised by a preference for
the outwork system. Steam factories were few in Coventry until
the 1850s. They then threatened through superior productivity to
displace the outwork system. The outdoor weavers competed with them
by the installation of larger looms in their domestic topshops: and
then, in a movement in which they were supported by the factory
weavers and the city, compelled upon the factory proprietors a system
of remuneration which removed the superior productivity of their
looms. By 1859 the outwork system seemed more secure than ever.
But the free trade measures of 1860, by removing the tariff which
had long shielded the city, led to an influx of continental ribbons,
a great excess of labour in Coventry, and the end of both support
for the weavers from the city - now mindful of the need to cheapen
labour-costs - and also the list-system which paternalism had long
sustained.

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