Report on Hand Loom Weavers - 1839

Source: Glasgow Digital Library
Scotland in the 19th Century
-an analytical bibliography of material relating
to Scotland in parliamentary papers, 1800-1900
by J. A. Haythornthwaite (Click on Title)

Section 10.11: Weavers
(Excerpts from 10-Labour)

1. Hand-loom weavers. Reports from Assistant Hand-loom
Weavers' Commissioners. Accounts and Papers, 1839.
Vol. XLII, 212p. (Sessional no. 159)

Scotland was split into two regions, south of the Forth
and Clyde was examined by J.C. Symons (pp. 1-97) and
the coast of Scotland by J.D. Harding (pp. 183-197).

The Assistant Commissioners were instructed "to ascertain
the moral, intellectual and physical condition of a numerous
and widely scattered population, differing in religion, in
habits and in circumstance, and connected only by the use
of the hand-loom..." To achieve this courts were held in the
different regions where witnesses, both owners and weavers,
were examined and visits were made to the weavers' houses.

Symons and Harding found a number of differences between
their regions, in the east many of the weavers had two jobs,
only weaving in the winter often on tartans. In both areas
constantly employed hand-loom weavers worked an average
of 70 hours per week, 12 to 13 hours Monday to Friday and
10 hours on a Saturday.

Journeymen were common especially in the west of Scotland
where looms were hired out at 10d to 1s a week. They were
poor and often inadequately fed, eating very little meat.
The weavers usually slept on straw beds but some houses
still had good furniture, a reminder of former prosperous
times, as was the good education of the older weavers.

In rural areas weavers rented land to grow potatoes and
some groups had set up their own stores to reduce prices
by cutting out the middle man (p. 19).

The Irish were generally living in poorer conditions than
the Scots but were better off than they had been in Ireland.
Often up to three families would share a house to reduce costs
and Girvan and Maybole became Irish colonies.

Those living in the carpet and woollen-producing areas of
Galashiels and Hawick were the best off, and those able to mix
weaving and farming were better off than those constantly
employed as weavers.

2. Hand-loom weavers. Copy of report by Mr. Hickson.
Appendix, 1840. Vol. XXIV, 79p. (Sessional no. 639)

The report is comprised of notes and observations made
during a tour through the weaving districts by Mr. Hickson,
one of the Commissioners inquiring into the state of the
hand-loom weavers. After agriculture and the clothing
industry, weaving was one of the largest employers of
labour......

In Glasgow, Hickson found the weavers blamed the influx
of the Irish for the reduction in wages, claiming this
had a greater effect on wages than the introduction of
the power-loom. A delegation of Glasgow weavers went to
Northern Ireland to try and organise a strike to raise
the wages of those in Glasgow and stop the Irish
undercutting the market, but failed because the Irish
weavers believed their low wages were a consequence of
their distance from the markets.

The traditional Irish linen trade was in turn being
threatened by Scotland, where the success of the power
looms threatened to change the centre of trade.

Hickson concluded that although the country weaver often
got less money for his produce, he was often less expert,
mixing weaving with farming. The employer, therefore,
often preferred the more reliable output of the urban
weaver who lived totally by the produce of his loom.