PREFACE.

THE history of civilization consists greatly in the history of the USEFUL ARTS. These arts form the basis of social improvement. By their means men are raised above abject want, become possessed of comforts and luxuries, and acquire the leisure necessary to cultivate the higher departments of knowledge. There is also an intimate connexion between the arts and natural science. Mutually aiding each other, they go hand in hand in the course of improvement. The manufactory, the laboratory, and the study of the natural philosopher, are in close practical conjunction. Without the aid of science, the arts would be contemptible: without practical application, science would consist only of barren theories, which men would have no motive to pursue.

These remarks apply with peculiar force to the arts by which clothing is produced, and, above all, to the Cotton Manufacture of England, which is the very creature of mechanical invention and chemical discovery, and which has, in its turn, rendered the most important service to science, as well as increased the wealth and power of the country.

The subject of this volume may therefore claim attention from the man of science and the political philosopher, as well as from the manufacturer and merchant. To trace the origin and progress of so great a manufacture, with the causes of that progress, is more worthy the pains of the student, than to make himself acquainted with the annals of

wars and dynasties, or with nineteen-twentieths of the matters. which fill the pages of history.*

The Cotton Manufacture of England presents a spectacle unparalleled in the annals of industry, whether we regard the suddenness of its growth, the magnitude which it has attained, or the wonderful inventions to which its progress is to be ascribed. Within the memory of many now living, those machines have been brought into use, which have made as great a revolution in manufactures as the art of printing effected in literature. Within the same period, the Cotton Manufacture of this country has sprung up from insignificance, and has attained a greater extent than the manufactures of wool and linen combined, though these have existed for centuries.

Sixty years since, our manufacturers consumed little more than THREE million lbs. of raw cotton annually; the annual consumption is now TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY million lbs. In 1750 the county of Lancaster, the chief seat of the trade, had a population of only 297,400; in 1831, the number of its inhabitants had swelled to 1,336,854. A similar increase has taken place in Lanarkshire, the principal seat of the manufacture in Scotland. The families supported by this branch of industry are estimated to comprise a MIllion and ▲ HALF of individuals; and the goods produced not only furnish a large part of the clothing consumed in this kingdom, but supply nearly one-half of the immense export trade of Britain, find their way into all the markets of the world, and are even destroying in the Indian market the competition

• So thought Pliny, when he said—“Mira humani ingenii peste, sanguinem et cædes condere annalibus juvat, ut scelera hominum noscantur mundi ipsius ignaris.”—Plin. Hist. Nat. l. ii. c. 9. Locke's opinion on the study of the useful arts was thus expressed—“ There is a large field of knowledge, proper for the use and advantage of men in this world; viz. to find out new inventions of despatch, to shorten or ease our labour; or applying sagaciously together several agents and materials, to procure new and beneficial productions fit for our use, whereby our stock of riches, (i. e. things useful for the conveniences of our life,) may be increased, or better preserved.”—Lord King's Life of Locke, 8vo. edition, vol. i. p. 163.

of the ancient manufacture of India itself, the native country of the raw material, and the earliest seat of the art.

The causes of this unexampled extension of manufacturing industry are to be found in a series of splendid inventions and discoveries, by the combined effect of which a spinner now produces as much yarn in a day, as by the old processes he could have produced in a year; and cloth, which formerly required six or eight months to bleach, is now bleached in a few hours.

It is the object of this volume to record the rise, progress, and present state of this great manufacture;-briefly to notice its ancient history in the East, and its sluggish and feeble progress in other countries, until the era of invention in England; to point out the advantages of this country for manufacturing industry;-to state, more fully and accurately than has hitherto been done, the origin and authorship of the great mechanical inventions, including the fly-shuttle, the spinning by rollers, the carding machine, the jenny, the mule, the steam-engine, the power-loom, the dressing-machine, the cylinder printing machine, and mechanical engraving ;— to mention the important chemical discoveries in the art of bleaching, and the various and beautiful processes of calicoprinting;-to shew the combined effect of these inventions and discoveries, in the astonishing extension of the manufacture;— to give the natural history of the raw material, cotton-wool;— to shew how far the trade has been interfered with by legislative enactments and fiscal regulations;-to describe and illustrate the present state of the manufacture, and the condition of the vast population engaged in its various departments; and, finally, to weigh the probabilities in favour of, or against, the continued pre-eminence of the English Cotton Manufacture.

Thus extensive and interesting is the field which I have aspired to occupy. In the greater part of it I have had no predecessor. The want of a comprehensive and accurate history of the Cotton Manufacture has often been lamented, and has been justly considered discreditable to the literature

of the country which is the birth-place of so many admirable inventions, and where the most extraordinary branch of manufactures and commerce ever known has sprung up with marvellous rapidity.

In executing my task, I have received valuable assistance from gentlemen, who combine a thorough practical knowledge of the manufacture with the best information as to its history. I have been fortunate enough to meet with evidence as to the real authorship of the greatest inventions in cotton spinning, never before published, and as decisive as it is novel. I have also had the advantage of the evidence recently given before the Commission to inquire into the condition of children working in Factories, and before the Select Committees of the House of Commons on Manufactures, Commerce, and Shipping, and on Hand-loom Weavers; by which much light is cast on the actual state of the Cotton Manufacture, and on the condition of all classes of persons engaged in it. I have been favoured by the Factory Inspectors with a body of valuable statistical information, altogether original, shewing the number of cotton mills in each county, town, &c. of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with the number of operatives engaged in them, and the amount of steam and water power by which the mills are moved.

To the following gentlemen I offer my grateful acknowledgments, for their kind assistance in obtaining the materials for this work; some of whom have bestowed an amount of time and pains in aiding my inquiries, which, as I had no claim to it on personal grounds, I must attribute to their zeal for the diffusion of knowledge:-The Right Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, M. P., late President of the Board of Trade; Geo. Richardson Porter, Esq., of the same office; John Kennedy, Esq., of Manchester; James Thomson, Esq. F.R.S., of Clitheroe; John Shuttleworth, Esq., Distributor of Stamps, Manchester; John Bowring, Esq. LL.D. and M. P.; Rd Guest, Esq. of Leigh; Wm. Willock, Esq., Distributor of Stamps, Leeds; Sir Chas. Wilkins, Librarian of the East India Company; Thos. Thornely, Esq. M. P. of Liverpool;