women, work and consciousness in the mid-nineteenth-century english cotton industry

Women, Work and Consciousness in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century English Cotton IndustryAuthor(s): Carol E. MorganSource: Social History, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Jan., 1992), pp. 23-41Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4285986 .

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Carol E. Morgan

Women, work and consciousness in

the mid-nineteenth-century English

cotton industry

In his book, Work, Society and Politics: The Culture of the Factory in Later Victorian England, Patrick Joyce argues that 'The consolidation of mechanised, factory industry in the second half of the nineteenth century was the occasion of class harmony more than of class conflict." In the cotton industry, despite the introduction of the self-acting mule, the spinners were able to retain their supervisory role in the factory and maintain their status as skilled labourers.2 Accordingly, trade union organization replaced Chartism, while workplace relations were characterized by 'bureaucratic and ritual expression'.3 Interests of employers and operatives, Joyce decisively concludes, came to be viewed as identical.4

Accompanying this transformation of class relations at mid-century, Joyce contends, was the re-establishment of male dominance within the cotton industry to a level reminiscent of the early i8oos. During the second quarter of the century, male spinners had faced increased competition from girls and women. By mid-century, however, the male operatives had succeeded in protecting their position in spinning, which remained an exclusively male trade. Consequently, Joyce maintains, 'the patriarchy of earlier forms of production was restored',5 while women retained the primary responsibility for the home. As a result, Joyce argues, a 'new equilibrium between home and work was [established] accompanied by the near-total absence of women from the public and organised life of the working class between the I840s and the I89os'.6

' Patrick Joyce, Work, Society and Politics: The Culture of the Factory in Later Victorian England (New Brunswick, 1980), 50.

2 ibid., 55-6. There has been considerable discussion in recent scholarship regarding the means by which the spinners were able to retain their position, summarized by Mary Freifeld in her article, 'Technological change and the "self-acting" mule: a study of skill and the sexual division of labour', Social History, xi, 3 (October I986), 319-20. While scholars have generally argued that the position the spinners maintained as skilled labourers was contrived, Freifeld argues that low paid female workers were not hired to replace men, because the labour process was not deskilled. See William

Lazonick, 'Industrial relations and technical change: the case of the self-acting mule', Cambridge Journal of Economics, III (1979),

231-62; John Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: Early Industrial Capi- talism in Three English Towns, with foreword by E. J. Hobsbawm (1974); Michael Huber- man, 'The economic origins of paternalism: Lancashire cotton spinning in the first half of the nineteenth century', Social History, XII, 2 (May I987), 177-92.

3Joyce, op. cit., 59-62. + ibid., 65.

ibid., 8o. ibid., 114-15.



24 Social History VOL. 17: NO. I

This analysis, I will argue below, is both inadequate and misdirected. Based solely on an examination of the experience of male operatives, Joyce's analysis fails to capture the diversity of women's experience in the cotton industry. In particular, Joyce ignores the evolution of women's position in the factory from early to mid-century and its ramifi- cations. Yet, I will maintain, the significant changes occurring in women's position during this period served to enhance their participation in working-class struggles at mid-century and to redefine their relationship to work, to capital and to their fellow labourers.

Women of the cotton districts experienced hardship and uncertainty as they haltingly entered the sphere of social production in the early nineteenth century. With the widespread employment of children in the early factories, women's employment opportunities were limited. At the same time, women who did enter the factories were excluded from the spinners' unions and remained aloof from the early campaign for shorter hours. Only with the introduction of powerloom weaving from the I820S to I840s, and the widespread employment of women as weavers, did women become an integral part of the newly emerging industrial workforce. Here women worked alongside men and earned the same piece-rates, serving to enhance their security and status within the mill. As class antagonism continued at mid-century in this sector of the cotton industry, as even Patrick Joyce admits,7 women gave increasing support to the shorter hours campaign, emerging as leaders in the agitation to protect the original intent of the Ten Hours Act. Furthermore, in the strikes of the I840s and I850s, women played a visible role while joining the unions of powerloom weavers then in formation. Thus, rather than being a period marked by the restoration of patriarchy, I will suggest that the mid-century represented a turning point with regard to women's position in the cotton industry, a period in which they were fully integrated into both the workforce and working-class politics.

Within the general working-class movement at mid-century, as Neville Kirk points out, there was no sharp ideological break with the past.8 Rather, as Mick Jenkins states, 'a fundamental process of social and economic reorientation [was taking place] by which working people tried to come to terms with the smashed and shattered hopes of the I 840s'.9

Scholars, with their attention directed towards the male spinners, have failed to bring to light the far-reaching implications of this process of reorientation for women workers. By tracing women's experience in the cotton industry from early to mid-century we may, however, come to see the latter period as pivotal for women of the early industrial era.

FEMALE EMPLOYMENT AND WORKING-CLASS POLITICS TO I833

Mechanization in the English cotton industry occurred first in the spinning sector and was, in its earliest stage, marked by a narrowing of employment opportunities for women.10

7 ibid., 6o0i. 8 Neville Kirk, The Growth of Working Class

Reformism in Mid-Victonran England (Urbana and Chicago, i 985), 1I43.

9 Mick Jenkins, The General Strike of 1842, with introduction by John Foster (1 980), I 7-I 8.

10 Louise A. Tilly, Joan W. Scott and Miriam Cohen, 'Women's work and European fertility

patterns', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, VI, 3 (Winter 1976), 452-9; Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, * 75o-1 85o (1930), I83. See also Maxine Berg, 'Women's work, mechanisation and the early phases of industrialisation in England' in Patrick Joyce (ed.), The Historical Meanings of Work (Cambridge, I987), 64-98.



Yanuary 1992 Women in the English cotton industry Z5

The strength required to operate the newly perfected jennies and hand mules, with their increasing number of spindles, 'placed a premium on the use of men as spinners'.' 1 Thus, by the 1790s, Mary Freifeld concludes, mulespinning had become a male craft, with women restricted to the small mules and Arkwright's roller-spinning machine.'2 Only during a brief period in the late i8zos and early I83os did mill owners demonstrate some preference for employing women in mulespinning. At this time, a 'putting-up motion' was invented which utilized power, enabling women to operate mules with additional spindles. The mill owners then increased their employment of women, paying them 'half the piecework rates paid to men'. 13 Otherwise, in the early factories, women were employed in such auxiliary occupations as picking, tenting and carding, earning wages approximating one-third to one-half of men's at best. 14

Only in the mid-i8zos, with the gradual introduction of powerloom weaving, did women begin to gain a foothold in the factories. While the male handloom weavers, benefiting from periodic revivals in trade, remained reluctant to enter the factories, their wives and daughters often did so due to financial necessity. Here women were earning wages approximating gs to iis per week by I833, compared to 7s to 9s in the carding department. 15 Powerloom weaving, however, did not become a sex-segregated occupation as agricultural labourers, both male and female, entered the factories in this capacity.'6 Further, opportunities remained limited during this period since factory weaving was largely restricted to the Stockport area and south-east Lancashire, where spinning masters added weaving to their operations. 17

Women who did not enter the factories during this period often turned to handloom weaving, which experienced a boom as a result of the increased production of strong cotton yarn. Here, it was possible to earn wages exceeding those paid in auxiliary occupations in the spinning mills and to take advantage of working at home. The expansion of the industry, however, was uneven, marked by frequent declines in demand for cotton goods while remaining crowded with workers who had recently entered the trade. Wages fell sharply while many were forced out of the trade altogether, causing widespread distress throughout the cotton weaving areas. 18

Women, therefore, did not experience a smooth transition from cottage to factory but faced particular hardship during the earliest stage of mechanization. Accordingly, they

Freifeld, op, cit., 333. 12 ibid.; Pinchbeck, op. cit., 148. 13 Freifeld, op. cit., 334. 14 Pinchbeck, op. cit., I85-6; Frances Collier,

'An early factory community', Economic His- tory, iI, Supplement (January I930), 117-19;

Frances Collier, The Family Fconomy of the Working Classes in the Cotton Industry, 1784- 1833, ed. R. S. Fitton (Manchester, I965), I6-i8, 3I-2, and appendix B, 6o-i; B.P.P., Supplementary Report of the Factories Inquiry Commission, part I, I834, XIX (I67), I 24-38.

" ibid., 125-32; Edward Baines Jnr, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain (I835), 436.

16 Pinchbeck, op. cit, I84-5; D. A. Farnie, The Fnglish Cotton Industry and the World

Market, i8S5-1 896 (Oxford, 1979), 282; Michael Anderson, 'Sociological history and the working-class family: Smelser revisited', Social History, iii (October I976), 326-7.

17 B.P.P., Supplementary Report of the Factories Inquiry Commission, part I, 125-32;

Farnie, op. cit, 280oI; A. J. Taylor, 'Concen- tration and specialization in the Lancashire cotton industry, I825-50', Economic History Review, 2nd series, I, 2 (1949), 1117-20; John Jewkes, 'The localisation of the cotton industry', Economic History, II (I930), 92.

18 Pinchbeck, op. cit., I64-79; Duncan By- thell, The Handloom Weavers: A Study in the English Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, I969), 44-63.




emerged as vocal supporters of the strikes among handloom weavers which occurred in i8o8 and i8 i8,19 as well as the movement for parliamentary reform. Participating first in the male reform societies organized in I8I9, women quickly proceeded to form their own associations in Blackburn, Stockport and Manchester.20 In their addresses, they put forward their distinct political views, drawing a clear connection between the economic distress the region was then experiencing and the need for political change. To the women reformers, parliamentary reform represented a solution to their economic hardship. In drawing this conclusion, they emphasized the unique responsibility they bore as women for instructing their children in democratic ideas, for instilling into their minds 'a thorough knowledge of their natural and inalienable rights'.21

The political views expressed by these women represented a response to the economic crisis then confronting the cotton region, a crisis which affected them as factory workers and handloom weavers, as well as wives and mothers. Yet it is unclear whether this period may be considered a turning point for working women. Such an assessment is suggested by E. P. Thompson's statement that: 'It was in the textile districts that the changing economic status of women gave rise to the earliest widespread participation by working women in political and social agitation.'22 Yet the degree of independence which women enjoyed at this stage of mechanization, as outlined above, was severely limited. Due to the halting introduction of powerloom weaving, the position which women occupied in the factories remained tenuous. Additionally, women were not fully integrated into working- class politics at this juncture since both union organizing efforts and the campaign for factory legislation, both spearheaded by the male spinners, were deeply divided along gender lines.

Women, spinners and unions

As men entered the factories as spinners in the earliest stage of mechanization, they enjoyed a position of status in the mills. A subcontract system was put in place whereby the spinners recruited and supervised their own assistants, and paid them piece-rates out of their own wages. Organized into strong associations as early as the I790S, the spinners enjoyed wages double or triple those of other operatives into the i82os.23

During that decade, however, intense conflict erupted between spinners and masters. With the economic crisis of 1826, the latter attempted to cut wages and introduced short

'9ibid., i89-96; The Times, 25 June i8o8; Wheeler's Manchester Chronicle, S September i8 x 8, cited in The Times, 8 September i 8 i 8.

20 Manchester Observer, IO, 17, 31 July 18I9. For fuller discussion, see Carol E. Morgan, 'Working-class Women and Labor and Social Movements of Mid-nineteenth Century England' (University of Iowa D.Phil., 1979), 87-101.

21 Leeds Mercuty, 31 July I8I9; The Times, 2I July I819.

" E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York, I 963), 415 .

23Lazonick, op. cit., 232-5; Collier, The Family Economy..., op. cit., i6-i8 and appendix B, 6o; G. D. H. Cole, Attempts at General Union: A Study in British Trade Union History, 18r8-I834 (1953), 5-12; H. A. Turner, Trade Union Growth, Structure, and Policy: A Com- parative Study of the Cotton Unions in E,ngland (Toronto, I 962), 67-70. Regarding wages, Collier cites the 1795 wage book of McConnel and Kennedy which lists mule spinners' wages as 30S to 38s per week; women pickers' as 4s to 8s per week; and women stretchers' as averaging 17s 6d per week.



January 1992 Women in the English cotton industry 27

time. When met with a series of strikes in response, the masters began to introduce the newly developed self-acting mule on a large scale.24

Most significant for our purposes, the masters also increased the employment of women and girls in spinning. In the aftermath of a strike in Manchester, in 1829, they began hiring female spinners on all smaller wheels.25 Following the strike, the employment of females continued, facilitated by the technological innovations described above. Here their earnings averaged xos to i ss per week, while men commanded wages of 2ss to 30s.26 Faced with such threats to their livelihood, the spinners formed the Grand General Union of Spinners, and excluded women from membership.27 In the early factories, women were thus kept out of union organizing efforts. The full extent to which divisions along gender lines existed during this stage of mechanization may be most strikingly illustrated by an examination of the campaign for factory legislation before passage of the I 833 Factory Act.

The ten hours movement

From the mid-i820S, the operative fine spinners of Manchester were at the forefront of the factory movement in Lancashire, supporting a bill introduced by Michael Sadler restricting the labour of all factory workers under eighteen to ten hours per day. A primary goal of the Manchester operatives, unlike those in Yorkshire, was to restrict the moving power of machinery which would have the effect of limiting the hours of labour of all workers. The spinners hoped that, consequently, more work would be available for adult males in the Lancashire area.28 While the spinners were not solely motivated by a desire to protect patriarchal relations within the family, as Neil Smelser has argued, conflicting gender interests thus emerged within the campaign for factory legislation.29

24 R. G. Kirby and A. E. Musson, The Voice of the People: 7ohn Doherty, 1798-1854, Trade Unionist, Radical, and Factory Reformer (Man- chester, 1975), 29-43.

2-5 ibid., 73-8. 26 Freifeld, op. cit., 334. 27 A Report of the Proceedings of a Delegate

Meeting, of the Operative Spinners of England, Ireland and Scotland, Assembled at Ramsey, Isle of Man, on Saturday, December 5, 1829, and Three Following Days (Manchester, I 829), 50-I .

`8 Kirby and Musson, op. cit., 346-40I; J. T. Ward, The Factory Movement, 1830-i850 (I962), 45-59; Cecil Driver, Tory Radical: The Life of Richard Oastler (New York, 1946), 147-50. Regarding the expressed desire for the increased employment of males, see in particular London University Library, VWhite Slavery Collection, vol. 4, no. 6, 29 and vol. 8, no. 5, I2.

29 See Neil J. Smelser, Social Change in the Industrial Revolution: An Application of Theory to the British Cotton Industry (Chicago, 1959), 200-45. Writers have challenged Smelser's argument which rests largely on the contention that, while family employment had been wide-

spread in the early factories, it was now being threatened. Scholars have argued that Smelser erred by misrepresenting the extent of family employment in the early factories. Thus, they maintain, there was no significant change in the early I83os and, therefore, no significant crisis in family relations. See M. M. Edwards and R. Lloyd-Jones, 'N. J. Smelser and the cotton factory family: a reassessment' in N. B. Harte and K. G. Ponting (eds), Textile History and Economic History (Manchester, 1973), 308-I 5; Huberman, op. cit., i8i-2; Anderson, op. cit., 325; Joyce, op. cit., 5 5 In supporting ten hours, the spinners were defending their interests as skilled male operatives as they confronted the introduction of the self-acting mule and competition from cheap female labour. While male and female interests thus diverged in this instance, one cannot argue that the spinners were simply collaborating with the employers against female operatives, as Sylvia Walby contends in Patriarchy at Work (Minneapolis, I986), 97-I34. For a full response to this argument, see Carol E. Morgan, 'Industrializ- ation and women's labor', Nature, Society, and Thought, ii, 2 (I989), 252-7.




While women took part in demonstrations for shorter hours in both Lancashire and Yorkshire,30 their general participation in the campaign was limited, with some women operatives expressing opposition to a reduction in working hours. Of eleven women interviewed by the Factories Inquiry Commission of I833, seven explicitly stated that they would be opposed to a reduction of hours if accompanied by a wage cut, and two indicated that they would be 'averse' to the reform. Two others indicated they had not suffered from the long hours of employment they had experienced.31

The women generally claimed to be, with some modification, in good health. 'I have never felt overworked, or been unable to sleep at night, or lost my appetite,' declared a woman of twenty-six. On the whole, the women seemed to accept their working conditions and particularly the hours of labour. As one woman responded when asked about making up an hour of lost time due to engine breakdowns each week, 'that's no great difficulty, is it?' Another woman of twenty declared that she 'was accustomed to long work now, and did not mind it'.

When asked about their domestic skills the women responded defensively, again indicating that their situation was not one of undue hardship. One of five women from Stockport declared, 'I have taken notice, in my own neighbourhood, that young women brought up in factories, against those that are brought up as servants, seem to take more care of their houses and children, and to be more industrious, than the other class'. Another indicated that she was 'quite confident she could do as well as her neighbours and friends, whether in factories or out of them, in household work of any description'. Said Sarah Parkin, a winder of thirty-four: 'There are plenty of opportunities to learn everything if girls like'. A woman from Bolton registered her offence at the line of questioning: 'You think we factory women can do nothing at all'.

This evidence, indicating that women employed in the early factories had no complaints regarding their employment conditions and even opposed a reduction in working hours, needs to be treated with some caution. The evidence itself, in some cases, is inconsistent with women, upon reflection, indicating that in fact their health was weakened and they were 'not quite well' as a result of factory labour. But perhaps most important is the issue of intimidation.

In Stockport, where five of the women interviewed were employed, a factory owner known to oppose shorter hours legislation selected the operatives for questioning. Further, operatives in this area had been dismissed for testifying against their employer in court cases and had been obliged to sign petitions opposing a limitation on hours against their wishes.32 The factor of intimidation must therefore be taken into consideration in assessing this evidence. However, it does not warrant a discounting of the evidence.

The women interviewed were representative in some ways, ranging in age from nineteen to forty-nine with wages from 8s to i8s per week. They were engaged in a variety of occupations and, although employed in different localities, voiced similar concerns regarding their dependence on their earnings, fearing the effects that a reduction in hours

30 Samuel Kydd [Alfred], The History of the Factory Movement, i (i 857), 235-6.

31 B.P.P., First Report of the Factonres Inquiry Commission with Minutes of Evidence, I833, xx (450). Further references to the testimony of women are from this report.

3Z ibid.; B.P.P., Report from the Select Committee on the Bill to Regulate the Labour of Children in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom, I831-2, XV, 282-3 (6729-6730) and

3I4-I8 (7308-7370).




might have. Even when employed in higher paid jobs such as weaving or stretching, the women did not wish to jeopardize the little security they had attained, often after many years of employment.

While we cannot conclude on the basis of this evidence that women overwhelmingly opposed shorter hours legislation, we can suggest that their views were circumscribed by immediate conditions which pointed to the tenuous nature of their position in the factory. In order to attain any degree of economic security, women expected to work hard and long for low wages. Absent from the testimony of women before the Factories Inquiry Commission is any expression of the right to a say over their working conditions or a consciousness that, through struggle with their fellow workers, they could act to improve their circumstances.

At this stage of mechanization in the cotton industry, women operatives were insecure, intimidated and unorganized. With the widespread introduction of powerloom weaving and the extensive employment of female labour in that sector of the industry, however, women's conditions of employment altered considerably. Accordingly, their perceptions regarding their labour and their rights as workers began to evolve.

FEMALE EMPLOYMENT AND WORKING-CLASS POLITICS AT MID-CENTURY

Powerloom weaving in the cotton industry witnessed a period of rapid expansion during the I820s and early I830s, with the number of powerlooms in England reaching approximately 85,ooo by I833.33 However, technological difficulties in the manufacture of cloth persisted, largely limiting the expansion of the industry to Cheshire and Manchester and its environs. Only in the early I840S, with technological advancements involving improvements in warping and sizing, delivery of the warp and stretching of the cloth as produced, was the production of a high quality cloth ensured. These improvements made possible the application of power to such cloths as calicoes, prints and figured fabrics.34 As a consequence, powerloom weaving began to expand geographically, and especially into north-east Lancashire, where Blackburn became the centre of production of plain calicoes for the India market. Futher, in the mid-i84os, power was applied to a greater variety of cloths, particularly coloured goods and quilts.35 While the combined firm, with both weaving and spinning, continued to dominate the industry during this period, in new construction separate weaving mills predominated.36 Thus the number of powerlooms

Baines, op. cit., 235-7. 3 See Richard Marsden, Cotton Weaving: Its

Development, Principles, and Practice (I895); William Alexander Abram, Blackburn Char- acters of a Past Generation (Blackburn, I894), 366-7; P. A. Whittle, Blackburn As It Is: A Topographical, Statistical, and Historical Ac- count (Preston, I852), 393.

3 Farnie, op. cit., 102 and 282. 36 ibid., I IS and 286-317; B.P.P., Reports of

Leonard Horner, Factory Inspector: 'Half year ended 31 October I852', I852-3, XL (I58o), 22;

'Half year ended 31 October I853', I854, XIX

(1712), I5; 'Half year ended 30 April I854', I854, xIx (1796), 9-ro; 'Half year ended 3I October I854', I854-5, xv (I88i), 9-0o; 'Half yearended3l October i85', I856, xviii (2031), 24-5; 'Half year ended 3I October I856', I857, III (2153), 42. Half-yearly 3oint Reports of the Inspectors of Factories: 'Half year ended 31 October I852', I852-3, XL (I58o), 65-8; 'Half year ended 31 October I853', I854, XIX (1712), i o6-7; 'Half year ended 3 1 October I 856', I 857, InI (2153), 27-



30 Social History VOL. I7: NO. I

increased to 2o6,145 in Lancashire and Cheshire by I85o and to 339,349 a decade later.37 Already in 1833, although the rapid growth of the industry and its shift to north-east

Lancashire were not yet clear, the dominant position that female operatives would occupy in powerloom weaving was apparent. While women (females over the age of eighteen) accounted for approximately 52 per cent of adult cotton operatives in general, in weaving they constituted 58 per cent of adults. Among operatives of all ages in all occupations in the cotton industry, women accounted for approximately 31 per cent of employees, while in weaving alone the proportion of women was slightly over 38 per cent.38 With the decline in the employment of children to approximately 5 per cent following the passage of the Factory Act of I833, Leonard Horner indicated that in his district the increase in the employment of female operatives between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one was most striking. The highest number of girls and women was employed in that age group, with a large proportion engaged as weavers. Thus, as early as I838, females constituted over 64 per cent of all employees in cotton aged between sixteen and twenty-one.39

Women's employment continued to grow into the mid-i84os when they accounted for over 35 per cent of total operatives in the cotton industry. Of employees over thirteen, females constituted approximately 56 per cent.40 During the I850s, women and girls continued to dominate weaving, as they steadily made up approximately 59 per cent of operatives over thirteen employed in mills limited to cloth production.4' As the expansion in weaving continued, an increasing proportion of women and girls in the cotton industry was employed in firms devoted solely to weaving. From i850 to i86i, that proportion increased in Lancashire and Cheshire from nearly 14 per cent to over 26 per cent.42 Within the weaving area of north-east Lancashire, women's employment was most heavily concentrated in certain communities, particularly Preston, Chorley and Accrington. Here the surrounding agricultural areas provided the main source of labour while in Stockport, Ashton and Stalybridge the employment of Irish girls increased.43

As women's employment in powerloom weaving increased, the industry itself

3 B.P.P., Returns of the Number of Cotton, Woollen, Worsted, Flax and Silk Factories Subject to the Ffactories Acts, I850, XLII (745), 456-7; B. P. P., Returns of the Number of Cotton, Woollen, Worsted, Flax, Hemp, Jute, Hosiery, and Silk Factories Subject to the Factories Act, i862, LV (23), 630-I.

38 Baines, op. cit., 373-9; B. P. P., Supplemen- tary Report of the Factories Inquiry Commission, part I, 124-38.

39 B.P.P., Report of Leonard Horner for the Quarter Ended 31 December 1 841, I 842, xxII (3I), 29; B.P.P., Supplementary Report of the Factories Inquiry Commission, part 1, 38; B.P.P., First Report of the Factories Inquiry Commission, 13.

40 B.P.P., Report of Leonard Horner for the Half-year Ended 31 October 1845, I846, xx (68i), appendix I, I4; B.P.P., A Return of the Total Number of Persons E,mployed in Cotton, Woollen, Worsted, Flax, and Silk Factories,

i847, XLVI (294), 6io. Horner's figures refer to his district alone, which included the major industrial areas of Lancashire and the West Riding but not Cheshire. A Return refers to Lancashire and Cheshire.

4' B. P. P., Returns of the Number of Cotton..., i8So, 45S6-7; B.P.P., Returns of the Number of Cotton, Woollen, Worsted, Flax and Silk F'actor- ies, I857, XIV (7), 176-7; B. P. P., Returns of the Number of Cotton..., i 86z, 630-I. The Returns refer to Lancashire and Cheshire.

42 ibid. I Farnie, op. cit., 30I. Arthur Redford,

Labour Migration in England, * 8oo-i 85o, 2nd edn, ed. and rev. W. H. Chaloner (Manchester, I964), 63-5; Michael Anderson, Family Struc- ture in Nineteenth Century Lancashire (Cam- bridge, I97I), 34-9; Kirk, op. cit., 325-6; John K. Walton, Lancashire: A Social History, 1558-1q3 (Manchester, I987), 202.



January 1992 Women in the English cotton industry 3 1

experienced a downturn, with average weekly wages declining from approximately X 2S in I836 to between ios and IIs in the Manchester and Ashton areas by I841. With the economic crisis of the late I840s, the wages of two-loom weavers dropped to an average of gs to ios but, with improvements in technology, it was now possible for some weavers to operate three looms and earn wages of 13s. These wages remained above those of cardroom workers, which have been estimated at 7s 6d to 8s 6d. However, the wages of workers in this category apparently remained comparatively steady.44

Over the next decade, with the return of prosperity to the cotton industry, weavers' wages attained an average of approximately I is per week, with three-loom weavers earning over I5s. These wages compared favourably to those of operatives in such auxiliary occupations as drawing and tenting where women and girls predominated. Here, over the same period, wages approximated 8s to gs per week.45 Perhaps most significantly, since weaving was not a sex-segregated occupation and the operatives were paid by the piece, women weavers earned the same piece-rates as men, although the latter often earned higher weekly wages by operating more looms.46

With the expansion of powerloom weaving, women gained a secure foothold in the mechanized cotton industry, with increased employment opportunities and improved wages. They were no longer employed only in auxiliary occupations, but were now engaged in one of the two primary operations of the cotton industry. Further, women moved into this position as weaving became an increasingly distinct sector of the industry, largely separated from spinning geographically and established in its own communities in north-east Lancashire. Additionally, with male and female operatives employed alongside each other and paid equal piece-rates, an identity of interests was forged among the labourers. This unity across gender lines contrasted sharply with conditions prevailing in spinning.

Labour relations: spinning

During the I 830s, the self-acting mule was increasingly introduced, leading to widespread unemployment and sharp wage reductions among spinners, or minders, as they came to be called. According to William Lazonick, their wages 'approximated those of Manchester street labourers' by I839, ranging from i6s to i8s per week.47 Furthermore, with the depression in trade in the I840s, employers sought to increase productivity by speeding up the machinery, introducing longer hand mules, or 'doubling' up small hand mules.48

With a return to prosperity in the industry over the course of the next decade, however,

I B.P.P., Report of Leonard Horner for the Quarter Fnded 31 December 1841, 86-91; Thomas Ellison, The Cotton Trade of Great Bntain (i886), 66-7; David Chadwick, 'On the rate of wages in Manchester and Salford, and the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, I839- I859', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, series A (March i86o), Appendix, 23-4; George Henry Wood, 'Factory legislation, considered with reference to the wages, &c, of the operatives protected thereby', Joumal of the Royal Statistical Society, LXV, 2 (30 June 1902),

291; George Henry Wood, The History of Wages in the Cotton Trade during the Past Hundred Years (I9IO), 16-37-

45 Ellison, op. cit.; Chadwick, op. cit.; Wood, The History ... op. cit., I6-37.

"6 Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, Women, Work, and Family (New York, 1978), I31; Kirk, op. cit., 94.

47 Kirby and Musson, op. cit., 146; Lazonick, op. cit., 237.

48 Foster, op. cit., 231; Freifeld, op. cit., 335.




the minders benefited. Under existing labour market conditions, firms were required to operate within narrow margins, thus encouraging them to retain a stable and reliable workforce.49 The minders were thus able to negotiate lists which served to stabilize wages at comparatively high levels. Further, the subcontract system, with minders exercising authority over their assistants, was retained. Most importantly for our purposes, spinning now became an exclusively male trade due to the additional strength required to operate the larger mules, which proved to be profitable despite the necessity of employing men.50

The degree of equality that women could achieve within the cotton industry was thus severely limited. However, on this basis alone it is erroneous to conclude, as does Patrick Joyce, that 'patriarchy' was restored within the factory as well as the larger community.5' Such a conclusion suggests that, as William Lazonick claims, 'The occupational positions, industrial actions, and social attitudes of the adult male workers determined the character of the relations between . . . other workers and the capitalists'.52

This argument cannot be sustained, for it distorts the experience of women by viewing it solely through the lens of the male operative. Women's experience is thus denied any independent legitimacy. Yet, as described above, women's position in the cotton industry underwent a considerable transformation from early to mid-century. For women engaged in powerloom weaving, this alteration in conditions influenced their role in the working-class movement, their consciousness of themselves and their rights, and their relationship with their fellow labourers.

Labour relations: weaving

Patrick Joyce, while generally viewing the mid-century period as one of contraction of the working-class movement, admits that class antagonism continued to be evident in the weaving sector of the cotton industry.53 Between I837 and I842, Chartists had organized and led the Manchester powerloom weavers while, in Ashton, the mill workers were generally led by Chartists.54 These traditionally close ties between the factory operatives, particularly the powerloom weavers of south-east Lancashire, and the radical political movement continued to be influential in the industrial disputes of the i84os and I850s. This heritage had a far-reaching impact for, as David Jones has claimed, 'In weaving villages and some of the larger industrial towns Chartism became a family affair; sons following in fathers' political footsteps and female relations giving active en- couragement.'55 Ashton-under-Lyne in particular, writes Dorothy Thompson, was 'an area whose women were well to the fore in the action of the early Chartists'.56

49 Huberman, op. cit., 1I78-80. 50 William Lazonick, 'Production relations,

labour productivity, and choice of technique: British and U.S. cotton spinning', The 7ournal of Economic History, XLI, 3 (September I98I),

496; Foster, op. Cit., 231; Freifeld, op. cit., 335. "' Joyce, op. cit., S6 and 8o. 52 William Lazonick, 'Conflict and control in

the industrial revolution: social relations in the British cotton factory' in Robert Weible, Oliver Ford and Paul Marion (eds), Essays from the Lowell Conference on Industrial History, 1980

and 198I (Lowell, I98I), 21.

5 Joyce, op. cit., 6o-i. 54 Robert Sykes, 'Early Chartism and trade

unionism in south-east Lancashire' in James Epstein and Dorothy Thompson (eds), The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and Culture, 1 830-6o (1 982), i 68.

5 David Jones, Chartism and the Chartists (New York, 1975), 24.

56 Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists: Popu- lar Politics in the Industrial Revolution (New York, I984), 126.




Given this tradition employers, according to Neville Kirk, came to view trade unions as 'coercive bodies' rather than instruments of class harmony while, in turn, the workers came to view their employers not only as individual antagonists but 'as a class'.57 With the introduction of new cloths at mid-century, wage lists had to be renegotiated, sparking numerous disputes to establish and maintain a standard list.58 Referring to the lockout at Preston, Kirk declares that 'The significance of the struggles of I853 and I854 was that they belied hopes for industrial harmony and marked a revival of general class conflict'.59

In all the major strikes involving powerloom weavers during this period, the participation of women is evident. As early as I840, women weavers employed in Bradshaws' firm in Stockport, which hired only female labour, played a militant role in a strike brought on by a reduction in wages. This strike was to last eight weeks and involve 6ooo workers, with the Chartist Richard Pilling taking 'a conspicuous part'.60 During the labour upheaval of 1842, 7000 to 8ooo Manchester powerloom weavers remained on strike for seven weeks. From the beginning of this strike, Mick Jenkins contends, women 'displayed the same tenacity and courage as the men':

While there are hardly any indications of women playing a part in the leadership of the strike, there is running through the press reports news of the equal participation of women alongside the men in all the mass actions that took place.6'

The broad-based character of this movement, in which women played such a part, is indicated by the demands put forward at meetings held in July I842 in response to threatened wage reductions. Here the workers resolved to resist reductions and, at the same time, declared their support for the ten hour day and the Charter, thereby expressing the view that each struggle was an integral part of a larger campaign for economic and political reform. Most notably for our purposes, they did not call for an end to female labour, which may have served to divide the movement and exclude its female component. Rather, they demanded an end to the employment of girls and women at lower wages.62

The following year witnessed a rash of strikes among powerloom weavers for advances in wages, particularly in the Ashton area, where women and girls predominated.63 The Preston lockout of I853-4 was instigated by the discharging of two women, 'occupied as beamers or warpers', who were considered 'ringleaders' in collecting subscriptions for operatives already on strike in Stockport.64 As this dispute sharpened to become the most intense conflict of the decade, a familiar sight was 'the appearance of female delegates, who travelled about and spoke at the public meetings with all the energy, and perhaps more than the loquacity of their male coadjutors'.65

Kirk, op. cit., 251. 58 Andrew Bullen, 'Pragmatism vs. principle:

cotton employers and the origins of an industrial relations system' in J. A. Jowitt and A. J. Mclvor (eds), FEmployers and Labour in the English Textile Industries (I988), 32-4.

59 Kirk, op. cit., 25 I . 60 Stockport Advertiser, 29 May I840, I 2 June

I840, io July I840; The Trial of Feargus O'Connor and 58 Others (I843), 249.

61 Jenkins, op. Cit., 284.

62 ibid., 64.

63 Manchester Guardian, 25, 29 November, 2, 9 December I843.

6" Henry Ashworth, The Preston Strike: An Enquiry into its Causes and Consequences (Manchester, I854), 14.

65 J. Lowe, 'An account of the strike in the cotton trade at Preston in 1853' in Trades' Societies and Strikes: Report of the Committee on Trades' Societies Appointed by the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (i86o), 219-20.



34 Social History VOL. I7: NO. I

In the major strikes that occurred in i858-6i throughout the outlying northern weaving districts to bring wages up to the Blackburn Standard List, women's support is apparent.66 At meetings held in in Burnley and Accrington in support of the strike in Padiham, the weavers' representatives stressed the importance of women's involvement in the strike itself, as well as support activities.67 In Colne, the employers honoured women by including them on a list of the 'most intelligent' operatives engaged in that turnout - for the

68 purpose of blacklisting.

By i86o, Andrew Bullen has estimated, the North-East Lancashire Powerloom Weavers Association had achieved a membership of 24,000 while the Blackburn Association had approximately gooo members. Together, Bullen estimates that these two unions enrolled approximately 70 per cent of the weavers in north Lancashire.69 While we cannot determine the proportion of males to females, undoubtedly women constituted a large percentage of the membership. Their support was clearly vital to the weavers' ability to wage the strikes of the I840s and i85os and to the survival of their associations.

The Ten Hours Act and its defence

Following the passage of the Factory Act of i844, restricting the labour of women to twelve hours, women also began, in contrast to the early I 830s, to lend vocal support to the movement for the Ten Hours Bill. In the weaving areas of Padiham, Burnley and Blackburn, interest in the factory movement increased, with weavers, including women, contributing money to the effort on a weekly basis.70 The Ten Hours'Advocate, published by the Lancashire Central Short Time Committee, indicated that in Padiham, 'All the factory workers in this district, both male and female, seem to look upon this question as one of the greatest blessings government can give to them'.71 The Advocate raised the question of whether or not women could sign petitions, 72 indicating an interest among women in participating in this aspect of the campaign. In a letter to the editor 'Elizabeth', an operative employed at Wadsworth Mill near Todmorden, declared that the shorter hours campaign was 'an important struggle for the liberty of our sex, and the protection of our children'.73 Thus it appears that, when the Ten Hours Act was passed in I847, restricting the labour of women and young persons to ten hours per day and fifty-eight hours per week, women were increasingly giving it their support.

In the autumn of I848, only months after the Ten Hours Act was first put into effect, Leonard Horner and five sub-inspectors conducted a survey indicating that a majority of

66 In addition to those strikes cited in the text, women's participation was also noted in strikes occurring in Chorley, Clitheroe and Great Harwood. Blackburn Weekly Times, IS May i8S8; Preston Guardian, i6, 30 March i86i.

67 'Weavers' meeting', Preston Guardian, 30 April I859; 'Weavers' meeting', Burnley Adver- tiser, 30 April I859; 'Meetings in the market place', Biurnley Advertiser, 6 August I859.

'8 'The strike', Preston Guardian, i i May i86I.

69 Andrew Bullen, The Lancashire Weavers

Union: A Commemorative History (Manchester, I984), 6.

7' Ten Hours' Advocate, 26 September, 24

and 31 October, 7 November, I2 December 1846.

71 'The progress of the Ten Hours' Bill in the districts', Ten Hours' Advocate, I2 December I 846.

72 'Petitions to Parliament - legislative inter- ference', Ten Hours'Advocate, 9 January i 847.

73 'Letter to editor', Ten Hours'Advocate, 26 December I846.




women had indeed come to prefer ten hours of labour, even if it meant a reduction in wages. Of 1153 operatives over the age of seventeen who were employed in the larger mills in Horner's district, nearly 62 per cent preferred ten hours; over I2 per cent preferred eleven hours; while more than 25 per cent preferred twelve hours. Among men, the proportion preferring ten hours was 67.74 per cent while among women the comparable figure, although a majority, was considerably lower at S4.i8 per cent. But, among weavers, the support for ten hours among men and women was identical, at 67.5 per cent.74

The single reason the operatives gave for opposing the Ten Hours Act was the resulting reduction in wages. Single women, who generally gave over their wages to their parents and who did not believe that they themselves benefited from additional leisure time, often voiced a desire to return to twelve hours. In addition, women in such low paying jobs as throstle-spinning and frame-tenting opposed shorter hours due to the accompanying wage cuts.

In those factories where the owner, manager and/or overlooker expressed opposition to the Ten Hours Act, the opinions of the operatives were at times in agreement with their superiors. However, it was also common for operatives to support the Act when their employers did not. It was just as common for women as it was for men to take a position in opposition to that of their employers, indicating that, with the increase in security which women operatives enjoyed, intimidation was now less of a factor than in the early I830s.

Among workers in a single factory, there were often divisions of opinion regarding the Ten Hours Act, depending on individual circumstances. These differences, however, do not appear to have been along gender lines but, rather, along occupational lines. While weavers and spinners often defended the Ten Hours Act, lower paid workers frequently did not.

Those workers who supported the reduction in hours did so primarily because they felt that their health had improved and they appreciated the increased time they were able to spend with their families. Both men and women expressed such views while women often noted, in addition, that they now had more time for their domestic chores. A further reason for support, commonly given by both men and women, was the fact that shorter hours enabled them to attend evening school. Women workers in a variety of occupations, in answer to the question of whether they supported the Ten Hours Act despite wage reductions, typically responded as follows:

Thinks she has been long enough away from her children when she has been away io hours (married woman, 3 children, works at roving-frame).

she has more time with her family, and has not to pay neighbours for working for her . . .for she finds time to do [it] herself (weaver).

. . . employs her time in the evening in sewing, and reading the Scriptures; knows many who have learned more sewing and reading since the Ten Hours Bill began, than ever they did in their whole lives before (single woman, age 23, throstle-piecer).

'4 B.P.P., Report of Leonard Horner for the Half-year Ended Pi October 1848, I849, XXII

(1017). The following discussion refers to this survey.




Rather than being defensive regarding their domestic skills, as the women interviewed in I833 had been, these women expressed an appreciation for the extra time they enjoyed under the Ten Hours Act. They had gained control over that time and they put it to productive use. A new-found sense of self was emerging among the women, a sense of their rights as workers and their dignity as individuals. They were proud of their independence, which was expressed by maintaining their homes free from outside assistance. This sense of pride, as Neville Kirk has pointed out, was indigenous to the working class, being 'based upon mutuality, self-help, independence and education'. 75

Particularly among women weavers, a growing sense of solidarity with their fellow workers is also apparent. Asked about the working of the Ten Hours Act, they often responded not only with their own opinion but added their impression of the opinions of others as well. In addition, they noted not only the benefit that they themselves derived from shorter hours, but also indicated that it was a question of rights - that no one should be expected to work any longer. The following responses may be considered typical:

thinks it quite long enough to work, and believes that others think as she does.

Ten hours is long enough for anyone to work.

be the wages what they may, that no person ought to be employed during more than io hours daily.

thinks that the great majority of her fellow-workers are completely satisfied with the restriction to io hours, and will never work during longer hours unless they are compelled.

Perhaps of greatest interest, however, is the determination expressed among the women weavers that all operatives should work the same regular hours. At the time this survey was taken, this issue became increasingly significant in areas where mill owners were instituting a system of working women and young persons in shifts or relays, to be discussed further below. Many women interviewed referred to this system in their responses, expressing a desire for identical working hours among all employees. For example, two women weavers declared:

I think io hours long enough, if we could all do regular and work the same time, but it is disagreeable looking to go out and leave the men working at the looms.

I have more ease and can do more for my children when I get home. I want fellies to do io too.

Many women, and men as well, concluded that eleven hours would be a reasonable solution, agreeable to the employers, enabling all operatives to work the same hours. One woman weaver indicated that she would 'prefer i i hours, unless the men were not allowed to work more than io'. Another stated that she would 'prefer i i hours if all worked alike, though for herself Io hours is long enough'.

The trend that emerges most forcefully in these comments is that of individual interest being superseded by the interests of the operatives as a whole. In some instances,

75 Kirk, op. cit., i 88.




individuals even expressed a willingness to sacrifice increased wages because it was the right of workers in general to have some leisure time. The case of four women weavers is particularly striking for the confidence they expressed in the workers' ability to realize their objectives. They indicated that, although they suffered a loss in wages, they 'would strongly object to a return to I2 hours of labour, as they fully anticipate eventually to receive "I2 hours' wages for IO hours' work"'.

The depth of women's support for the Ten Hours Act was most apparent in those areas where the relay system was introduced. Under this system, mill owners evaded the intent of the Act by working women and young persons in shifts or relays, which allowed the machinery to be operated for up to twelve or fourteen hours, with men working the full time. Such action was made possible by the fact that the act of I844, which was still in effect, provided for the work of protected operatives to begin simultaneously, but did not specify that hours be consecutive. Thus it was argued that it was perfectly legal to employ women and young persons for several hours in the morning, release them for one to three hours later in the day, and then require them to work until perhaps 7.30 p.m., as long as their working hours did not exceed ten.76 By April I849, this relay system had been widely adopted, especially in the areas of Ashton, Stalybridge, Stockport and Oldham.77 In all, Leonard Horner estimated that I I4 mill owners were using shifts, which enabled them to run their mills on overtime.78

Women expressed intense opposition to the relay system, as indicated in a letter to the Ashton Chronicle by a correspondent who, upon seeing a number of operatives leaving work at midday at Leech's mill in Stalybridge during January I849, enquired of a woman worker if a strike had occurred. Responding that 'it is something a good deal worse than that', the woman declared:

They have begun a new trick this morning. They are working us in gangs now; our master is doing all he can to plague us out of our lives and get us to curse the Ten Hours Bill. We are working shifts . . . we are kept at it, backwards and forwards, here and there, from half-past five until eight o'clock. We can make no use of this time, but make it away as we can. There are some who are a good way from home that walk up and down anywhere, or go with a friend to their house. Others harbour with neighbours or shelter in beer houses. We are forced to skulk about and put the time in the best we know how, some one fashion and some another.79

Seeing that the purpose of the relay system was to 'get us to curse the Ten Hours Bill', women began to take concerted action against it. By the end of March, the women weavers at Leech's mill began stopping their looms after ten hours. Their example was soon followed at other factories in the area. On 4 April, the first shift at Leech's refused to leave work for two hours in the forenoon as ordered, and the second shift did likewise. The overlookers stopped the looms, attempting to force the operatives to leave. Finally Leech

76 B. P. P., Report of Leonard Horner..., I 849, XXII, 3-8; Driver, op. cit., 480.

77 'The Ten Hours Act. Important meeting of delegation from the manufacturing districts', Morning Post, 17 April I 849.

78 B. P. P., Report of Leonard Homer for the Half-year Ended 3o April 1849, I849, XXII

(1084), 4-5. 79'More ways of working in Leech's Mill',

Ashton Chronicle, 20 January I 849.



38 Social History VOL. 17: NO. 1

himself ordered the engines stopped, thus initiating a lockout.80 The Morning Post reported:

During the whole of this week the town of Stalybridge has been kept in a state of agitation owing to the determination of females and young persons employed at various mills not to continue upon the plan lately adopted by several masters of working by 'shifts' or relays.81

The following week, the weavers' department at Cheetham's mill was also stopped, but Leech's operatives returned. However, at the latter mill some weavers continued to stop work at 5.30 and refused to mind the looms of weavers out on shift. Reported the Ashton Chronicle, 'No means have as yet been adopted calculated to force the relay system into operation again. Overlookers, bookkeepers, etc., have done all they could to effect this, but the sternness of the women has still prevailed.'82

Over the following week, while attempts made at Leech's to institute the relay system continued to meet opposition, the unity of the weavers gradually began to break down.83 Finally, Leech's discharged three women 'charged with being the ringleaders of the resistance to the relay-system'.84 Deputations of men and women then met two other manufacturers, Hindley and Cheetham. The former agreed to close his factory after ten hours while the latter insisted on operation of the relay system.85 Reported the Ashton Chronicle: 'By cursing, swearing, lying and intimidation of every sort the relay-system seems now to be got on the swing again'.86 Thus 'the sternness of the women' was not sufficient to put an end to the relay system immediately, but their actions did influence the course of factory legislation. With the passage of the act of I 8So, the limitation on working hours was extended from ten to ten-and-a-half, but the relay system was prohibited.87

Furthermore, over the next quarter century, such liberal employers as Cheetham's and Leech's 'consolidated their wealth and power and mellowed many of their attitudes and policies towards labour',88 emerging 'at the forefront of the new paternalism'.89 According to Patrick Joyce, in those areas where the large combined firms predominated, as in the south-east, the factories became the centre of social life, with employers organizing trips to the countryside, dinners, teas and sports days as well as providing libraries and reading rooms for their employees.90 As evidenced by the events of I849, however, such measures must be viewed as a defensive response on the part of employers, as Richard Price has argued. Workers' responses to employer intransigence necessitated the striking of a new balance, if conflicts were to be peacefully resolved and a stable, reliable workforce was to

80'Conspiracy of masters at Stalybridge', Ashton Chronicle, 2I April I849; 'Record of the "lock-out" at Stalybridge', Ashton Chronicle, 21

April I849. 81 'Refusal to work by relays at Stalybridge',

Morning Post, 9 April I 849. 82 'Record of the "lock-out" at Stalybridge',

Ashton Chronicle, 2I April I849. 83 ibid. 84 'Record of the lockout at Stalybridge',

Ashton Chronicle, 28 April I849. 85 'Critical condition of the factory district',

Morning Post, I7 April I849; 'Record of the "lock-out" at Stalybridge', Ashton Chronicle, 2I April I849.

86 'Record of the lockout at Stalybridge', Ashton C(hronicle, 28 April X849.

87 Ernst von Plener, The E,nglish Factoiy Legislation, from 1802 till the Present time, trans. Frederick L. Weinmann (London, I873),

40-I.

88 Kirk, op. cit., 38. 89 ibid., i85. -90 J oyce, op. cit ., 148-- .



7anuary 1992 Women in the English cotton industry 39

be maintained.91 The paternalism of the i850S must, therefore, be viewed against the background of the militant struggles waged by the women of Ashton and Stalybridge in i849.

AMBIGUITIES OF WOMEN'S WORK

The mid-century was thus not a period of 'retreat', as Dorothy Thompson has posited.92 Nor may it be considered a period marked by the re-establishment of 'patriarchy', defined and determined solely by the position the male operatives, primarily the skilled spinners, came to occupy. Rather, it may be characterized as a time when women, led by the example of the weavers, began to be integrated into the working-class movement, as Chartists, unionists and general defenders of the rights of workers. Yet women's work and their perceptions of that work were fraught with ambiguities.

For women, factory work was generally episodic and largely confined to the years prior to marriage and child-bearing. In later years of the life cycle, women moved in and out of the workforce according to family need.93 As Michael Anderson has demonstrated, the family continued to provide an important network of support, allowing the working class to retain some measure of independence and self-sufficiency as the pressures of industrialization multiplied.94

Under these circumstances, women's identification with the work experience was often limited, while the family remained their paramount concern. Accordingly, although women's support of the strikes mentioned above is evident, that support was not universal. In the balance sheets of both the Preston lockout and Padiham strike, women were often cleverly chastised for refusing to pay their weekly subscriptions in support of the strikers.95 When subscriptions were raised for the Colne strike, at first only limited support was forthcoming from Preston where a large majority of women were employed and where only half of the weavers belonged to the union.96 In the midst of the Preston lockout Margaret Fletcher, the leading woman orator, lamented what she considered a reversal of the natural order of things, which forced a woman to leave her home and family at 5.30 a.m. and go to work while her husband remained at home. Men must have a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, she argued, which would enable them to maintain themselves and their families in comfort while their wives remained at home to take care of the house and educate the children.97 During the strikes among powerloom weavers in I 878, women

91 Richard Price, 'Conflict and co-operation: a reply to Patrick Joyce', Social History, IX, 2 (May I984), ZI9-20; Huberman, op. cit., I77-9; H. I. Dutton and J. E. King, 'The limits of paternalism: the cotton tyrants of North Lancashire, I836-54', Social History, vii, I (January I982), 59-74.

92 Dorothy Thompson, 'Women and nineteenth-century radical politics: a list dimension' in Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (eds, with introduction), The Rights and Wrongs of Women (New York, 1976), I 15.

9' Tilly and Scott, Women, Work, and Fam- ily, op. cit., i z6.

9 Anderson, Family Structure ... op. cit., 72-4. See also Jane Humphries, 'The working- class family: a Marxist perspective' in Jean Bethke Elshtain (ed.), The Family in Political Thought (Amherst, 1982), 197-222.

95 Lowe, op. cit., 253; William A. Jevons, 'Account of the weavers' strike at Padiham in I 859' in Trades' Societies and Strikes ... op. cit., 457.

96 'Weavers' meeting on the Colne strike', Preston Guardian, 14 J uly i 86o.

7 'The Labour Crisis', Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, iz November I853.




played an active part in general meetings of workers and served on strike committees. Yet, during this strike, women operatives also raised the demand for the withdrawal of married women from the factory.98

As women's position in the factory came to be securely established toward mid-century, the ambiguities inherent in their position intensified. The conflict implicit in having primary responsibility for the domestic sphere while being engaged in social production sharpened. As a result, women's actions and demands appear contradictory as they struggled with their fellow employees to improve conditions at the workplace while, at the same time, suggesting alternatives which would serve to remove themselves from the factory altogether.

While recent scholarship has emphasized the continuity in the experience of the woman worker from the pre-industrial to the industrial era, I would suggest that such ambiguities expressed by women workers only serve to underscore the significance of the alteration in their position within the industrial workforce at mid-century. Louise Tilly and Joan Scott's conclusion, that 'changes in the mode of production did not immediately or automatically transform women's work',99 while serving to alert us to the continuities in women's experience, has served to obscure more than to enlighten. Those elements of discontinuity which did transform the nature of women's work, their work relations, and their consciousness of themselves and the position they occupied in the workforce have all but disappeared from view. Accordingly, scholars have developed a conception of women's identity that is gender-basedlo and, by so doing, have failed to recognize the multiplicity of factors and interrelationships that go into shaping that identity.

CONCLUSION

As mechanization was gradually introduced into the cotton industry, women came to occupy a variety of positions in relation to the productive forces. At first, largely confined to auxiliary positions in the early spinning mills, women were insecure, dependent on meagre wages and subject to intimidation by their employers. Further, as a result of employment on the self-acting mule at wages half those of men, they came into direct competition with the skilled male spinners.

As powerloom weaving developed, however, many women came to be employed in one of the two main occupations in the cotton industry and earned piece-rates equal to those of men. Here men and women came to stand in the same relationship to the forces of production. Thus all operatives were equally confronted with wage reductions and the need to establish a standard list of prices. In the battles which ensued over these issues, an

98 'Great strike in the cotton trade', Manches- ter Guardian, 22 April I878; see Blackburn Times for March and April I878; Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics, Webb Trade Union Collection, section A, vol. 34, 68. For a discussion of the emergence of the ideal of a family wage, based on the earnings of a single adult male breadwinner, see Wally Seccombe, 'Patriarchy stabilized: the

construction of the male breadwinner wage norm in nineteenth-century Britain', Social History, xi, i (January I986), 53-76.

9 Tilly and Scott, Women, Work, and Fam- ily, 64.

'? Alice Kessler-Harris, 'Gender ideology in historical reconstruction: a case study from the 1930s', Gender and History, i, i (Spring I989),

32.



January I992 Women in the English cotton industry 4I

identity of interests was forged. Women became more fully conscious of their rights and expressed a new-found sense of dignity as workers. As Sarah Eisenstein concluded, writing of working women in the United States in the early twentieth century, 'Employment for pay outside the home both fostered a sense of personal independence and value and made possible the emergence of a group consciousness and identification'.101 Particularly as women came to enjoy an enhanced sense of status and security, they increasingly claimed a right to some say over their conditions and, by so doing, claimed a 'right to a more fully human existence'. 102 Thus they joined with men in struggling for the Ten Hours Act and its preservation, the rights of unions and the establishment of standard lists.

This conclusion is not to suggest that the growth in women's awareness of their rights and their full integration into working-class politics were dependent on men. Rather, as all workers' relationships to the forces of production changed, the social relations of production altered accordingly. Gender antagonism, while not entirely absent in weaving, was less marked than in the spinning sector of the industry, thereby facilitating the growth of a group consciousness across gender lines.

This unity of interests, however, did not serve to subsume gender issues entirely under those of class. On the contrary, gender issues continually asserted themselves. Nowhere is this more clearly in evidence than in the struggle women waged to preserve the integrity of the Ten Hours Act. Here was an issue that particularly impinged on women and the difficulties they confronted when they entered the factory. The introduction of the relay system disrupted the balance that women were attempting to achieve between home and workplace and, accordingly, the action was widely resented. In attempting to re-establish the balance they sought, women, particularly weavers, exerted a measure of control over the production process. By so doing, it is interesting to note, although acting in their interests as women, they came to realize more fully the identity of interests they shared with their male counterparts.

As the powerloom weaving workforce evolved at mid-century, issues of gender and class intersected in a complex fashion. Viewing this period in terms of the continuity of women's work experience or a 'restored patriarchy' serves only to obscure the complexity of these evolving interrelationships. As Sheila Rowbotham has observed, concerning the concept of patriarchy, it has been stretched 'in umpteen different ways', yet it still 'refuses to budge' sufficiently to incorporate the variety of ways society has defined gender and constructed gender relations.'03 By thus defining women's position in terms of men's, appeals to patriarchy have only served to deny women their history. Yet, as has been demonstrated here, as the working class itself was present at its own making, so too have women been present at each stage, however limited, of their own liberation.

University of Northern Iowa

0' Sarah Eisenstein, Give us Bread but Give us Roses: Working Women 's Consciousness in the United States, 1890 to the F'irst World War (i983), 6.

102 ibid., 33. 103 Sheila Rowbotham, 'The trouble with

"patriarchy"' in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People's History and Socialist Theory (I98I), 365.



women, work and consciousness in the mid-nineteenth-century english cotton industry

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