Some Early Evidence of Worksharing: Lancashire before 1850

Business History

Volumn 37, Issue 4, 1995, Pages 1-24

  Huberman, Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HISTORICAL STUDIES; INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION; NINETEENTH CENTURY; TEXTILE INDUSTRY; WORKSHARING;

UK, ENGLAND, LANCASHIRE;

EID: 0029483250     PISSN: 00076791     EISSN: 17437938     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00076799500000125     Document Type: Article

References (109)

1. See the comments of millowners in Parliamentary Papers (hereafter P.P), 1816, III, Children Employed in the Manufactories of the United Kingdom, pp.230-35.
2. For an excellent account of the persistence of traditional methods of organising work, see Eric Hopkins' study of Birmingham and the Black Country, ‘Working Hours and Conditions during the Industrial Revolution: A Re-Appraisal’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, Vol.XXXV (1982), pp.67-83. Hopkins attributed the continuity of work organisation forms to the fact that ‘in the small firms of Birmingham and the Black Country and in the thousands of domestic workshops capitalization was low or minute’ (p.64).
3. The standard account is M.A. Bienefeld, Working Hours in British Industry: An Economic History (London, 1972).
4. P.P. 1842, XXII, Reports of the Inspectors of Factories.
5. Throughout this paper worksharing, short-time, and short-hours are used interchangeably. They refer to cuts in hours for all workers. Part-time work, defined as different hours for the same groups of workers, does not appear to have been practised. The normal working day was about 12 hours, or about a 69 hour working week (9 hours on Saturdays). It was less common for firms to reduce the length (number of days) of the working week. It can be speculated that the expense of lighting the factory - at latitudes as far north as Manchester from November through February these charges were not trivial - were greater than the costs of starting up a steam engine. Water-powered mills had less flexiblity in selecting work schedules. They did work short-time but this often occured when water levels were low. Note that by 1841 the spinning industry was predominantly urban and Horner found that only 10 per cent of firms, mainly small concerns, were powered by water exclusively. For an account of short-time in the United States for later in the century, see S. Carter and R. Sutch, ‘Sticky Wages, Short Weeks and Fairness: The Response of Connecticut Manufacturing Firms to the Depression of 1893-94’ (unpublished manuscript, University of California, Berkeley, 1991).
6. For the 1847–48 recession see H.M. Boot, ‘Unemployment and Poor Law Relief in Manchester, 1845-50’, Social History, Vol.15 (1990), pp.217-29;
7. for 1907–8 see S.J. Chapman and H.M. Hallsworth, Unemployment: The Results of an Investigation Made in Lancashire (Manchester, 1909);
8. for the 1920s see N. Whiteside and J.A. Gillespie, ‘Deconstructing Unemployment: Developments in Britain in the Interwar Years’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, Vol. XLIV (1991), pp.665-82.
9. W. Mass and W. Lazonick, ‘The British Cotton Industry and International Competitive Advantage: The State of the Debates’, Business History, Vol. XXXII (1990).
10. The article is reprinted in M.B. Rose (ed.), International Competition and Strategic Response in the Textile Industries since 1870 (London, 1991), pp.9-66. All references are to this volume.
11. For a comparable study, see J.M. Ramseyer, ‘Credibly Committing to Efficiency Wages: Cotton Spinning Cartels in Imperial Japan’, University of Chicago Law School Roundtable (1993), pp.153-89.
12. Evidence on short-time is from the ‘State of Trade Columns’ in local newspapers. See Manchester Guardian (hereafter MG), 11 June, 18 June 1825, 29 July 1826;
13. Stockport Advertiser (hereafter SA), 15 July 1825, 20 July 1826;
14. Bolton Chronicle (hereafter BC), 29 July 1826.
15. John Rylands Library, Manchester, McConnel and Kennedy Letterbooks, 30 March 1826; also, 19 Jan. 1826, 24 Feb. 1827.
16. S.D. Chapman, The Cotton Industry in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1987), p.31.
17. M. Blaug, ‘The Productivity of Capital in the Lancashire Cotton Industry during the Nineteenth Century’, Economic History Review, 2nd series (1961), p.359.
18. R.C.O. Matthews, A Study in Trade Cycle History: Economic Fluctuations in Great Britain, 1833–42 (Cambridge, 1954), pp.127–51.
19. R. Lloyd-Jones and A.A. Le Roux, ‘Factory Utilization and the Firm: The Manchester Cotton Industry, c.1825-1840’, Textile History, Vol.15 (1977), pp.119-27, found that far from being exhausted by the end of the first sub-period in 1833, semi-reserve capacity was near its highest level for the period under consideration.
20. Matthews, Trade Cycle, p.134.
21. Ibid., pp.138–39.
22. An early historian of the cotton industry reported that between 1836 and 1841 an ‘immense amount of over trading had been done, and the markets all over the world were glutted with English goods’. T. Ellison, ‘The Great Crises in the History of the Cotton Trade: A Retrospect of Prices and Supply, 1790-1862’, The Exchange, Vol.1 (1862), pp.45-53.
23. The estimation of fixed costs in the period was notoriously difficult. For a discussion of the issues, see F. S. Jones, ‘The Financial Needs of the Cotton Industry During the Industrial Revolution’, Textile History, Vol.XVI (1985), pp.45-68.
24. P.P. 1842, XXII, p.360.
25. For example see M.B. Rose, P. Taylor and M.J. Winstanley, ‘The Economic Origins of Paternalism: Some Objections’, Social History, Vol.XIV (1989), p.96.
26. Matthews, Trade Cycle, p. 142. See also footnote 35 below.
27. C.H. Lee, ‘The Cotton Textile Industry’, in R. Church (ed.), The Dynamics of Victorian Business (London, 1980), pp. 170–71.
28. Matthews (Trade Cycle, p.147) wrote that the supply of adults was ‘superabundant’.
29. E.P. Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’, Past … Present, Vol.38 (1967), pp.56-67.
30. This is the conclusion of G. Cross, A Quest for Time: The Reduction of Work in Britain and France, 1840–1940 (Berkeley, 1989), pp.21-51.
31. Boot, ‘Unemployment’; G. Boyer, An Economic History of the English Poor Law, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 1990), pp.233-64.
32. V.A.C. Gatrell, ‘Labour, Power and the Size of Firms in Lancashire Cotton in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, Vol. XXX (1977), pp.95-139.
33. Following Gatrell, ibid., p.126, the retabulated figures exclude data on parishes in Homer's district outside Lancashire, and include all Lancashire except the parishes of Todmorden and Warrington, which fell to other inspectors. Horner recorded 1,164 firms; Gatrell, 975. The number of firms analysed in this paper is different for two reasons. One, I have excluded firms which were closed for more than one year because in all likelihood they would have to had recruit a completely new workforce. Second, I have labeled firms that spun both coarse and fine yarn as fine spinners. These firms used the same technology and required the same labour input as firms that specialised in fine spinning.
34. P.P. 1842 (31) XXII. p.343.
35. R.S. Burn, Statistics of the Cotton Trade (London, 1847), p.21, gave these figures for the weekly average number of cotton bales bought in Liverpool
36. SA, 27 May, 5 Aug/1841;
37. Bolton Free Press, 19 June, 4 Sept. 1841;
38. Manchester Times, 2 Oct. 1841;
39. MG, 7 April, 11 May, 15 Aug. 1841;
40. Marriott … Co. Trade Circular, 1 Jan. 1842.
41. P.P. 1842 (31) XXII, p.341;
42. Ellison, ‘Great Crises’, p.64.
43. While fine yarn margins declined by 13 per cent between 1840 and 1841, coarse margins fell by about 18 per cent. The fine spinning branch had suffered from a decline in trade from the late 1830s and stocks at firms were already at a low level by 1841. Calculated from M. Huberman, ‘How Did Labor Markets Work in Lancashire? More Evidence on Prices and Quantities in Cotton Spinning, 1822-1852’, Explorations in Economic History, Vol.28 (1991), Table 5.
44. Marriott … Co. Trade Circular, 1 Jan. 1842. On the spectre of improvement in November and December, see MG, 15 Sept., 9 Oct., 13 Oct. 1841.
45. Note that Matthews, Trade Cycle History, pp.142–3, fn.2, speculated that a higher proportion of large firms worked short-time because the demand for their products was ‘perhaps less elastic than for the products of other firms’. The retabulated survey reveals, however, that large firms regardless of specialisation cut hours.
46. Quoted in MG, 16 Feb. 1842; see also Homer's own report of the state of the trade, P.P. 1842 (31) XXII, p.446.
47. MG, 9 Mar. 1842;
48. E.J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men (London, 1964) p.74. The unemployment rate during the crisis has been the subject of much controversy, but from Horner's survey the proportion of workers laid off fully or partially in the early stages of the depression can be calculated. Horner's uncorrected result was that about 24 per cent of the textile work force was either not at work or partially employed in the last four months of 1841. However, the ‘unemployed’ were about 42 per cent of the work force if those who were recorded as fully employed on the survey date but had worked short-time in the past are included in the unemployed category. Moreover, following procedures set out above and including workers who in November and December were recorded as being on short-time in the past in the September and October unemployment figures, then about 53 per cent of workers were laid off partially or completely during the worst two months of 1841.
49. A copy of the 1813 Bolton list, A General List of Prices of Spinning, ZZ/220, may be found in the Bolton Public Library, Bolton.
50. For a history of the early lists, S.J. Chapman, ‘The Regulation of Wages by Lists in the Spinning Industry’, Economic Journal, Vol. IX (1899) pp.583-94;
51. M. Huberman, ‘Industrial Relations and the Industrial Revolution: Evidence from McConnel and Kennedy’, Business History Review, Vol.65 (1991), pp.345-76;
52. I. Cohen, American Management and British Labor: A Comparative Study of the Cotton Spinning Industry (Westport, CT, 1990).
53. On common-mule and self-actor technology, see W. Lazonick, Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor (Cambridge, 1990);
54. on weaving technology, see J.S. Lyons, ‘The Lancashire Cotton Industry and the Introduction of the Powerloom’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1977), pp.126, 176;
55. P.P. 1833, XX, Commission on the Employment of Children in Factories, D2, p.6.
56. Huberman, ‘Industrial Relations’.
57. For an account of the later lists, see A. Fowler and T. Wyke (eds.), The Barefoot Aristocrats: A History of the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners (Littleborough, 1987).
58. British Association for the Advancement of Science, On the Regulation of Wages by Means of Lists in the Cotton Industry (Manchester, 1887), p.12.
59. For similar statements, see S. and B. Webb, Webb Collection, Vol. XXXIV (London School of Economics), pp.171-2;
60. sources quoted by Cohen, American Management, p.86.
61. A.B. Reach, Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849 (Helmshore, Lancashire, 1972), pp.29-33, 110.
62. M. Anderson, Family Structure in Nineteenth Century Lancashire (Cambridge, 1971), pp.136–69.
63. D.J. Oddy, ‘Urban Famine in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Effect of the Lancashire Cotton Famine on Working Class Diet and Health’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, Vol.XXXVI (1983), pp.68-86;
64. on the stigma effect, see Anderson, Family Structure.
65. For references see, R. Price, Masters, Unions and Men (1980), pp.52-3.
66. For statements of this kind, see MG, 10 May 1848.
67. P.P. 1831–32, XV, p.277.
68. S. Andrew, Fifty Years of Work and Wages in the Cotton Trade (Oldham, 1887), p.10;
69. on related themes, see Cross, A Quest for Time;
70. J.E. King, ‘Perish Consumption! Free Trade and Underconsumption in Early British Radical Economics,’ Australian Economic Papers, Vol.20 (1981), pp.235-57.
71. For examples see MG, 6 Feb. 1830.
72. MG, 1 Nov. 1848; Webb, Vol. XXXV, p.50.
73. On the variability and uncertainty of demand, see S.D. Chapman, ‘British Marketing Enterprise: The Changing Roles of Merchants, Manufacturers and Financiers, 1700-1860’, Business History Review, Vol.53 (1979), pp.205-35;
74. Huberman, ‘Labor Markets’.
75. The correlation is 0.16. Levels of yarn inventories, in contrast, moved in opposite direction to changes in inventories, indicating that firms faced uncertain demand. Cotton inventories and output are from Huberman, ‘Labor Markets’, Table 4, p.103.
76. SA, 15 July 1825.
77. On inventories and the Liverpool cotton market, see Mass and Lazonick, pp.14–15.
78. Ibid., pp.11–13.
79. R.S. Gardner, Letter to His Workpeople (Manchester, 1845); Webb, Vol.XXXIV, p.238;
80. J. Ward, The Factory Movement, 1830–1855 (London, 1962), p.307.
81. P.P. 1849 (1017) XXII, pp.204, 206.
82. G.H. Wood, The History of Wages in the Cotton Trade During the Past Hundred Years (London, 1910), p.133;
83. G.T. Jones, Increasing Returns (Cambridge, 1933), pp.103–4.
84. On the issue of enforcement, see J. Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict (New York, 1992), pp.58-60;
85. A.J. Field, ‘Microeconomics, Norms and Rationality,’ Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol.32 (1989), pp.683-711.
86. For examples, see SA, 20 July 1826;
87. Voice of the People, 24 Feb. 1831;
88. MG, 16 Aug. 1839;
89. Ten Hours Advocate, 13 March 1847;
90. MG, 15 May 1841; see also 28 April 1841.
91. MG, 13 Oct. 1847.
92. For examples, see P. Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge, 1991).
93. The standard work on employers' associations is J.A. Jowitt and A.J. Mclvor (eds.), Employers and Labour in the English Textile Industries, 1880–1939 (London, 1988), p.211.
94. A piecer in testimony before the Commission on the Employment of Children in Factories remarked that some factories have a ‘bad character’ and this reputation ‘clings’ to them. P.P. 1833, XX, p.77.
95. An employer before the same commission explained that ‘it is in the interest of a master manufacturer to do all that lies in his power to accommodate his men, as he thereby is enabled to attract the best men into his employ, owing to the good reports which his factory will bear upon them’. P.P. 1834, XX, Supplementary Report on the Employment of Children in Factories, p.511.
96. H.I. Dutton and J.E. King, Ten Percent and No Surrender: The Preston Strike, 1853–54 (Cambridge 1981), p.45.
97. The Manchester strike of 1829 provides examples of firms subsidising striking workers; R.G. Kirby and A.E. Musson, The Voice of the People: John Doherty (1798–1854), Trade Unionist, Radical and Factory Reformer (Manchester, 1975).
98. The role of population stability in Lancashire towns is discussed in P. Joyce, Work, Society and Politics: The Culture of the Factory in Later Victorian England (Brighton, 1988).
99. A.C. Pigou, Economics of Welfare (London, 1932), p.466.
100. E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1968), p.531.
101. M. Savage, ‘Women and Work in Lancashire’, in Jowitt and Mclvor (eds.), Employers and Labour, p.211.
102. D. A. Farnie, The English Cotton Industry and the World Market (Oxford, 1979).
103. J. Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution (London, 1974);
104. Joyce, Work, Society, p.151.
105. The increase in average firm size in Oldham was associated with the emergence of joint stock companies. By the mid-1880s, the average sizes of Oldham and Bolton firms were nearly identical. D. A. Farnie, The English Cotton Industry and the World Market, 1815–96 (Oxford, 1979).
106. P. Hudson, ‘Introduction’, in Regions and Industries: A Perspective on the Industrial Revolution in Britain (Cambridge, 1989), p.31. Table 5 captures practices in 1841 only. After mid-century population changes were greater in Whalley; in this later period, Burnley, a centre of production in the district, had a ‘primitive system of local industrial relations’ and ‘the worst working conditions of any weaving town’.
107. N. Kirk, The Growth of Working Class Reformism in Mid-Victorian England (Urbana, IL, 1985), p.285.
108. N. Whiteside, ‘Social Welfare and Industrial Relations, 1914-1939’, in C.J. Wrigley (ed.), A History of British Industrial Relations, 1914–39, Vol. II (Brighton, 1985), pp.211-43.
109. J.M. Keynes, ‘Industrial Reorganisation: Cotton’, in D. Moggridge (ed.), The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol. XIX, part ii. Activities 1922-1929: The Return to the Gold Standard and Industrial Policy (Cambridge, 1981), p.578.