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The Records of a Scottish
Cloth Manufactory at New Mills, Haddingtonshire, 1681-1703. Edited from
the Original Manuscripts, with Introduction and Notes, by W. R. Scott,
M.A., D.Phil., Litt.D., Lecturer on Political Economy, University of St.
Andrews. Pp. xci, 366. Demy 8vo. Edinburgh : Printed at the University
Press for the Scottish History Society, 1905.
The records of the New Mills Company are unique in respect that they are
the earliest of the kind known to exist in Britain. Of the Bank of
England, the Bank of Scotland, the East India Company, and the two or
three other great commercial enterprises of the seventeenth century, the
minutes are preserved, and some of these have been published. But the
New Mills Company is the only manufacturing undertaking of that time
whose records have survived, even in an incomplete form. The Company was
founded in June, 1681, and dissolved in 1713. It thus continued for
thirty-two years. The records comprise twelve years of that period. They
consist of two parts. The first, extending from the formation of the
Company to 1691, a space of ten years, is a manuscript folio of 36 pages
which came to the Edinburgh University Library in the Laing Collection.
The second, beginning 1701, ending 1703, a space of two years, was
discovered at the Register House after much of the first was actually in
print. Between the two parts there is an interval of ten years for which
the record is lost; and the same remark applies to the decade from 1703
to the dissolution of the Company. Dr. Scott gives the first series of
minutes in full; the second in summary, omitting nothing that is of any
real consequence; and of more value perhaps than the lost minutes would
have been are two documents discovered among the papers at the Register
House relating to the estate of Sir James Stanfield, the principal
promoter of the Company. One of these is a ‘memorial’ concerning the
proposed 'manufactory of cloath’; the other is the original contract of
co-partnery; and of the former it is remarked that it is the earliest
prototype of the modern prospectus of which we have any knowledge — a
circumstance which invests it with peculiar interest. There is much in
the minutes and the accompanying documents to engage the thought of
students of political economy, and makers of cloth who are curious about
the beginnings of their industry will derive from their perusal more
than amusement. But the general reader will be chiefly attracted by the
admirable introduction. No cue could have been chosen to edit the
minutes possessed of greater fitness for it than Dr. Scott, or more
competent to bring into review the industrial condition of the country
at the time to which they refer. It was no part of his task to collect
from the mistakes of our forefathers material for warning and rebuke for
men of our own day who with infinitely less excuse would repeat those
mistakes. But he could have urged the moral with a force begotten of
clear thinking and strong conviction. The reader, however, will be dull
indeed who fail to perceive it for himself. In the seventeenth century
it was sought to foster commercial and industrial enterprises by almost
every device that was to be condemned by scientific economists and
rejected after failure. The Trade Guilds exercised the powers they
possessed to protect their several crafts in their several districts. In
England the King granted charters and monopolies to companies and
individuals. In Scotland the same thing was done, but by Privy Council
and by Parliament, and with a more apparent intention to safeguard the
common weal. The charters in every instance conferred exclusive
privileges. At one time our exports were almost entirely of food-stuffs,
and the raw materials of manufacture; while our imports were of
manufactures and luxuries for the table. The desire to correct this was
patriotic and natural. But the methods adopted involved a conflict of
interlacing interests and were a source of serious inconvenience and
loss to consumers. Foreign manufactures were not only excluded, but the
wearing of them was made a punishable misdemeanour. The export of raw
materials required by the home manufacturer was disallowed, and for the
same reason the import of such materials was completely freed from
obstructive duties: manufacturing companies were exempted from taxes and
local rates, their premises from having soldiers quartered upon them,
and their workmen from military service; inducements in the form of easy
naturalisation and immunity from taxation were offered to the ingenious
alien to settle in Scotland, to instruct others in his trade; and the
companies were given, if not the power of pit and gallows, at anyrate a
very large measure of magisterial and police authority over their
workers. They could imprison or pillory for certain offences, and it was
unlawful for other employers to engage a Company’s workman without the
Company's consent. Notwithstanding this comprehensive and complicated
scheme of protection, preference, and privilege, a scheme which included
not only immunities from public burdens but the receipt of subsidies
from the State, there was still a cry for more protection, preference,
privilege, immunity, and subsidy; for the fostered trades could not or
would not supply the public want created by the exclusion of foreign
competition. Smuggling had a tempting field presented to it, and the
State was under the necessity of giving special licenses to individuals
to manufacture and import in order to make good the shortage in the
markets. But when relaxation came in the cloth trade it was more in
consequence perhaps of the conflict between agricultural and
manufacturing interest than because of the oppression of the general
body of the people. Spanish wools and Galloway ‘whites' were employed in
the production of the finest cloths, which were to be as good as any
that our English neighbours could make: so the export of Galloway
‘whites’ was prohibited on the demand of the manufacturers, Spanish wool
was admitted free, and English cloth was not suffered to be brought
across the border. This affected the agricultural interest severely; and
there was an agitation to recover the right to export wool. A small
concession was granted to the extent of a permit to send out sheepskins
with the wool on them; but even this was restricted on the remonstrance
of manufacturers, and the export was limited to three shipping places—Kurrowstounes,
Newport-Glasgow, and Dumfries. In 1704 the woolmasters secured an
unfettered right to dispose of their fleeces in the best markets whether
at home or abroad. But at the Union of the Parliaments, England, whose
manufacturing class was highly organised, required from Scotland a
return to the prohibition of the export of wool, and, as compensation to
the flockmasters a subsidy was provided for the manufacture of coarse
cloth. It was to produce the finer cloth that the Company at New Mills
had been formed; and after struggling for some years subsequent to the
Union in strenuous competition with the cheaper goods of equal quality
which then came in freely from England it was resolved to wind up the
business. The property was purchased by Colonel Charteris, and he
changed the name from New Mills to Atnisfield (after the historic tower
belonging to his family in Dumfriesshire). Of the minutes of the Company
Dr. Scott presents a serviceable analysis in his introduction. This will
enable the reader tn skim the body of the book. It is more likely to
induce him to carefully peruse it. For the minutes possess a fascinating
quaintness, are intensely human documents, affording glimpses of the
character of the merchants concerned, and throwing curious sidelights on
domestic life, as well as on social, industrial, and political
conditions. Among the contracts secured by the Company was one to
furnish cloth for the troops. An Act of Privy Council had just been
passed for the provision of military uniforms, so, as the Act puts it,
‘to distinguish sojers from other skulking and vagrant persons,’ and
among the regiments supplied with stone-grey stuff was General
Dalziell’s Dragoons. Government favours were not obtained without
influence, and influence exerted by official persons and others
necessitated retainers and rewards. These, which we speak of now as
bribes, were in the seventeenth century more delicately alluded to as
‘gratifications.’ Military officers had to be considered in this way by
the Company, and even the ‘King’s Advocat' was not above taking a tip of
‘ten dollars for himself’
T. Watson.
Records of a Scottish Cloth Manufactory at New Mills, Haddingtonshire
1681-1703 (pdf)
Edited from the Original Manuscripts, with Introduction
and Notes, by W. R. 5COTT, M.A., D.Phil., Litt.D. (1905) (pdf) |
