Life and Labour in Victorian Macclesfield - Softcover

Longden, George

9780907511953: Life and Labour in Victorian Macclesfield

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0907511953 ISBN 13: 9780907511953

Publisher: Neil Richardson, 1986

The Mottershead family were involved in the early Macclesfield silk button trade and through a series of letters it is revealed that there was a sizeable trade from 1649. It was a cottage industry involving women and children. In 1698 the corporation directed that 'poor children or other poor' should be instructed in the making of buttons. They then could then be employed as 'outworkers' for Macclesfield merchants who bought the materials wholesale and then marketed the finished buttons. Samuel Finney of Wilmslow described this and explained that a good woman could earn four shillings a week, and even a child of six could support themselves by assisting in the preparatory processes. In 1749 the manufacture of silk buttons was the principal industry of the town, but by 1795 it had been superseded, as buttons from horn became more common. The legacy was a pool of labour with silk preparation skills, and established lines of supply and distribution. In 1765 it is estimated that 15000 people were working in silk in the town and the surrounding villages.[16] Some buttons were traded by chapmen, but others were sent via Manchester and exported through Bristol and London to the Netherlands, New York and Moscow. John Brocḱlehurst was such a chapman and he enter partnership in 1745 with Messrs Acton and Street who were 'putters out'. Charles Roe was a silk button merchant. Woven silk was obtained from the Huguenots in Spitalfield, who in turn used the yarn supplied by the silk throwsters in small shades or throwing houses in Macclesfield.

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