“One Green Oasis”

An extract about the linen weaving village of North Lopham from the Report of the Parliamentary Commission on Hand-Loom Weavers (1840).

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Postcard sent by Percy Beales to Rita Rabone c.1913. Courtesy of the Crafts Study Centre, University of the Creative Arts.

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The photograph above was taken around 1913.(1) The view along The Street in North Lopham is quite similar today, if somewhat spoilt by the paraphernalia of traffic, and was probably very similar when Assistant Commisioner James Mitchell visited the village in 1839.

The gradual introduction of power looms during the 1830s had precipitated a crisis of unemployment for the hand-loom weavers of Britain. In 1837 the House of Commons commissioned a report to investigate their plight. James Mitchell was one of nine assistant commisioners, responsible for the East of England. He met some of the Lopham linen weavers in The Bell public house, on 15th February 1839.(2)

Below is the full extract about North Lopham from Mitchell’s report, published the following year.

Mitchell described the village as “one green oasis in the vast desert of discontent,” and the weavers as “comfortable” and “content,” despite working ten-hour days, sometimes much longer. The material was locally spun hemp which the masters were finding increasingly difficult to obtain. (3)

I wonder if the George Shaw (master) who joined the party is the father of the George Shaw (operative) who was already there? And if either of them were the owner of the weaver’s temple bearing the initials GS that I found recently amongst artefacts from Lopham in the stores of Norfolk Museums Service, pictured at the bottom of this post?

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NORTH LOPHAM, IN NORFOLK.

It is delightful at last to have met with one green oasis in the vast desert of discontent in which the inquiries of this Commission have been conducted. Three of the operatives, Messrs. Christopher Land, Michael Barman, and George Shaw, who were sent for to the inn, on being asked how trade was going on with them, at once replied, “Pretty middling; We are pretty well off here. We are not as they are in many parts. “ These men, like the other weavers of North Lopham, were engaged in making shirting, sheeting, and table linen. They stated that their wages, after deducting expenses, were on the average 10 s. a week. The hours of labour are twelve hours, out of which two are to be deducted for meals, leaving ten hours in the loom. This length of time they declared to be the utmost that men in general could endure for a permanency. Occasionally, when an order was received, which must be executed by a given day if taken at all, the men, to oblige the master, worked even 16 or 18 hours; but such work rendered it necessary to have corresponding relaxation afterwards.

When inquiry was made of the number of weavers, they went over the names of everyone in the place, and they amounted to fifty. The number of masters was in like manner found to be 9, and one in London. Two of these masters, Messrs. Coleby Cobb and George Shaw, joined the party, and all seemed happy and sociable together.

The material employed is hemp, which is raised in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Some beautiful specimens of very fine thread were shown. It is spun by the hand in the neighbouring county, and the masters expressed regret that they could not get enough of it spun, and that they were obliged to get some from Yorkshire. The bleaching is done in the grass, and all parties entertained a very primitive horror of the employment of chemical compounds. The race of weavers is kept up by the fathers teaching their sons. Lads accustomed to the looms, and to winding quills, and handling the yarn from their early youth, readily learn weaving, but a man from field labour would be difficult to teach. The masters said, that if they were asked to take an apprentice they would not do it under 20 l., and it would be necessary besides to pay 50 s. to the journey man who taught the apprentice, to make up for his loss of time. This expense saves the trade from overwhelming ruinous competition.

The houses of North Lopham are distributed along both sides of the road, at some distance from each other, and frequently back in the fields. There is a neat and cheerful air about the place, which is pleasing to behold. The men seemed to be in a fine state of health.

The comfortable condition and content of the weavers of North Lopham may, in a considerable degree, be attributed to the regularity of their employment. If, instead of making a net income of 10 s. a week regularly for all through the year, the wages had been sometimes 16 s. and at other times only 8 s. and sometimes no work or wages at all, even if under these fluctuations the aggregate amount in 12 months had been greater than now, the weavers would have been comparatively wretched and would have been full of complaints. At the time when 16 s. a week were earned not one half-penny would have been saved; the 6 s. earned above the ordinary present average would have been spent in additional drinking, to the injury of the constitution and deterioration of the moral habits of the weaver. On the other hand, when wages were very low, or when there was no work, there would have been a deficiency of the ordinary necessaries and comforts of life. The uniform rate of wages, though not high, supplies regularly all the weavers wants, and in his retired village he sees no superior affluence to render him discontented with his own condition.

From: “Reports from Assistant Hand-Loom Weavers’ Commissioners.” Part Two. 1840. Pages 353-4. This was an interim report. Most of the passage was repeated in the final summary report published 1841.

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Notes:
1. See my blog From Lopham With Love
2. Eric Pursehouse (1966) Waveney Valley Studies. p. 187. It is unclear how Pursehouse ascertained the date of 15th February.
3. See my blog Hand-Loom Weaving for more about the transition from hemp to flax.