Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

1. Forasmuch as the parish of Halifax and other places thereunto adjoining, being planted in the great wastes and moors, where the fertility of ground is not apt to bring forth any corn nor good grass, but in rare places, and by exceeding and great industry of the inhabitants; and the same inhabitants altogether do live by cloth-making, and the great part of them neither getteth corn, nor is able to keep a horse to carry wools, nor yet to buy much wool at once, but hath ever used only to repair to the town of Halifax, and some other nigh thereunto, and there to buy upon the wool-driver [middleman who buys from sheep-owners and sells to market or manufacturers, also owler], some a stone [6.35 kg], some two, and some three and four, according to their ability, and to carry the same to their houses, some three, four, five and six miles off, upon their heads and backs, and so to make and convert the same either into yarn or cloth, and to sell the same, and so buy more wool of the wool-driver; by means of which industry the barren grounds in those parts be now much inhabited, and above five hundred households there newly increased within these forty years past, which now are like to be undone and driven to beggary, by reason of the late statute made, that taketh away the wool-driver, so that they cannot now have their wool by such small portions as they were wont to have, and that also they are not able to keep any horses whereupon to ride, or set their wools further from them in other places, unless some remedy may be provided:
2. For the remedy whereof, be it enacted by the King and Queen’s Majesties, by the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the Commons, in this present parliament, and by the authority of the same, that from henceforth it shall be lawful to any person or persons inhabiting within the parish of Halifax, to buy any wool or wools, at such times as the clothiers may buy the same, otherwise than by engrossing and forestalling [attempting to achieve a (quasi-)monopoly], so that the persons so buying the same do carry or cause to be carried the said wools so bought by them to the town of Halifax, and there to sell the same to such poor folks of that and other parishes adjoining, as shall work the same in cloth or yarn (to their knowledge) and not to the rich and wealthy, nor to any other to sell again.

Comment

Comment

I think that the convention applies here that acts passed by the Parliament of England were deemed to have come into effect on the first day of the session in which they were passed. Philip and Mary’s fourth parliament ran 21 October-9 December 1555.

This legislation (2 & 3 Ph. & M. c. 13), like several other localised acts, attempted to correct damage inflicted several years before:

The 1552 Act [5 & 6 Edw. 6 c. 7], which outlawed wool middlemen, came at the behest of the Merchants of the Staple, who held a monopoly on the export of wool and had seen their profits eroded as domestic manufactures retained increasing amounts of the raw material… The law stated that only members of the Staplers’ Company and cloth producers could purchase wool from growers directly. Though originating with private interests, the Act was consonant with firmly held beliefs that middlemen unduly raised prices and vitiated quality by deceptively intermixing inferior wool. If strictly enforced, in addition to eliminating middlemen, this law would have effectively bankrupted all producers who possessed neither the wherewithal nor the time to travel to wool-growing districts; nor could they purchase in the large quantities that growers desired to sell. It was precisely on these grounds that a host of exemptions to the Act were granted before it was ultimately repealed in 1624 (Gendron 2021).

William Shakespeare’s father, John, was alleged on the basis of the 1552 legislation to have been a brogger, an illegal intermediary in the wool market (Bearman 2005).

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Original

1. Forasmuch as the parish of Halifax and other places thereunto adjoining, being planted in the great wastes and moors, where the fertility of ground is not apt to bring forth any corn nor good grass, but in rare places, and by exceeding and great industry of the inhabitants; and the same inhabitants altogether do live by cloth-making, and the great part of them neither getteth corn, nor is able to keep a horse to carry wools, nor yet to buy much wool at once, but hath ever used only to repair to the town of Halifax, and some other nigh thereunto, and there to buy upon the wool-driver [middleman who buys from sheep-owners and sells to market or manufacturers, also owler], some a stone [6.35 kg], some two, and some three and four, according to their ability, and to carry the same to their houses, some three, four, five and six miles off, upon their heads and backs, and so to make and convert the same either into yarn or cloth, and to sell the same, and so buy more wool of the wool-driver; by means of which industry the barren grounds in those parts be now much inhabited, and above five hundred households there newly increased within these forty years past, which now are like to be undone and driven to beggary, by reason of the late statute made, that taketh away the wool-driver, so that they cannot now have their wool by such small portions as they were wont to have, and that also they are not able to keep any horses whereupon to ride, or set their wools further from them in other places, unless some remedy may be provided:
2. For the remedy whereof, be it enacted by the King and Queen’s Majesties, by the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the Commons, in this present parliament, and by the authority of the same, that from henceforth it shall be lawful to any person or persons inhabiting within the parish of Halifax, to buy any wool or wools, at such times as the clothiers may buy the same, otherwise than by engrossing and forestalling [attempting to achieve a (quasi-)monopoly], so that the persons so buying the same do carry or cause to be carried the said wools so bought by them to the town of Halifax, and there to sell the same to such poor folks of that and other parishes adjoining, as shall work the same in cloth or yarn (to their knowledge) and not to the rich and wealthy, nor to any other to sell again:
3. And if either the said wool-driver shall sell his said wools at any other place forth of the said town of Halifax, or if any such shall buy their wools at Halifax, shall sell their wools that they bought, again unwrought in yarn or cloth, that then every such offender to lose and forfeit the double value of the wool so sold or uttered; the one moiety thereof to be to the King and Queen’s majesties, her heirs and successors, Kings of this Realm, and the other moiety to him or them that will sue for the same in any of the King and Queen’s Majesties’ courts of record, or before the justices of peace in their sessions, who by virtue hereof in their open sessions shall have authority upon information to hear and determine the same, and to make process against the offenders, as in any other case to be determined before them.

592 words.

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• 📌Halifax (43) ·
• List of Acts of the Parliament of England, 1485–1601 (1) ·
• Mary I (1516-1558) (3), reigned 1553-1558, best known for her vigorous attempt to reverse the English Reformation ·
• Parliament of England (9) ·
• Textile manufacturing (59) ·
• Wool (28) ·

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