Self Help

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The career of Yates, Peel, & Co., was throughout one of great and
uninterrupted prosperity. Sir Robert Peel himself was the soul of
the firm; to great energy and application uniting much practical
sagacity, and first-rate mercantile abilities--qualities in which
many of the early cotton-spinners were exceedingly deficient. He
was a man of iron mind and frame, and toiled unceasingly. In
short, he was to cotton printing what Arkwright was to cotton-
spinning, and his success was equally great. The excellence of the
articles produced by the firm secured the command of the market,
and the character of the firm stood pre-eminent in Lancashire.
Besides greatly benefiting Bury, the partnership planted similar
extensive works in the neighbourhood, on the Irwell and the Roch;
and it was cited to their honour, that, while they sought to raise
to the highest perfection the quality of their manufactures, they
also endeavoured, in all ways, to promote the well-being and
comfort of their workpeople; for whom they contrived to provide
remunerative employment even in the least prosperous times.

Sir Robert Peel readily appreciated the value of all new processes
and inventions; in illustration of which we may allude to his
adoption of the process for producing what is called RESIST WORK in
calico printing. This is accomplished by the use of a paste, or
resist, on such parts of the cloth as were intended to remain
white. The person who discovered the paste was a traveller for a
London house, who sold it to Mr. Peel for an inconsiderable sum.
It required the experience of a year or two to perfect the system
and make it practically useful; but the beauty of its effect, and
the extreme precision of outline in the pattern produced, at once
placed the Bury establishment at the head of all the factories for
calico printing in the country. Other firms, conducted with like
spirit, were established by members of the same family at Burnley,
Foxhill bank, and Altham, in Lancashire; Salley Abbey, in
Yorkshire; and afterwards at Burton-on-Trent, in Staffordshire;
these various establishments, whilst they brought wealth to their
proprietors, setting an example to the whole cotton trade, and
training up many of the most successful printers and manufacturers
in Lancashire.

Among other distinguished founders of industry, the Rev. William
Lee, inventor of the Stocking Frame, and John Heathcoat, inventor
of the Bobbin-net Machine, are worthy of notice, as men of great
mechanical skill and perseverance, through whose labours a vast
amount of remunerative employment has been provided for the
labouring population of Nottingham and the adjacent districts. The
accounts which have been preserved of the circumstances connected
with the invention of the Stocking Frame are very confused, and in
many respects contradictory, though there is no doubt as to the
name of the inventor. This was William Lee, born at Woodborough, a
village some seven miles from Nottingham, about the year 1563.
According to some accounts, he was the heir to a small freehold,
while according to others he was a poor scholar, {6} and had to
struggle with poverty from his earliest years. He entered as a
sizar at Christ College, Cambridge, in May, 1579, and subsequently
removed to St. John's, taking his degree of B.A. in 1582-3. It is
believed that he commenced M.A. in 1586; but on this point there
appears to be some confusion in the records of the University. The
statement usually made that he was expelled for marrying contrary
to the statutes, is incorrect, as he was never a Fellow of the
University, and therefore could not be prejudiced by taking such a
step.

At the time when Lee invented the Stocking Frame he was officiating
as curate of Calverton, near Nottingham; and it is alleged by some
writers that the invention had its origin in disappointed
affection. The curate is said to have fallen deeply in love with a
young lady of the village, who failed to reciprocate his
affections; and when he visited her, she was accustomed to pay much
more attention to the process of knitting stockings and instructing
her pupils in the art, than to the addresses of her admirer. This
slight is said to have created in his mind such an aversion to
knitting by hand, that he formed the determination to invent a
machine that should supersede it and render it a gainless
employment. For three years he devoted himself to the prosecution
of the invention, sacrificing everything to his new idea. At the
prospect of success opened before him, he abandoned his curacy, and
devoted himself to the art of stocking making by machinery. This
is the version of the story given by Henson {7} on the authority of
an old stocking-maker, who died in Collins's Hospital, Nottingham,
aged ninety-two, and was apprenticed in the town during the reign
of Queen Anne. It is also given by Deering and Blackner as the
traditional account in the neighbourhood, and it is in some measure
borne out by the arms of the London Company of Frame-Work Knitters,
which consists of a stocking frame without the wood-work, with a
clergyman on one side and a woman on the other as supporters. {8}

Whatever may have been the actual facts as to the origin of the
invention of the Stocking Loom, there can be no doubt as to the
extraordinary mechanical genius displayed by its inventor. That a
clergyman living in a remote village, whose life had for the most
part been spent with books, should contrive a machine of such
delicate and complicated movements, and at once advance the art of
knitting from the tedious process of linking threads in a chain of
loops by three skewers in the fingers of a woman, to the beautiful
and rapid process of weaving by the stocking frame, was indeed an
astonishing achievement, which may be pronounced almost unequalled
in the history of mechanical invention. Lee's merit was all the
greater, as the handicraft arts were then in their infancy, and
little attention had as yet been given to the contrivance of
machinery for the purposes of manufacture. He was under the
necessity of extemporising the parts of his machine as he best
could, and adopting various expedients to overcome difficulties as
they arose. His tools were imperfect, and his materials imperfect;
and he had no skilled workmen to assist him. According to
tradition, the first frame he made was a twelve gauge, without lead
sinkers, and it was almost wholly of wood; the needles being also
stuck in bits of wood. One of Lee's principal difficulties
consisted in the formation of the stitch, for want of needle eyes;
but this he eventually overcame by forming eyes to the needles with
a three-square file. {9} At length, one difficulty after another
was successfully overcome, and after three years' labour the
machine was sufficiently complete to be fit for use. The quondam
curate, full of enthusiasm for his art, now began stocking weaving
in the village of Calverton, and he continued to work there for
several years, instructing his brother James and several of his
relations in the practice of the art.

Having brought his frame to a considerable degree of perfection,
and being desirous of securing the patronage of Queen Elizabeth,
whose partiality for knitted silk stockings was well known, Lee
proceeded to London to exhibit the loom before her Majesty. He
first showed it to several members of the court, among others to
Sir William (afterwards Lord) Hunsdon, whom he taught to work it
with success; and Lee was, through their instrumentality, at length
admitted to an interview with the Queen, and worked the machine in
her presence. Elizabeth, however, did not give him the
encouragement that he had expected; and she is said to have opposed
the invention on the ground that it was calculated to deprive a
large number of poor people of their employment of hand knitting.
Lee was no more successful in finding other patrons, and
considering himself and his invention treated with contempt, he
embraced the offer made to him by Sully, the sagacious minister of
Henry IV., to proceed to Rouen and instruct the operatives of that
town--then one of the most important manufacturing centres of
France--in the construction and use of the stocking-frame. Lee
accordingly transferred himself and his machines to France, in
1605, taking with him his brother and seven workmen. He met with a
cordial reception at Rouen, and was proceeding with the manufacture
of stockings on a large scale--having nine of his frames in full
work,--when unhappily ill fortune again overtook him. Henry IV.,
his protector, on whom he had relied for the rewards, honours, and
promised grant of privileges, which had induced Lee to settle in
France, was murdered by the fanatic Ravaillac; and the
encouragement and protection which had heretofore been extended to
him were at once withdrawn. To press his claims at court, Lee
proceeded to Paris; but being a protestant as well as a foreigner,
his representations were treated with neglect; and worn out with
vexation and grief, this distinguished inventor shortly after died
at Paris, in a state of extreme poverty and distress.

Lee's brother, with seven of the workmen, succeeded in escaping
from France with their frames, leaving two behind. On James Lee's
return to Nottinghamshire, he was joined by one Ashton, a miller of
Thoroton, who had been instructed in the art of frame-work knitting
by the inventor himself before he left England. These two, with
the workmen and their frames, began the stocking manufacture at
Thoroton, and carried it on with considerable success. The place
was favourably situated for the purpose, as the sheep pastured in
the neighbouring district of Sherwood yielded a kind of wool of the
longest staple. Ashton is said to have introduced the method of
making the frames with lead sinkers, which was a great improvement.
The number of looms employed in different parts of England
gradually increased; and the machine manufacture of stockings
eventually became an important branch of the national industry.

One of the most important modifications in the Stocking-Frame was
that which enabled it to be applied to the manufacture of lace on a
large scale. In 1777, two workmen, Frost and Holmes, were both
engaged in making point-net by means of the modifications they had
introduced in the stocking-frame; and in the course of about thirty
years, so rapid was the growth of this branch of production that
1500 point-net frames were at work, giving employment to upwards of
15,000 people. Owing, however, to the war, to change of fashion,
and to other circumstances, the Nottingham lace manufacture rapidly
fell off; and it continued in a decaying state until the invention
of the Bobbin-net Machine by John Heathcoat, late M.P. for
Tiverton, which had the effect of at once re-establishing the
manufacture on solid foundations.

John Heathcoat was the youngest son of a respectable small farmer
at Duffield, Derbyshire, where he was born in 1783. When at school
he made steady and rapid progress, but was early removed from it to
be apprenticed to a frame-smith near Loughborough. The boy soon
learnt to handle tools with dexterity, and he acquired a minute
knowledge of the parts of which the stocking-frame was composed, as
well as of the more intricate warp-machine. At his leisure he
studied how to introduce improvements in them, and his friend, Mr.
Bazley, M.P., states that as early as the age of sixteen, he
conceived the idea of inventing a machine by which lace might be
made similar to Buckingham or French lace, then all made by hand.
The first practical improvement he succeeded in introducing was in
the warp-frame, when, by means of an ingenious apparatus, he
succeeded in producing "mitts" of a lacy appearance, and it was
this success which determined him to pursue the study of mechanical
lace-making. The stocking-frame had already, in a modified form,
been applied to the manufacture of point-net lace, in which the
mesh was LOOPED as in a stocking, but the work was slight and
frail, and therefore unsatisfactory. Many ingenious Nottingham
mechanics had, during a long succession of years, been labouring at
the problem of inventing a machine by which the mesh of threads
should be TWISTED round each other on the formation of the net.
Some of these men died in poverty, some were driven insane, and all
alike failed in the object of their search. The old warp-machine
held its ground.

When a little over twenty-one years of age, Heathcoat went to
Nottingham, where he readily found employment, for which he soon
received the highest remuneration, as a setter-up of hosiery and
warp-frames, and was much respected for his talent for invention,
general intelligence, and the sound and sober principles that
governed his conduct. He also continued to pursue the subject on
which his mind had before been occupied, and laboured to compass
the contrivance of a twist traverse-net machine. He first studied
the art of making the Buckingham or pillow-lace by hand, with the
object of effecting the same motions by mechanical means. It was a
long and laborious task, requiring the exercise of great
perseverance and ingenuity. His master, Elliot, described him at
that time as inventive, patient, self-denying, and taciturn,
undaunted by failures and mistakes, full of resources and
expedients, and entertaining the most perfect confidence that his
application of mechanical principles would eventually be crowned
with success.

It is difficult to describe in words an invention so complicated as
the bobbin-net machine. It was, indeed, a mechanical pillow for
making lace, imitating in an ingenious manner the motions of the
lace-maker's fingers in intersecting or tying the meshes of the
lace upon her pillow. On analysing the component parts of a piece
of hand-made lace, Heathcoat was enabled to classify the threads
into longitudinal and diagonal. He began his experiments by fixing
common pack-threads lengthwise on a sort of frame for the warp, and
then passing the weft threads between them by common plyers,
delivering them to other plyers on the opposite side; then, after
giving them a sideways motion and twist, the threads were repassed
back between the next adjoining cords, the meshes being thus tied
in the same way as upon pillows by hand. He had then to contrive a
mechanism that should accomplish all these nice and delicate
movements, and to do this cost him no small amount of mental toil.
Long after he said, "The single difficulty of getting the diagonal
threads to twist in the allotted space was so great that if it had
now to be done, I should probably not attempt its accomplishment."
His next step was to provide thin metallic discs, to be used as
bobbins for conducting the threads backwards and forwards through
the warp. These discs, being arranged in carrier-frames placed on
each side of the warp, were moved by suitable machinery so as to
conduct the threads from side to side in forming the lace. He
eventually succeeded in working out his principle with
extraordinary skill and success; and, at the age of twenty-four, he
was enabled to secure his invention by a patent.

During this time his wife was kept in almost as great anxiety as
himself, for she well knew of his trials and difficulties while he
was striving to perfect his invention. Many years after they had
been successfully overcome, the conversation which took place one
eventful evening was vividly remembered. "Well," said the anxious
wife, "will it work?" "No," was the sad answer; "I have had to
take it all to pieces again." Though he could still speak
hopefully and cheerfully, his poor wife could restrain her feelings
no longer, but sat down and cried bitterly. She had, however, only
a few more weeks to wait, for success long laboured for and richly
deserved, came at last, and a proud and happy man was John
Heathcoat when he brought home the first narrow strip of bobbin-net
made by his machine, and placed it in the hands of his wife.

As in the case of nearly all inventions which have proved
productive, Heathcoat's rights as a patentee were disputed, and his
claims as an inventor called in question. On the supposed
invalidity of the patent, the lace-makers boldly adopted the
bobbin-net machine, and set the inventor at defiance. But other
patents were taken out for alleged improvements and adaptations;
and it was only when these new patentees fell out and went to law
with each other that Heathcoat's rights became established. One
lace-manufacturer having brought an action against another for an
alleged infringement of his patent, the jury brought in a verdict
for the defendant, in which the judge concurred, on the ground that
BOTH the machines in question were infringements of Heathcoat's
patent. It was on the occasion of this trial, "Boville v. Moore,"
that Sir John Copley (afterwards Lord Lyndhurst), who was retained
for the defence in the interest of Mr. Heathcoat, learnt to work
the bobbin-net machine in order that he might master the details of
the invention. On reading over his brief, he confessed that he did
not quite understand the merits of the case; but as it seemed to
him to be one of great importance, he offered to go down into the
country forthwith and study the machine until he understood it;
"and then," said he, "I will defend you to the best of my ability."
He accordingly put himself into that night's mail, and went down to
Nottingham to get up his case as perhaps counsel never got it up
before. Next morning the learned sergeant placed himself in a
lace-loom, and he did not leave it until he could deftly make a
piece of bobbin-net with his own hands, and thoroughly understood
the principle as well as the details of the machine. When the case
came on for trial, the learned sergeant was enabled to work the
model on the table with such case and skill, and to explain the
precise nature of the invention with such felicitous clearness, as
to astonish alike judge, jury, and spectators; and the thorough
conscientiousness and mastery with which he handled the case had no
doubt its influence upon the decision of the court.

After the trial was over, Mr. Heathcoat, on inquiry, found about
six hundred machines at work after his patent, and he proceeded to
levy royalty upon the owners of them, which amounted to a large
sum. But the profits realised by the manufacturers of lace were
very great, and the use of the machines rapidly extended; while the
price of the article was reduced from five pounds the square yard
to about five pence in the course of twenty-five years. During the
same period the average annual returns of the lace-trade have been
at least four millions sterling, and it gives remunerative
employment to about 150,000 workpeople.

To return to the personal history of Mr. Heathcoat. In 1809 we
find him established as a lace-manufacturer at Loughborough, in
Leicestershire. There he carried on a prosperous business for
several years, giving employment to a large number of operatives,
at wages varying from 5l. to 10l. a week. Notwithstanding the
great increase in the number of hands employed in lace-making
through the introduction of the new machines, it began to be
whispered about among the workpeople that they were superseding
labour, and an extensive conspiracy was formed for the purpose of
destroying them wherever found. As early as the year 1811 disputes
arose between the masters and men engaged in the stocking and lace
trades in the south-western parts of Nottinghamshire and the
adjacent parts of Derbyshire and Leicestershire, the result of
which was the assembly of a mob at Sutton, in Ashfield, who
proceeded in open day to break the stocking and lace-frames of the
manufacturers. Some of the ringleaders having been seized and
punished, the disaffected learnt caution; but the destruction of
the machines was nevertheless carried on secretly wherever a safe
opportunity presented itself. As the machines were of so delicate
a construction that a single blow of a hammer rendered them
useless, and as the manufacture was carried on for the most part in
detached buildings, often in private dwellings remote from towns,
the opportunities of destroying them were unusually easy. In the
neighbourhood of Nottingham, which was the focus of turbulence, the
machine-breakers organized themselves in regular bodies, and held
nocturnal meetings at which their plans were arranged. Probably
with the view of inspiring confidence, they gave out that they were
under the command of a leader named Ned Ludd, or General Ludd, and
hence their designation of Luddites. Under this organization
machine-breaking was carried on with great vigour during the winter
of 1811, occasioning great distress, and throwing large numbers of
workpeople out of employment. Meanwhile, the owners of the frames
proceeded to remove them from the villages and lone dwellings in
the country, and brought them into warehouses in the towns for
their better protection.

The Luddites seem to have been encouraged by the lenity of the
sentences pronounced on such of their confederates as had been
apprehended and tried; and, shortly after, the mania broke out
afresh, and rapidly extended over the northern and midland
manufacturing districts. The organization became more secret; an
oath was administered to the members binding them to obedience to
the orders issued by the heads of the confederacy; and the betrayal
of their designs was decreed to be death. All machines were doomed
by them to destruction, whether employed in the manufacture of
cloth, calico, or lace; and a reign of terror began which lasted
for years. In Yorkshire and Lancashire mills were boldly attacked
by armed rioters, and in many cases they were wrecked or burnt; so
that it became necessary to guard them by soldiers and yeomanry.
The masters themselves were doomed to death; many of them were
assaulted, and some were murdered. At length the law was
vigorously set in motion; numbers of the misguided Luddites were
apprehended; some were executed; and after several years' violent
commotion from this cause, the machine-breaking riots were at
length quelled.

Among the numerous manufacturers whose works were attacked by the
Luddites, was the inventor of the bobbin-net machine himself. One
bright sunny day, in the summer of 1816, a body of rioters entered
his factory at Loughborough with torches, and set fire to it,
destroying thirty-seven lace-machines, and above 10,000l. worth of
property. Ten of the men were apprehended for the felony, and
eight of them were executed. Mr. Heathcoat made a claim upon the
county for compensation, and it was resisted; but the Court of
Queen's Bench decided in his favour, and decreed that the county
must make good his loss of 10,000l. The magistrates sought to
couple with the payment of the damage the condition that Mr.
Heathcoat should expend the money in the county of Leicester; but
to this he would not assent, having already resolved on removing
his manufacture elsewhere. At Tiverton, in Devonshire, he found a
large building which had been formerly used as a woollen
manufactory; but the Tiverton cloth trade having fallen into decay,
the building remained unoccupied, and the town itself was generally
in a very poverty-stricken condition. Mr. Heathcoat bought the old
mill, renovated and enlarged it, and there recommenced the
manufacture of lace upon a larger scale than before; keeping in
full work as many as three hundred machines, and employing a large
number of artisans at good wages. Not only did he carry on the
manufacture of lace, but the various branches of business connected
with it--yarn-doubling, silk-spinning, net-making, and finishing.
He also established at Tiverton an iron-foundry and works for the
manufacture of agricultural implements, which proved of great
convenience to the district. It was a favourite idea of his that
steam power was capable of being applied to perform all the heavy
drudgery of life, and he laboured for a long time at the invention
of a steam-plough. In 1832 he so far completed his invention as to
be enabled to take out a patent for it; and Heathcoat's steam-
plough, though it has since been superseded by Fowler's, was
considered the best machine of the kind that had up to that time
been invented.

Mr. Heathcoat was a man of great natural gifts. He possessed a
sound understanding, quick perception, and a genius for business of
the highest order. With these he combined uprightness, honesty,
and integrity--qualities which are the true glory of human
character. Himself a diligent self-educator, he gave ready
encouragement to deserving youths in his employment, stimulating
their talents and fostering their energies. During his own busy
life, he contrived to save time to master French and Italian, of
which he acquired an accurate and grammatical knowledge. His mind
was largely stored with the results of a careful study of the best
literature, and there were few subjects on which he had not formed
for himself shrewd and accurate views. The two thousand workpeople
in his employment regarded him almost as a father, and he carefully
provided for their comfort and improvement. Prosperity did not
spoil him, as it does so many; nor close his heart against the
claims of the poor and struggling, who were always sure of his
sympathy and help. To provide for the education of the children of
his workpeople, he built schools for them at a cost of about 6000l.
He was also a man of singularly cheerful and buoyant disposition, a
favourite with men of all classes and most admired and beloved by
those who knew him best.

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