THE BRITISH FLAX AND LINEN INDUSTRY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ITS POSITION IN Sir R. Lloyd Patterson I APPRECIATE the compliment implied in the request that I should repeat before the Faculty of Commerce in this University, with some additions, the paper on the Linen Industry which I had the honour to read before Section F of the British Association at its recent meeting in Belfast. A carefully prepared and reliable article on the subject appeared in the Statist of 28th October, 1899; and it was there mentioned that the capital engaged in the business in Ireland alone is estimated at about £12,000,000, and the annual wages fund distributed to those directly employed in it to about £3,000,000, besides the wages earned in various other industries more or less dependent upon the staple. It will be thus seen that the subject is a large one. The limited time at one's disposal at a meeting like the present admits of little more than a sketchy outline of it, a finished picture being out of the question. Linen is probably the oldest known textile. The mentions of it in Holy Writ are numerous; and the evidence furnished by the mummy cloths of Egypt proves that its manufacture was an important industry, and one that had been brought to great perfection in that country, at least fifteen to twenty centuries before the Christian era. It is supposed that linen was first introduced into Ireland by those old-world navigators and merchants, the Phoenicians; and, the soil and climate being eminently suitable for the culture of flax, it soon, in a double sense took root there. Much of what occurred in those early days is lost in the mazes of time, and such knowledge as may have come down to us is more traditional than historical. It is on record, however, that when the Danes took Bangor, County Down, and despoiled the monastery there in the ninth and tenth centuries, and, later, at the sacking of Armagh by the English towards the end of the twelfth century, part of the spoils of the victors at both places consisted of "much fine linen," of which material the robes and vestments of the higher clergy were then composed; and at which period also the custom of wrapping the bodies of the dead in linen had already come into vogue in Ireland. This country may also have been an early exporter of linen; as it is recorded that at a robbery which took place at Winchester in 1272 among the articles stolen was some "cloth of Ireland," presumably linen. There seems no reason to doubt that the manufacture of linen continued uninterruptedly in Ireland up to the year 1699; when, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a French Huguenot refugee named Louis Crommelin, following some and accompanied by others of his countrymen, settled in the neighbourhood of Lisburn; and the Irish linen industry, as it has come down to us, may be considered to date from that period and event. Crommelin, having been acquainted with the processes of the growth, preparation, and manufacture of flax, as then carried on in France and Flanders, greatly improved the methods previously prevailing in the North of Ireland, and the industry was a great gainer by his example and precept. The English Government, whose selfish policy had strangled the rising woollen industry of Ireland in the interests of the English manufacturers, recognized, early in the eighteenth century, the then growing importance of the linen trade in and to the country by the establishment, in 1711, of the "Board of Trustees of the Linen and Hempen Manufactures of Ireland," to encourage, protect, and extend the business. The custom of wearing linen scarfs and hat-bands at funerals originated about the same time, the then Lord Lieutenant (the Duke of Ormond) having ordered their use to increase the demand for the article. The Board of Trustees just mentioned, called for the sake of brevity the "Linen Board," had its headquarters in Dublin, and was composed of an equal number of prominent noblemen and gentlemen chosen from each of the four provinces. It had a parliamentary grant of £20,000 a year, which it seems to have disbursed, with of course some exceptions and jobbery, on the whole with discretion and with. advantage to the recipients and to the trade at large. The operations of the Linen Board continued down to the year 1827, when the Government of the day decided that the industry no longer required the extraneous assistance of the grant; and the Board, after an existence of one hundred and sixteen years, was dissolved. Although interesting, it is now unnecessary to trace the history of the trade throughout the remainder of the eighteenth and earlier part of the nineteenth centuries. During that period all the yarn used was spun by hand and was woven by manual labour, both operations being principally pursued by the peasantry in their own houses, the women spinning and the men working at the looms. The brown linens so produced were all sold in country market towns, the bleachers and merchants riding on horseback from market to market to buy them, and riding in company for mutual protection; as, owing to the absence of banking facilities, they had to carry their money along with them. Early in the history of the industry it would seem that the production of certain makes of goods got located in certain districts, so that a buyer knew exactly where to go to find what he wanted for his special trade. Ballymena, for instance, was the centre and market town of an important section of the trade in the manufacture of fine, yard-wide linens, used for shirtings, and especially for the cuffs, collars, and fronts of shirts. Lurgan was the centre of the lawn and cambric trade, besides dividing the damask and diaper business with Lisburn and Dromore. Banbridge and district had a monopoly of the manufacture of heavy and medium linens and sheetings; while another district of the County Down produced a class of light medium goods rather heavier than those for which Ballymena was famous; and other places had other specialities, most of them very distinctly localized. Dublin was long the headquarters of the white linen trade of Ireland, and had its White Linen Hall, to which English buyers resorted to supply their wants; but, by-and-bye, in 1783, Belfast got its own White Linen Hall, which has only lately disappeared to make room for the new Town Hall, now in course of erection. The evolution of the Irish linen industry, as it exists to-day, from the more primitive methods just mentioned is due to three principal causes, namely: Ist. The introduction of spinning by machinery, and the subsequent introduction of wet spinning. 2nd. The application of the power-loom to linen weaving; and, 3rd. Improvements in bleaching. These we shall shortly consider in detail; but, before passing on, I may say that, so early as 1809, encouraged by the premium on spindles erected and bounties on goods produced paid by the Linen Board, a firm in Cork erected a number of spindles for spinning flax, on which they received a government grant of 30s. per spindle; and in the following year (1810) they received bounties of 2d. per yard, amounting to £760, on a quantity of duck and sailcloth sold. Dependent, as the navy then was, on sail canvas, the government was most anxious to encourage its manufacture. The bounty system stimulated flax spinning by machinery in the North as well; and, prior to 1828, the year that is generally regarded as the one in which the industry began, there were several small dry spinning mills at work; for instance at Doagh, at Glynn, at Ballymoney, and at Cushendall in County Antrim; at Newry, County Down, and in other places. So far as I can ascertain, flax spinning by machinery was first made a commercial success of by the Messrs. Marshall of Leeds, and the Messrs. Baxter of Dundee, early in the last century; and I understand the former were the first to adopt what is known as wet spinning— that is, drawing the prepared and partially twisted flax through troughs containing hot water prior to the final spinning of it into yarn fit for the loom. The beginners of the industry, as we now know it in the North of Ireland, were the Messrs. Murland of Castlewellan, County Down, who commenced spinning in 1828, and the Messrs. Mulholland of Belfast. In |