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Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings Textile Society of America

1990

The British Linen Trade With The United States InThe Eighteenth And Nineteenth CenturiesN.B. HarteUniversity College London

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Harte, N.B., "The British Linen Trade With The United States In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries" (1990). Textile Society ofAmerica Symposium Proceedings. 605.http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/605

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!1.5930.13 ,U«nticalto 5931.la

THE BRITISH LINEN TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES IN THE EIGHTEENTH ANDNINETEENTH CENTURIES

by N.B. HARTE

Christening rn\ir of brocaded silkwoven from 51)81.IA (pi . i f i a ) . Courtesy ofthe National Museum, Copenhagen; given byKonsul Brunn (

Department of HistoryUniversity College LondonGower StreetLondon WC1E 6BT

Pasold Research FundLondon School of EconomicsHoughton StreetLondon WC2A 2AE

In the eighteenth century, a great deal of linen was producedin the American colonies. Virtually every farming family spun andwove linen cloth for its own consumption. The production of linenwas the most widespread industrial activity in America during thecolonial period. Yet at the same time, large amounts of linen wereimported from across the Atlantic into the American colonies.Linen was the most important commodity entering into the Americantrade. This apparently paradoxical situation reflects theimportance in pre-industrial society of the production andconsumption of the extensive range of types of fabrics groupedtogether as 'linen*.

The range of uses of 'linen' is greater than for any other typeof fabric. Clothing, bedding, the table and other domestic needsrequired various sorts of linen, and the transport and packagingindustries required others - sailcloth, sacking and bagging of allsorts. The range of quality was considerable, from the finestcambrics and lawns and damasks to the coarsest sackcloths. Incolonial America there was a sort of dual economy: basic linenneeds were provided outside the market by the widespread domesticproduction of homespun coarse linetv while the market was dominatedby a range of better-quality (though still low-priced) linensimported from England, Scotland and Ireland, and imported too fromthe continent of Europe (especially Germany) via London.

The point was well made by Thomas Fitch, a Boston upholsterer,writing in 1726. 'Very coarse \s [i.e. linen from Gulik, orJulich] not being serviceable won't sute our people1, he wrote,'though we certainly have enough that are poor. Yet they won'twear Garlets but homespun linens, or rather cotton and linnen cloththat is very durable though not so white. Those that buy Garletstherefore are for a sort that will wear and look pretty and sodecline buying coarset than [pattern] No.1772*. (Quoted inMontgomery, 1984, p.345.) The rapid population growth in theAmerican colonies - from little over a quarter of a million in 1700to nearly a million and a quarter in 1750, 2.2M in 1770 and 5.3M by1800 - resulted in an expanding and buoyant market for British andEuropean linen. Linen became the most important single commodityshipped across the Atlantic In the eighteenth century.

1. Linen Production in England, Scotland and Ireland.

The production of linen in England, Scotland and Ireland wastransformed in the early eighteenth century. From a situation inwhich the market had long been dominated by continental producers,especially in France and in the low countries, a new economic

-15-

M6-context emerged which made possible the development of significantlinen industries in different parts of the British Isles. In bothIreland and in Scotland, it was official policy to encourage thelinen industry, especially after the establishment of what were ineffect industrial development corporations for those countries - theBoard of Trustees for the Linen and Hempen Manufactures in Irelandin 1711, and the Board of Trustees for Manufactures in Scotland in1727. In England, official encouragement of the linen industry waslower key. The industry grew by a process of import-substitutionas tariff levels were raised against foreign producers.

Up to 1690, the English duty on imported linen was at the levelof 7%% - the 'old subsidy1 of 'poundage', i.e. Is in the £, plus the'one full raoeity over and above' charged in the Tonnage and PoundageAct of 1660. This apparently ad valorum 7̂ % was in reality chargedon the fixed valuations laid down in the Book of Rates appended tothe 1660 Act which identified about fifty types of linen,differentiated by type, use, size or place of origin. In each ofthe great periods of warfare which punctuated the eighteenthcentury, the government's fiscal needs resulted in sharplyincreasing customs duties. The War of the Grand Alliance (1689-97)produced a 2%% increase in the duty on linens generally in 1690, andmany types of linen received a 5% Increase in 1697. The War of theSpanish Succession (1701-13) led to a further 5% increase in 1704-5,reduced by two-thirds in 1707 after much complaining by the linenmerchants and Dutch producers. But in 1712 the duty on chequeredand striped linen was increased by 15%, and by a further 15% in1714. Certain types of linen after 1714 bore customs dutiestotalling over half their value. The War of the AustrianSuccession produced an additional general 5% increase in 1748, theSeven Years War produced another 5% in 1759, and in 1779 the War ofAmerican Independence led to yet another 5% increase. Thus theleve of customs duty on linen imported into England doubled between1690 and 1704, and doubled again between 1748 and 1779. (Harte,1973, pp.75-84.)

As a by-product of the government's fiscal needs rather than asa result of any 'mercantilist1 master-plan, a protective environmentwas created for English linen producers. Duty-free access to theexpanding English market - what has been called the largest freetrade area in eighteenth-century Europe - was also granted to Irishand Scottish producers. From 1696 Irish linen could be importedduty-free into England, as part of the policy to reduce Englishdependence on foreign linervand to encourage 'foreign protestants' tosettle in Ireland. The duty increases were initially applied tolinen imported from Scotland, but the Act of Union of 1707 broughtduty-free access to the English market for Scottish linen.

The subsequent growth of linen production in both Scotland andIreland Is well-known. Figure 1 shows the quantities of linenexported to Great Britain from Ireland, alongside the quantities oflinen stamped for sale in Scotland. From a total for the twocountries in 1730 of 7,577,000 yards of linen, by 1770 over32,720,000 yards and by 1800 over 57,148,000 yeards was beingsupplied to the English market by these two new major producingregions. By the middle of the century - with retained imports fromthe continent running at about 20M yards per year in 1752 and about18M in 1760 - the continental dominance of the English market forlinen had been radically transformed. Linen from Scotland and

FIG. I

Table 4.2Irish and Scottish linen production fa the English market ('ooo yards)

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^H^E

Tear

17001710172017301740'75<>17601770178017901800

Irish exports toGnat Britain

29914282,5603,8ai6,403

10,857"3.09319,671'8,29933>36i32,912

Slamfcd for talein Scotland

3.7564,6107,572

11,74813,049'3.4"18,09224,236

Total

7,57711,01318,42924,84132,7203'.7'°5' 45357, ̂

Jfott. The Scottish figures include a certain amount of linen destined lorthe Scottish domestic and export markets, but the greater part was forthe English market.Sourct. The Irish figures are taken from L. M. GuIIen, Anglo-IiiA Trade,1660-1800 (Manchester, 1968), p. 60. The Scottish figures arc given inH. Hamilton, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century(Oxford, 1963), pp. 404-5.

Source: Harte (1973), p.93.

- though °ot to

FIG. 2

Table 4.3English imports of fax and yam end At approximate linen equivalent,

Tear

170017061710'7'51720»7251730'7351740J745'75°"75517601765'77017751780'785'790

nFlaximports(nrf)

62,70135.9o843,02440,30037,3io5O43O61,39756,88569,57274464

124,694' 13,83373,059

120413121,683'69,165146,734193,307'45,056

ApproximateKnotequivalent^oooyards)

7,8854>5'554105,0674.6926.3427,7217.1538,7499.364

15,68114,3159,187

'5,14215,30221,273'845224,30918,241

Tomimports(cwt)

17.92113,99615,98425.J5l2745826,19123,66030,01527,07140,30740,67244,79262,53721,70595,34983,8829i,9i476,81679,855

Approximatelinenequivalent('oooyards)

5.0483,9424,5°37,0857,7357,3786,66584557,626

",354H45712,61817,6166,114

26,85923,62925,89121,63822494

TotalapproximateKneneqvuatenl(?ooo yards)

12,93384579.913

12,15212427

14,38615,608i6,37520,71827, '3826,93326,80321,25642,76144,90244,34345,94740,735

Source. Flax and yarn imports are totalled from E. B. Schumpeter, English OverseasTradt Statistics, 1697-1608 (Oxford, 1960), tables xvi and xvn. See textfor the manner in which the approximate linen equivalent has been calculated.

Source: Harte (1973), p.104.

FIG. 4 -19--18- The linen industry itself in England Is rather less well-known,

but it is evident from the calculations in Figure 2 that enough flaxand yarn was imported into England to make substantial quantities oflinen, apart from that made from English-grown flax (which isdifficult to quantify satisfactorily). Until the last quarter ofthe eighteenth century, it is likely that more linen was produced inEngland itself than was produced for the market in Ireland andScotland put together. By the middle of the century, Englishproduction of linen was probably about 3QM yards per year.

2. Linen Exports jrom the British _I_sles_.

Linen production flowered in the different economies ofEngland, Scotland and Ireland in the eighteenth century. The bulkof the output was bought by the burgeoning consumers of Englanditself, with their rising disposable incomes as a genuinely massmarket for consumption goods was being created. But an increasingamount of linen was being exported, particularly to the Americancolonies. English linen exports are almost as difficult toquantify adequately as English linen imports. The masses offigures in the ledgers of the Inspector-General of Imports andExports defeated the energy of Mrs. Schumpeter in the case of linen.The figures in Figure 3 are a partial representation of levels ofexport of linen from England in the eighteenth century. Theysuggest that at least 9H yards of linen was being exported in thepeak linen export period between 1760 and 1790. Figure 4 isreproduced from Mrs. Schumpeter; it too appears Incomplete.

TABLE XXXIVExports of Linen by Geographical Divisions, 1700 to 1800

(Quuuicy Bfura in Keca. Figure* for Enjknd and Wila, 1TO-M. Figure for Gnat Britain,1795-180(7)

Y«IT1 *"•

noo1106(110

I1/.5nao

nasnsonasn*on*S

I15o

I1SS11(0

174J

1770

IT?*"neolias1190n«190O

Africa. 4E«t InJi«

«9

33

12ae<?

lot429

(.3*8

806

1,1 5«

4S8S

S.J60i t.saa2*.I08

J*,13I

512. i

Norton

CtlTODC

3II

II3

S

*«3

132

aei3feS

ttzse

1\1

CentrilEillfiftl

i

if

8«f

159

139lit

1.73XI

I&SI

IW1*6

2>W

721

•ait33f

Sout^«TnEllTOp*

&

&

1331 II

103.

1,141

91853*

f3*l>7«

9.*-WS.3Z1t,l*B

2p-»3

*,3SA

1,131IO*

BrYti'mhEuTe^e

zti103

73

J'no

11*319fitfeffl6tl

1.3 4 Im

H-.tH-l*,2<>21,003

1.630

523

IK.tU5ta.te*

2.S502.153».7M

4^3i

£.465

9,100i.sat

143*5ai,9%i13^33

51,181Jl.Sft

i it/m59,9£S

*p.l 13

5,98-*6; ot

Brtt- Oxrf-Ca Ionian

9tJ6

72

28

36

WI<*to20

377

1.8363,361

1,711

VoJ

f9.a«1,161

Br'itivk

W«st TXdits

If 18

699?53S

3.Z36

5.229

tj&H'S

1 0,1*1

taj-5919.00C

T»2PI3

»3.l 0&

27,»*0

JB.I63

fA&si3e,s5*

lt,<131

«,*03

M'l*e.

IS

220

13

331*989

2323

1,102

1.302

ToUl

*jei3,fc'9

&223

10.09?11.334

1 8.238

S0.7VSti.os;*3,OW3e5e<i

S 8,oW92,1 «

21 l.o>K

/S2.3SE

1 1 '.H5£

52.604!

2£.o66

Source: Schumpeter (1960), p.66.

The complicated valuations used in the Inspector-General'sledgers have been re-valued and standardised by the late ProfessorRalph Davis. Figure 5 presents some of his valuations, from which

FIG. 3

Table 4.5Exports tfEnglish lauti

17001706171017151790'7251730

181'533<>9383430699814

>7351740'745175017551760

1,048'.703'.5334.6333,7989,555

1765177017751780*785179°

M958,7619,«398,2267.3 '59,223

••

FIG. 5 ENGLISH EXPORTS, 1699-1856 (£000)

E' B' SchumF**r, S«a* OKTXOS Tradf Statute,*(>97-i8o8 (Oxford, 1960), tables xiv and xi, with British linens exportedwith the bounty between 1745 and ,760 added from D. Macphenon,Annals tfComnmt (.805), in, pp. 5,5-6. (These figure, differ somewhatS? thos! P™ m B- R- Mitchell and P. Deane, Abstract of BritiAautomat Statute (Cambridge, 1962), p. 201, largely because sailcloth i>inexplicably excluded from their figures.)

Source: Harte (1973), p.108.•K

1699-17011722-241752-541772-741784-861794-961804-061814-161824-261834-361844-461854-56

TotalManufacturedExports

3,5833,7846,3508,48711,18920,61136,32640,15335,76442,08351,43483,091

Manufactured

Exportsto USA

475679

1,5713,9812,7576,2329,9627,1185,5438,8556,42116,375

LinenLinen ExportsExports to USA

25211740743895756

1,6751,8792,2122,7654,225

22189681281208207268476941769

1,881

Source: Davis (1957); Davis (1962); Davis (1979)

it will be seen that the American colonies up to the Revolutionprovided the bulk of the export market for English linens. It isdifficult to dis-entangle re-exports of Scottish and Irish linenthrough London and exports of English linen. Durie (1979) presents

some figures for the direct export from Scotland of Scottish linen,and Truxes (1988) gives some figures for Irish linen exports.Their calculations are reproduced in Figures 6, 7 and 8. On theeve of the Revolution, about 2M yards of linen was exported from

FIG. 6

TABLE 8.1Exports of Plain, Striped, Checked and Printed Linen

made in Scotland from Scottish ports, 1743-1800

('000 yards per annum) *

1743-471748-521753-S71758-621763-671768-72

5721,2061,4261,8151,8742,390

1773-771778-821783-871788-921793-971798-1800t

1,7402^)543,0594,3755,4967,119

•Source*: Scottish Pon Books: Collector*' Quarterly Accounts E 504, 174J-1754; from 1755 theInspector Gentrafi ledger*, RH 20/2, and 20/2 with 1763 and 1769 supplied from the Pon book* series,

f3 yean only.

Source: Durie (1979), p.145.

FIG. 7

Table 9.1. ESTIMATE OF I R I S H L I N E N EXPORTS TO BRITISH AMERICAWITH NORTH AMERICAN MAINLAND SHARE (In yards)

Avg. of3 yrs.ending17S11761

ToUl toBrit. Amer.*

I. 179. 4002.456,940

S of totalIrish export

in19

Mainlandimport

825,5801,719.860

Mainlandpopulation

1.170,7601.593,630

Per capitaimport

.711.08

1771 4,388,000 21 3,507,000 2,148.080 1.63

The suo of direct Irish exports, bounty exports sent from ports inEngland, and above-bounty exports sent from ports in England ( e s t i -mated at 10 percent of Irish linen exports from England) to NorthAmerica and the West Indies.

Sources: PRO, Customs 15; PRO, Customs 16/1; "Report from the Commit-tee Appointed to Enquire Into the Present State of the Linen Trade inGreat Bri tain and Ireland," Reports from Comnittees of the House ofComnons . . . Hot Inserted in the Journals, 1715-1801 (16 vols.. Lon-don, 1803-$), I I I , 133; U.S. Department of Comnerce, Bureau of theCensus. Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonialto 1970 (2 vels.. Washington. O.C., 1975), II. 1168.

Source: Truxes (1988), p.171FIG. 8

Table 9.4. AVERAGE NORTH AMERICAN IMPORTS OF PLAIN LINEK(bounty and above-bounty contained)

from Ireland and Great Britainfor the three years ending 5 January 1772 (in yards)

BostonRhode islandNew YorkPhiladelphiaMew CastlePatuxentNorth PotomacRappahanockVork RiverJames RiverCharlestonSavannahOther markets

I r ishlinen

256,45081,710

303.800873.140*159,760471.750151,430144,39076,980

604.360210,73052,050

120.450

British I™*"linen TOTAL Share

160.65050,840

100,85070.190

276.970115,390298.79035.700

916.980510,30094.610

316,590

417,100132,550404.650943,330159.760748.720266,820443.180112.680

1,521,340721,030146,660437,040

611627593

1006357336840295528

Total 3,507,000 2,947.860 6.454,860 54

*1769 and 1770 only

Source: PRO, Customs 16/1.

Source: Truxes (1988), p.188.

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Scotland and about 3%M yards of Irish linen was directly imported bythe American colonies. But as a Paisley merchant stated inevidence to a House of Lords committee in 1785: 'The great marketfor all the linen manufactures of Scotland is London; they sendagain, some to America, some to the West Indies; I don't know anyother markets'. (Quoted in Durie (1979), p.146.) It is difficultfrom British sources to provide satisfactory figures for theEnglish, Scottish and Irish linens sent to the American colonies.

As the production of linen in the British Isles increased, itbecame a recurrent bone of contention between the domestic producersand the merchants and drapers importing linen from the continentthat the bulk of the duties paid on imported continental linen couldbe 'drawn back' or refunded upon re-exportation. After 1743 the'drawback' was counter-balanced by a system of 'bounties' on theexport of certain types of British and Irish linen. The bounty was%d. per yard on linen worth less than 6d. per yard and Id. on thatworth between 6d. and Is. per yard - i.e. an export subsidy ofbetween 8% and 16%. From 1745, there was an additional bounty of%d. per yard for plain linen worth 5d.-ls. per yard, and l^d. onthat worth ls.-ls.6d. per yard. The bounties lapsed between 1753and 1756, but a concerted campaign by English and Scottish producerssucceeded in having them re-established in 1756 and extended toother sorts of linen (including checked and striped linen) in 1771and again in 1781. (Harte, 1973, pp.98-99.) The system continuedin operation until 1832.

Irish linen exported from Great Britain was permitted toreceive the bounty so long as it was 'the property of some personresident in Great Britain or America*. This was a great boost toBritish-Irish-American trade, and enabled Irish linens tosubstantially replace German linens in the American market.'Formerly the planters used almost entirely the German Osnaburghsfor their slaves, until the bounty', wrote Lord Sheffield in 1784.(Quoted in Truxes (1988), p.177.) The bounty system after 1743linked the English, Scottish and Irish producing interests to thepowerful West Indian sugar planters lobby, and began to give Britishlinen producers some political clout. The marginal difference inthe market prices of British-produced linen on the American markethad a crucial effect in the low price range, and ensured anexpanding market In America for English, Scottish and Irish linens,expanding at the expense of continental linen (and restricting, too,the development of market-production of linen In America, with itshigher labour costs than provincial England, Ireland or Scotland).

3. Re-exports of Linen.

The English wars against France in the late seventeenth centuryled to the virtual exclusion of French linen from the Englishmarket, and the duty increases of the early eighteenth century hitthe low countries exports which replaced the French. The linens ofGermany were given low values in the 1660 Book of Rates, and theirimproving quality In the early eighteenth century meant that theEnglish duties bore less heavily on them. The biggest singlecategory of linen imported into England came to be what the Customsrecognised as 'narrow Germany*. Imports of continental linen intoEngland increased up to the 1730s, the increase in German linens -mainly from Saxony and Silesia - making up for the decline inimports from France and the low countries. The quantity

-22-re-exported to the West Indies and America Increased up to the1750s, and thereafter formed an increasing proportion of a declining

total.

Professor Davis1s re-calculation of the re-exports is given inFigure 9. It ̂ clear that up to the 1770s, the bulk of continental

FIG. 9 ENGLISH RE-EXPORTS, 1699-1856 (£000)

TotalManufacturedRe-exports

1699-17011722-241752-541772-741784-861794-961804-061814-161824-261834-361844-461854-56

7461,1161,1451,562660

1,6981,407563491605854

1,218

ManufacturedRe-exportsto USA

2524204325961482142581835525782

LinenRe-exports

182232331322182477562106155920

—

LinenRe-exportsto USA

157222301285921622143559~

Source: Davis (1954); Davis (1962); Davis (1979)

(largely German) linen re-exported from England went to the Americancolonies. The Sugar Act of 1764 abolished the drawbacks on foreignlinens sent to America, and thereafter foreign linens were squeezedout of the market. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, there-export trade in linen was a thing of the past. English,Scottish and Irish linen came to dominate the American marketalongside substantial non-market production in America itself.

Such was the situation when it was transformed by the rise of anew cotton industry, based upon the mechanisation of cotton-spinningin England in the 1770s. The new technology spread in the 1790s tocotton in New England and also to linen in England, and then inScotland and Ireland too.

23-BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coons, Martha et al. (1980), All Sorts of Good Sufficient Cloth:Linen-Making in New England, 1640-1860.

Cullen, L.M. (1968), Anglo-Irish Trade, 1660-1800.

Davis, Ralph (1954), 'English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700', EconomicHistory Review, 2nd ser., VI.

Davis, Ralph (1962), 'English Foreign Trade, 1700-1774', EconomicHistory Review, 2nd ser., XV.

Davis, Ralph (1979), The Industrial Revolution and British OverseasTrade.

Durie, Alastair J. (1979), The Scottish Linen Industry in theEighteenth Century.

Gill, Conrad (1925), The Rise of the Irish Linen Industry.

Harte, N.B. (1973), 'The Rise of Protection and the English LinenTrade, 1690-1790' in N.B. Harte and K.G. Ponting eds., TextileHistory and Economic History.

Hornet, John (1920), The Linen Trade of Europe during the Spinning-Wheel Period.

Lawrence, John (1984), 'The English Linen Trade in the EighteenthCentury', unpublished University of Oxford M.LItt. thesis.

Montgomery, Florence M. (1970), Printed Textiles: English andAmerican Cottons and Linens, 1700-1850.

Montgomery, Florence M. (1984), Textiles in America, 1650-1870.

Rimmer, W.G. (i960), Marshall's of Leeds, Flax-spinners, 1788-1886.

Schumpeter, Elizabeth B. (1960), English Overseas Trade Statistics,1697-1808.

Truxes, Thomas M. (1988), Irish-American Trade, 1660-1783.

Warden, Alex J. (1864), The Linen Trade, Ancient and Modern.