Our female ancestors of all classes probably left their mark more readily with a needle than with a pen. As paintings tell us, many middle and upper-class women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sewed for decorative purposes and amusement; some lower down the social scale, made and darned clothes for their own families. But a huge number of those who plied needles in the past did so to earn a living - and a hard one at that. Women first came into the needle trades in large numbers during the Napoleonic Wars (1805-1815) when they were employed to stitch sails and military uniforms. They were considered cheaper, more dextrous and less prone to ‘combination’ (i.e. early attempts at unionisation) than men. Soon their input was in demand in other sectors.
There were two types of women needle-workers: those who worked in ‘honourable’ private dressmaking establishments (of varying degrees of refinement), and those who worked as sweated outworkers (usually at home). In the first category were the daughters of professional, clerical or trading families as well as the daughters of farmers, tradesmen and artisans. Needlework offered these women skilled work and business opportunities. At the bottom end of the scale were women of a much lower order who had fallen on hard times and were desperate simply to put bread in the mouths of their children. Some worked for roguish employers in large sweatshops where pay and conditions were poor and the subject of much humanitarian concern. In the second category were the impoverished seamstresses who worked from home. Warehouses might distribute material to ‘mistresses’ or agents who would then apportion smaller amounts to individual home-workers. For women, needlework was an activity – like childminding, charring, washing, accommodating lodgers or selling food from their back kitchens – that could be fitted in and around other domestic duties. Any poor quality clothing made by workers at home was referred to rather uncharitably as ‘slopwork.’
From the mid nineteenth-century onwards, better printing techniques, cheaper paper and improved literacy meant that there were more women’s magazines catering for the desire for fashionable clothing. Here a popular paper shows ‘the new long cloaks’ evidently in vogue in October 1888.
The Girl’s Own Paper, October 27th 1888
Home-based needlework actually increased rather than
decreased during the Industrial Revolution. Indeed some firms used more and
more out-workers as factory and workshop regulations became more stringent. Different
parts of the country specialised in different sorts of needlework. Ayrshire
home-workers favoured ‘whitework’ – embroidery in white thread onto white cloth
for christening robes, table cloths and underwear; Coventry was known for silk
ribbon production; in Northampton, domestic stitching serviced the boot and
shoe industry; London had the largest women’s garment-making sector; and the
South-West made gloves.
Conditions of Work
Many Victorian do-gooders were appalled at the conditions in
which seamstresses lived and worked. A Report by Dugard Grainger for the
Childrens’ Commission in 1843 painted a bleak picture of seamstressing. He
found found that needlewomen who lived on the business premises worked very
long hours (18 hours a day was not unheard of) and slept in crowded and badly
ventilated rooms. Many needlewomen
suffered from respiratory, digestive and rheumatic disorders. Eye complaints
were caused by the fact that much of the work was carried out before daybreak
and after nightfall, and particularly affected those who worked with black
mourning material. There were tales of girls throwing whisky into their eyes to
keep themselves awake. Women earned far less than men doing comparable jobs in
the tailoring trade. Whilst residential needle-workers were paid on a par with
domestic servants (anything from £12 - £30 per annum depending on skill), the
fact that they needed to be dressed smartly for presentation to customers often
meant that employers kept back part of their wages to cover clothing.
Work in the needlework trades was exceptionally arduous in the two fashion ‘Seasons’ (April until July or August, and October to December). During the in-between times (known as ‘the slacks’), girls could find themselves without work, or at least forced to take holidays even if they had nowhere to go. The Girl’s Own Paper, Vol IX, No 415, December 10th, 1887
Homeworkers
were at the mercy of the mistresses or agents who dealt out the work and took a
cut – often a generous one - for themselves. Middle-class philanthropists
recounted horrendous stories of needlewomen sleeping under the clothes they
were making because they couldn’t afford proper blankets. As the social
investigator Henry Mayhew noted, many needlewomen in London particularly were
so desperate that they turned to prostitution. Few women are actually recorded
as ‘prostitutes’ on the nineteenth-century censuses but it is worth remembering
that where ‘needlework’ is entered as an occupation, it may hide other, less
savoury, sources of income.
On the 1881 census Jane Bird (aged 20) and her older sister Mary (aged 29) both from Hesketh in Cumberland were employed by a Mrs Agnes Wharton, in Westminster. Jane was an ‘apprentice,’ whilst Mary had obviously been promoted to the position of ‘assistant.’ Dressmaker’s apprentices at around this time paid an annual premium to their employers of between £10-£50 to cover their living costs. Girls were usually bound at the age of fourteen or fifteen and the apprenticeship lasted for two or three years. www.thegenealogist.co.uk
If the needlewoman in your family disappears from the
records at around the time of the 1851 census, it’s just possible that this is
because she has left the country. Perceived as a problem in a society that had
far more unmarried females than males in its population, the needlewoman was –
briefly - high on the list for assisted emigration in the 1850s. Sidney
Herbert, M.P. for South Wiltshire, suggested the removal of designated groups
of needlewomen to Australia. Between 1850 and 1852 about 700 needlewomen
benefited from assisted emigrations on ships named Stately, Beulah,
The City of Manchester, and The Fortitude. The exercise was not,
however, considered to be a success. There were reports of quarrels, bad
language, insubordination and immorality on board ship. But the mission really
failed because the thinking about what the colonies really needed changed. From
1853 onwards, emigration societies focussed on sending educated and robust
middle-class women rather than delicate seamstresses of dubious social
background to the outposts of Empire.
A number of
associations and societies were eventually set up to improve the lot of the
needlewoman. They include, The Association for the Aid and Benefit of
Dressmakers and Milliners founded in 1843. This aimed to persuade the
principal dressmaking establishments to limit working hours to twelve a day and
to abolish Sunday work. It also set up and maintained a registry for freelance
day-workers, by which it hoped to ensure that residential needlewomen were not
overburdened at the busiest times of the year. The Society for the Relief of
Distressed Needlewomen (set up in 1847) aimed to introduce fairer wages
into the slop trade. Workhouse institutions and government contractors who
produced their own garments were requested to adopt standard prices so that
they did not undercut the prices charged by other needlewoman. The Milliner’s
and Dressmaker’s Provident and Benevolent Institution (founded in 1849)
offered needlewomen free medical advice and set up a fund to help needlewomen
in their old age and at times of misfortune. There were also a number of
regional associations set up to help needle-workers in times of particular
distress. The records of the Liverpool Society for the Relief of Sick or
Distressed Needlewomen 1858-1941 (including weekly visitors committee minutes,
distribution and account books), are available at the Merseyside Record Office.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, these philanthropic initiatives were
joined by needle-working co-operatives in which women began, at last, to fight
for their own rights. One of these was The Society of Dressmakers, Milliners
and Mantlemakers (1875). In time statutory protection for workers of both
sexes in the sweated industries was brought in, but for many of our lowly
seamstress ancestors, it was too little, too late.
A Singer Sewing Machine, 1853: in the 1881 census nearly 5,000 women are accorded the occupation ‘sewing machinist’ (sewing machines were first patented in 1846 but were not in general use until the 1860s). Frederick L. Lewton, The Servant in the House: A Brief History of the Sewing Machine, Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute, 1929, Washington Government Printing Office, 1930.
Extra Reading
Beth Harris,
Famine and Fashion: Needlewomen in the Nineteenth Century, Ashgate, 2005
ISBN: 0745608719
Lynn M. Alexander, Women, Work and Representation:
Needlewomen in Victorian Art and Literature. Ohio UP, 2003. ISBN:
0821414933
Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the
Making of the Feminine, London: The Women’s Press, 1984.
Christine Walkley, The Ghost in the looking Glass: The
Victorian Sempstress, London: Peter Owen, 1981.
Duncan Bythell, The Sweated Trades: Outwork in
Nineteenth-Century Britain, London: Batsford Academic, 1978.
Margaret Stewart and Leslie Hunter, The Needle is
Threaded: The History of an Industry, Heinemann/Newman Neame, 1964
Dugald Grainger, ‘Report on the Manufactures and Trades of
Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Birmingham and London.’ Children’s Employment
Commission, Vol X, 1843.
H. E. Lord and J. E. White, ‘Report on the Manufacture and
Wearing of Apparel, Part 1. On Dressmakers, Mantle-Makers and Milliners.’ Children’s
Employment Commission, Vol XIV, 1864.
Mayhew. Henry, ‘Prostitution Among Needlewomen’ (1849) in The Unknown Mayhew: Selections
from The Morning Chronicle, ed. Thompson. E.P. and Yeo, E. Pantheon, 1971. ISBN: 0394468619
p.121
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