In
the 18th century Halifax was an important centre of the wool
trade. Piece Hall was built in the 1770s and provided rooms for
315 merchants. It is now the only surviving manufacturers' hall in
Britain. In the 18th century production of woollen goods in the Halifax
area was based on the domestic system.
Power loom weaving was introduced in Halifax
in the 1820s. As steam power became more efficient, Halifax and other
Yorkshire towns, had a considerable locational advantage over other
manufacturing areas.
(1)
Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole
Island of Great Britain (1724)
The nearer we came to Halifax, we
found the houses thicker, and the villages greater. The sides of hills,
which were very steep, were spread with houses; for the land being
divided into small enclosures, that is to say, from two acres to six
or seven acres each, seldom more; every three or four pieces of land
had a house belonging to it.
Their business is the clothing trade. Each clothier must keep a horse,
perhaps two, to fetch and carry for the use of his manufacture, to
fetch home his wool and his provisions from the market, to carry his
yarn to the spinners, his manufacture to the fulling mill, and, when
finished, to the market to be sold.
Among the manufacturers' houses are likewise scattered an infinite
number of cottages or small dwellings, in which dwell the workmen
which are employed, the women and children of whom, are always busy
carding, spinning, etc. so that no hands being unemployed all can
gain their bread, even from the youngest to the ancient; anyone above
four years old works.
Having passed the Caldar at Sorby Bridge, I know began to approach
the town of Halifax. There are in it twelve or thirteen chapels, besides
about sixteen meeting-houses, which they also call chapels. A clergyman
in the town told me, they reckoned they had a hundred thousand communicants
in the parish, besides children. They say the number of people in
Halifax has increased one fourth, at least, within the last forty
years.
(2)
Angus Reach, The
Morning Chronicle (1849)
The streets of Halifax are disgracefully neglected. This applies especially
to the courts and cul-de-sacs inhabited by the very poor - including
of course the Irish. I inspected several very closely and found them
reeking with stench and the worst sort of abomination. The ash-pits
were disgustingly choked, ordure and filthy stagnant slops lay freely
and deeply scattered around, often at the very thresholds of swarming
dwellings; and among all this muck, uncared for children sprawled
by the score, and idle slatternly women lounged by the half dozen.
I talked to several in their cellars. One old woman who had been more
than thirty years in England, talked dolefully of the decline of the
hawking trade. She had frequently in her youth, she said, made 20s
out of one house. But the poor people now seldom earned more than
a shilling at the very most for a hard day's work.
Two strapping fellows sat smoking by the smouldering fire. The beds
were greasy mattresses, partially covered with foul rags, and rolled
up in corners. In another cellar which was almost totally dark, for
which its occupant paid 9d per week, a grey-haired negro - an old
man-of-war's man - had lived for seventeen years. He seldom or never
stirred out - vegetating there in a world of dirt and darkness.
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