Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/218

210 In the beginning of 1783 a new epoch opens in the affairs of Samuel Oldknow. The partnership of uncle and nephew ceases, though the uncle continues to have important financial relations with the nephew and to offer friendly advice. The chief market for the goods produced is no longer found in the Nottingham connexions or even in Manchester. From this time onwards two London firms, S. & W. Salte and Parker, Topham & Sowden, take about two-thirds of the rapidly increasing output of Samuel Oldknow's manufacture. But most important of all it is from the spring of 1783 that Oldknow becomes primarily a maker of muslins. Within three years he was recognized as the first in the kingdom. Though the detailed record of his sales for this year is wanting, a ledger containing the accounts of his creditors, and an account-book containing a cash account of receipts and payments, a full inventory of his stock-in-trade in August 1783, a list of the spinners and weavers in his employ, and an account of his personal expenses, furnish full particulars of the expansion of his business, and enable us to form a sufficiently clear idea of its commercial and industrial organization. But the central clue to the reconstruction that is taking place is to be found in Oldknow's correspondence with the two London firms above referred to.

Oldknow, who had already improvised a warehouse in Anderton in a building adjacent to the house of his stepfather, had entered in January 1783 into occupation of a salesroom in Manchester on the premises of Mr. Cririe, a merchant in St. Anne's Square, at a rental of £13 a year. Here he accumulated a stock of his goods for show, and rode up weekly at the recorded expense of four or five shillings to push sales and to buy cotton weft and twist. But no sooner were his weavers adequately trained, and a steady flow of muslin products begun, than he discovered that London and not Manchester was the most effective market for his wares. The travelling partners of the two firms of Parker, Topham & Sowden and S. & W. Salte, who were eagerly looking out for the latest novelties in Manchester goods for the spring trade, had prospected a gold-mine in Oldknow's muslins, and each of them was offering to take more than he could produce. Oldknow was in a dilemma. His artistic tastes and his impulsive and speculative temperament urged him to throw himself unreservedly into the manufacture of muslins, but, apart from a possible lack of fine yarn and skilled labour, there were two serious obstacles to the expansion of the business. His output was limited by the smallness of his capital and credit, and the muslin manufacture was liable not only to all the fluctuations of a seasonal trade, but to a sudden and severe burst of competition whenever a large cargo of Indian muslins came into port. Whilst, however, he