Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/219

1922 needed considerable advances of capital and the guarantee of a steady market for his goods, he did not wish to purchase these advantages by a complete sacrifice of his independence. A draft of a letter to S. & W. Salte on 22 April shows him cautiously feeling his way in this negotiation. Each of the two firms was willing to make advances of capital, but each bargained for an exclusive agency. Oldknow compromised the matter by dividing the London agency between them, and they continued to take two-thirds of his entire output for a number of years.

Having learnt something of the external relations of the new enterprise we may now turn to consider its internal economy. Ample data for this purpose are provided by the recorded stock-taking of August 1783. But first as regards the warehouse at Anderton, in which the business was centred in 1783, there is an interesting letter, undated, but clearly belonging to a later period, asking the landlord for a lease on the ground of improvements effected by Oldknow probably in 1784. A plan is attached to the letter showing that the original structure adjoining Mr. Clayton's house was 31 feet 2 inches long by 19 feet 6 inches wide, and that the addition made by Oldknow had practically doubled the accommodation at a cost of £90. That an eminent manufacturer who claims to have established a new industry should regard £90 as a considerable outlay shows how small a part fixed capital in buildings or machinery as yet played in industrial enterprise. Although there was not much room in Oldknow's warehouse before it was enlarged, it is conceivable that it sufficed for his stock-in-trade at that time. The whole of his 'Fixtures and Utensils', which comprised office furniture as well as machinery, was valued at £57 17s. 11d. This modest equipment covered all the processes of preparing the warp, giving out the cotton, warp, and weft, taking in, examining, finishing, and storing the cloth.

The warehouse, even before it was enlarged, had apparently separate rooms for giving out and taking in. In the former were four bags of cotton of different kinds, the total quantity being only 234 lb. The cotton of Berbice (77 lb. at 2s.) had hitherto been thought the finest, but that of Brazil (130 lb. at 1s. 9d.) was now thought to be equally good material for fine fabrics. There were also 97 lb. of St. Domingo at 1s. 7½d. and 20 lb. of Smyrna for coarse fabrics at 1s. 4d. Besides this, there were 125 lb. in the hands of twenty-three small spinners employed by Oldknow, and a further quantity given out to a score of weavers who saw to the spinning of their own weft, making a total value of about £50. Carefully sorted out in the cupboards and drawers of this room there lay about a couple of hundred-