An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of EnglandCheyney, Edward Potts
History
An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England
Cheyney, Edward Potts
Great Britain -- Economic conditions; Great Britain -- Maps; Industries -- Great Britain
*39. Change of Location of Industries.*--The changes described above
were, as has been said, the result of development from within the
craft and trading organizations themselves, resulting probably in the
main from increasing wealth. There were other contemporary changes in
these companies which were rather the result of external influences.
One of these external factors was the old difficulty which arose from
artisans and traders who were not members of the organized companies.
There had always been men who had carried on work surreptitiously
outside of the limits of the authorized organizations of their
respective industries. They had done this from inability or
unwillingness to conform to the requirements of gild membership, or
from a desire to obtain more employment by underbidding in price, or
additional profit by using unapproved materials or methods. Most of
the bodies of ordinances mention such workmen and traders, men who
have not gone through a regular apprenticeship, "foreigners" who have
come in from some other locality and are not freemen of the city where
they wish to work, irresponsible men who will not conform to the
established rules of the trade. This class of persons was becoming
more numerous through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
notwithstanding the efforts of the gilds, supported by municipal and
national authority. The prohibition of any workers setting up business
in a town unless they had previously obtained the approval of the
officials of their trade was more and more vigorous in the later
ordinances; the fines imposed upon masters who engaged journeymen who
had not paid the dues, newcomers into the town, were higher. The
complaints of the intrusion of outsiders were more loud and frequent.
There was evidently more unsupervised, unregulated labor.
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