The introduction of spinning machinery to the Continent is a curious episode in the history of commerce, and has some interest for Manchester people, as it was from that place the men and the machinery were obtained. The industrial activity of England and the riches which the inventions of Kay, Highs, and Arkwright brought her, naturally attracted the attention of her foreign rivals, but in those days there were stringent regulations against the export of machines, and the “seduction of artizans” to engage in the service of a foreign master was a criminal offence. The temptation was, however, too great for the attempt not to be made. As Englishmen had gone abroad in order to obtain the secrets of the silk and other manufactures, so foreigners came here to spy out the industrial riches of the land. The man who succeeded in taking abroad the spinning-jenny was Liévin Bauwens.[8] He belonged to a Belgian family that claimed patrician rank, but had always been associated with the industries of Holland, in Antwerp, Malines, and other places. Although the names and coat-of-arms of the Bauwens are to be found in the books of the Low Country heralds, they are also inscribed for generations in the records of the Tanners’ Guild of Ghent. Liévin Jean Bauwens was born at Ghent on the 14th of June, 1769, and was the son of Georges Bauwens and his second wife, Thérèse van Peteghem. His father had a tannery in the Waaistraat, and his numerous children were taught to take a part in the family industry, so at an early age Liévin was made the overseer of a branch establishment at Huydersvetters-Hoeck. He can only have been a boy when he had this responsible position, for at the age of sixteen he came to London, and in the great tannery of Undershell and Fox learned what there was to be known of the English methods of that industry. Three years later he returned to Ghent, and took charge of a large establishment which his father had started shortly before his death. The Nieuwland Tannery in the old Dominican convent employed 200 men, and kept 550 vats going. Bauwens made leather for the London market, and is said to have paid 500,000 francs of customs duty yearly. He had frequent occasion to visit England, and the expansion of the cotton industry naturally attracted his attention—all the more so that he had always had a strong taste for mechanics, and only adopted the family trade in compliance with the wishes of his father. A clock which he had made at the age of twelve was one of the favourite exhibits of his parents, who, whilst proud of the ingenuity of their son, did not wish him to abandon the vocation which had ensured competence to the family. As tanners, they naturally felt that there was “nothing like leather.”