pages 77

The Cotton District                   77

The industrial history of the important Lancashire cotton towns, although their modern development covers less than ninety years, dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century. As early as A.D. 1311, temp. Edward Il., friezes were manufactured at Colne, but, as elsewhere in the country, they would seem to have been coarse and of little value. "The English at that time," says quaint old Fuller, "l<new no more what to do with their wool than the sheep that weare it, as to any artificial curious drapery." The great bulk of the native produce of wool was transmitted to Flanders and the Rhenish provinces, where it was woven, England repurchasing the cloth. Edward Ill., allowing himself to be guided by the far-reaching sagacity of his wise queen, Philippa, resolved that the manufacture should be kept at home. Parties of the Flemish weavers were easily induced to come over, the more so because wretchedly treated in their own country. Manchester, Bolton, Rochdale, and Warrington, were tenanted almost immediately, and a new character was at once given to the textile productions both of the district and the island in general. Furness Abbey was then in its glory; its fertile pastures supplied the wants of these industrious people : they seem, however, not to have cared to push