Home Industries, 1914
"When such outlets are found for the results of home labour, a feeling of contentment and independence comes into the household, for the women can contribute their share as well…
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“Home industries,” from Scottish Life and Character, by William Sanderson, 1914.
We have been so long accustomed to look upon the wonderful scientific discoveries and machinery improvements of the nineteenth century as unmixed blessings to the human race, that it comes as a shock when we are told that such is not the case. No one can deny that the great mass of the people have benefited largely by the advancements which have been made; but there has also been a retrograde movement going on which makes for ugliness and incapacity. The huge factories with their deafening roar of machinery have swallowed up the craftsmen, while the subdivision of labour takes the power out of their hands which it seems to give. When the skilled worker becomes part of a vast system of machinery for rapid production, his hand loses its cunning and his mental faculties are deadened.
It is very questionable if the great increase in scientific knowledge which we now possess increases the thinking powers of the community. Writing on this subject recently, the Bishop of Ripon says:
"So much is done for us in the present day that we are relieved of the necessity of finding out how to do things for ourselves. We touch a button, and our rooms are flooded with light. We release a shutter, and we have made a picture. We take a ticket, and we are whirled away some hundred miles to our destination. All is made easy, and why should we trouble to inquire how these things are done? The convenient and clever inventions which put power at our disposal without trouble to ourselves make us independent of understanding the principles which are utilised in these inventions. So we may be content with a superficial knowledge of methods, without any understanding of the principles. I am not sure that the wide diffusion of science has really quickened the general understanding, or stimulated the determination to get to the bottom of things. There is a whole kingdom of knowledge which the general public never enter; and though there are more scientific men in the world now than formerly, yet men need not on that account be more scientific."
The same dwarfing influences have been at work among the handicrafts, and the artistic sense which shone so brightly in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has almost been extinguished in these latter days. But there are not wanting signs of a revival of the handicrafts, and it may be that the twentieth century may see much of their old glories restored. The encouragement of home industries among the people is a safe investment for any nation. A people fully employed at congenial work is a safeguard against sedition and a foundation upon which the superstructure of the state may safely be reared. Ruskin, Carlyle, Morris, Rossetti, and many others have not spoken in vain, and the men of the immediate future will understand the artistic message better than the contemporaries of those pioneers in the renaissance of the handicrafts.
In bringing about this desirable state of affairs, Scotland has played no unimportant part, for the Scottish Home Industries Association, Ltd., has drawn public attention to the possibilities of the isolated and out-of-the-way homes of the people. Founded in 1889 by the Countess of Rosebery, under the patronage of the Princess Louise, the Association has gone steadily on, and has gradually widened the sphere of its operations. The Duchess of Sutherland and many ladies of high rank have laboured incessantly in this good cause, and it must be a peculiar pleasure to them to see their efforts being appreciated.
Although the Association which, by the way, does not work for profit and devotes any surplus to the benefit of the workers is mainly interested in the production of the famous Harris and Sutherland tweeds, it gives encouragement to all the other kinds of home work, such as Shetland goods and other knitted articles of every description, Scottish woollen stockings, hand-woven bed and table linen, hand-woven silk, Scottish blankets, Alva carpets, embroidery on linen and muslin, monograms, etc., carved goods, artistic furniture, baskets and quaint chairs, the latter a speciality of Orkney. All the articles enumerated being the work of cottagers and artisans, it is at once apparent that the work of such an association is most important, and waits but the further patronage of the public to extend its operations all over the country.
On a limited scale a similar scheme for the encouragement of home work was originated over twenty years ago by the late Miss Fergusson of Broomlee House, West Linton, and has since her death been carried on by her sisters. The object she had in view was that the long winter evenings in the homes of the people of the district might be profitably occupied. Any articles of whatever description, made at home, are offered for sale at an Industrial Exhibition held in the Public School each autumn, and the majority of the goods thus shown meet with ready purchasers, commissions coming even from distant parts of the world.
When such outlets are found for the results of home labour, a feeling of contentment and independence comes into the household, for the women can contribute their share as well as the men. Idleness and extravagance disappear to a large extent, and the tawdry cheap garments give place to the enduring home-made clothing. The labourer or farm-servant, when he discovers that the true recreation is a change of employment, may find that his hand and eye have hidden powers that he dreamt not of. His spare time hangs no longer heavily on his hands, while his mind expands under the thinking-out process necessary for the completion of any piece of work.
The encouragement of home industries does not in any way interfere with the advance of ordinary commerce, and the spinning-wheel, at which the old woman may "work life out to keep life in," need not enter into competition with the machinery of the factory. Mr J. A. Hobson, the economist, ably sums up the situation when he says: "It is, in a word, a practical informal attempt of a civilised society to mark out for itself the reasonable limits of machine production, and to insist that cheapness shall not dominate the whole industrial world to the detriment of the pleasure and benefit arising from good work to the worker and consumer.
Such a movement neither hopes nor seeks to restore medievalism in industry, nor does it profess hostility to machinery, but it insists that machines shall be confined to the heavy, dull, monotonous, and therefore inhuman processes of work, while for the skill of human hand and eye shall be preserved all work which is pleasant and educative in its doing, and the skill and character of which contribute pleasure and profit to its use."
In the seventeenth century a rather peculiar method of encouraging the linen industry in Scotland was adopted. An Act was passed in 1686 ordaining that "no corpse of any persons whosoever be buried in any shirt, sheet, or anything else except in plain linen." To secure that the law would be carried out, the relatives of deceased persons were obliged under heavy penalties to come to their parish minister within eight days of the burial and declare on oath that the rule had been complied with. Acts were also passed securing the free import of lint and prohibiting its export, while the width of cloth, etc., were regulated by law.
The value of Scottish trade, even then, was considerable, and caused continual quarrels between continental seaports, until William, Prince of Orange, settled Campeere as the chief port, and there Scottish law had power, and the officials of the port were legally recognised in Scotland. The trade in hosiery between Aberdeen and Holland was important, but complaints as to quality having been made by the Dutch, an Act was passed in the reign of George II. which decreed that "All stockings that shall be made in Scotland shall be wrought and made of three threads, and one sort of wool and worsted, and of equal work and fineness throughout, free from left loops, hanging hairs, and of burnt, cut, or mended holes, and of such shapes and sizes respectively as the pattern which shall be marked by the several Deans of Guild of the chief burghs of the respective counties.
Though we may not see our fields again enriched with the brilliant colour effects of the growing flax, so poetically referred to by Burns in the line, "A towmond auld, sin' lint was i’ the bell," we may with some degree of hope look forward to the time when not a few of the old home industries shall be re-established. The spinning-wheel, invented in 1521 in a little Brunswick village by Hans Jurgen, has long been the poetical representative of all the small household handicrafts, and it is not impossible that our young maidens may once again become experts in spinning, and sing, as the thread passes from their fair fingers:
As round I gaily turn my wheel,
I hear this maxim in its hum
"A thread well spun in youth's bright day
Will bring you joy in years to come."
And, as the passing hours I fill
With happy thought and merry song,
I take the lesson to my heart
And spin a thread both fine and strong.
Sanderson, William. Scottish Life and Character. Adam and Charles Black, 1914.
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