References
- B. Lemire, Fashion’s Favourite: the Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain 1660–1800 (Oxford 1991), P. 178; B. Lemire ‘Developing Consumerism and the Ready-made Clothing Trade in Britain 1750–1800 ’ Textile History, xv (1984), pp. 21–44.
- See J. Styles, ‘Clothing the North: the Supply of non-elite Clothing in the Eighteenth-century North of England’ Textile History, xxv (1994 ), pp. 139–66; S. Levitt, ‘Cheap Mass-produced Men’s Clothing in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries’ Textile History, xxn (1991), pp. 179–92.
- S. D. Chapman, ‘The Innovating Entrepreneurs in the British Ready-made Clothing Industry’ Textile History, xxiv (1993 ), pp. 5–25. For comparable developments in France, see P. Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoise (Princeton, 1994), pp. 52–56.
- M. Brown ‘The Jews of Norfolk and Suffolk before 1840 ’, Jewish Historical Studies, xxxn (1993), pp.229–30.
- Ibid., and personal communication with Hyam’s descendant, Timothy Halford.
- M. Brown, ‘The Jews of Essex before 1900 ’, Jewish Historical Studies, xxxm (1995), p. 3.
- Essex Record Office (hereafter ERO) D/P 203/12/51. Some of these are women’s clothes such as gowns, stays and petticoat.
- ERO D/P 203/18/1.
- Chapman, ‘The Innovating Entrepreneurs’ , p. 5.
- Brown, ‘The Jews of Essex before 1900 ’, p. 3, Chelmsford Chronicle 29 Sept 1820, 26 July 1822, 30 Nov 1827.
- Brown ‘The Jews of Norfolk and Suffolk before 1840 ’, p. 230.
- The Essex Standard, 21/9/1838; Essex Record Office (hereafter ERO) D/P 203/12/51 St Botolphs parish papers. Printed header on bill of 1820.
- T. Carter, Memoirs of a Working Man (London, 1845 ), p. 161.
- ERO D/P 203/12/51.
- Sun Fire Office Insurance Policies Guildhall Library MSS 1422508 vol. 588; 1434638 vol. 598; 1716740 vol. 666. In the 1841 census, Moses and Simon were still resident in Colchester.
- Hyam’s Quarterly Mirror, Autumn 1852, p. 3.
- I am grateful to Miss M. J. Swarbrick, Chief Archivist at Westminster city archives, for her help with locating Hyam’s whereabouts in London. Hyam, Lawrence and Co. were at 86 Oxford St in 1851. Thereafter they variously moved to other Oxford St addresses and had a number of other London addresses viz. Osbourne St, Gracechurch St, Osborn Rd, Tottenham Court Road and Wells St.
- Chapman, ‘The Innovating Entrepreneurs’, p. 16.
- The Essex Standard, 24 Oct 1845.
- The Essex Standard, 26 June 1846.
- The Essex Standard, 18 Apr 1845.
- L. Hyam, The Pantechnetheca Tailoring and Outfitting Establishment (London 1844).
- The Essex Standard, 26 Sept 1845.
- For example, The Essex Standard 20 June 1845 advertised reductions in juvenile clothing.
- The Essex Standard 22 Aug 1845.
- Hyam’s Quarterly Mirror, Autumn 1852, p. 8.
- Hyam’s Quarterly Mirror, Autumn 1852, p. 7; Hyam, Pantechnetheca.
- Hyam, Pantechnetheca.
- John Johnson collection, Bodleian library. I would like to thank Professor David Vincent for the reference to this document.
- The Essex Standard, 30 Apr 1847.
- L. Hyam & Co., The Gentleman’s Illustrated Album of Fashion for 1850, John Johnson collection: Box 2, Bodeleian Library.
- Hyam, Pantechnetheca.
- Hyam’s Quarterly Mirror, Spring 1852, p. 5.
- A. F. J. Brown, Colchester 1815–1914 (Chelmsford 1980), p. 19; M. Brown, ‘The Jews of Essex before 1900’, p. 5.
- Hyam’s Quarterly Mirror, Autumn 1852, p. 3.
- B. Taylor, ‘The men are as bad as their masters ‘Socialism, feminism and sexual antagonism in the London tailoring trade in the early 1830 s’, Feminist Studies, v, (1979), p. 28; and her Eve and the New Jerusalem (London, 1983), pp. 102–3. See also J. Morris, ‘The characteristics of sweating: the late nineteenth century London and Leeds tailoring trade’ in A. V. John (ed.), Unequal Opportunities: Women’s Employment in England (Oxford 1986), pp. 92–121.
- ERO D/P 203/18/1 10 Dec 1818.
- Select Committee on Hand Loom Weavers, Parliamentary Papers, xxm (1840 ), p. 289.
- ERO D/P 178/28/27.
- Victoria County History of the County of Essex, 11 (1907 ), pp. 483–84.
- S. Alexander, Women’s Work in Nineteenth Century London: a Study of the Years 1820–1850 (History Workshop Journal Centre 1983), pp. 30–33. Similar expansion of sweated labour took place elsewhere in the 1830s and 1840s eg. the expansion of muslin sewing in northern Ireland. See B. Collins ‘The organisation of sewing outwork in late nineteenth century Ulster’ in M. Berg (ed.) Markets and Manufacture in Early Industrial Europe (London 1991), pp. 139–56 and my own work with S. D. Chapman (forthcoming) on commercial lace embroidery in Essex, Nottingham and Limerick. The rationale for using female labour in these types of industries, even in situations of male unemployment has been extensively studied in developing countries, see for example, D. Elson and R. Pearson, ‘Nimble fingers make cheap workers: an analysis of women’s employment in Third World export manufacturing’, Feminist Review, vu (1981), pp. 87–107; H. I. Safia, ‘Runaway shops and female employment: the search for cheap labor’ Signs, vu (1981), pp. 418–33.
- C. Kingsley, ‘Cheap clothes and nasty’ (1850 ) in Alton Locke: Tailor and Poet: an autobiography (London 1900 edn., first published 1865), xlix.
- Kingsley, ‘Cheap clothes and nasty’, p. liii. This was first said by Mayhew, see E. P. Thompson and E. Yeo, The Unknown Mayhew: selections from the Morning Chronicle 1849–50 (London 1971), p. 267.
- Thompson and Yeo, The Unknown Mayhew, pp. 157–58.
- Ibid., p. 219.
- Ibid., p. 221.
- Ibid., p. 225.
- Ibid., p. 226.
- Ibid., p. 229. Dead seasons were a feature of production in living memory in Colchester tailoring factories.
- B. Westover, The Sexual Division of Labour in the Tailoring Industry 1860–1920 (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Essex, 1985); B. Westover ‘To fill the kids tummies’ the lives and work of Colchester tailoresses 1880–1918’ in B. Westover and L. Davidoff (eds.), Our Work, our Livesiour Words: Women’s History and Women’s Work (1986), pp. 54–75.
- There may be a connection with the increase in Eastern European Jewish emigration into the east end of London after 1880. Many were poor male Jewish tailors, see D. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture 1840–1914 (New Haven and London 1994), pp. 185–214, perhaps Hyams sought labour which was yet cheaper in their traditional recruiting area, alternatively, they may have been simply expanding their productive potential while still employing town girls in the factory. Certainly the Hyams seemed to want to distance themselves from Jewish production in the late nineteenth century. Although in the late 1860s all the Hyam sons lived in London and were stallholders at the Bayswater synagogue, Moses and Simon Hyam, followed by many of the rest of the family, changed their names by deed poll from 1872. Moses became Montague Halford and in Kelly’s Directory of Essex for 1878 the firm were known as Hyam, Montague & Co., manufacturing clothiers.
- Colchester Recalled Archive oral history tape 2 210. For more details of this project see A. Phillips ‘Life in the Colchester clothing factories’ Essex Journal, xxviii (1993 ), pp. 8–13.
- J. Booker, Essex and the Industrial Revolution (Chelmsford 1974 ), p. 53.
- A. F. J. Brown, Essex People 1750–1900 (Chelmsford 1972), p. 127.
- Victoria County History, pp. 483–84.
- Phillips ‘Life in the Colchester clothing factories’.
- In Agra, India, I recently noticed a tailor’s shop with a permanent sign advertising the services of a ‘London-trained cutter’.