pdf2 - fnah research - sewing machine€¦ · stowmarket, suﬀolk ip14 1dl tel: 01449 612229 fig....

Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL Tel: 01449 612229

www.eastanglianlife.org.uk

Object(s): Sewing Machine

Object Number(s): STMEA:A.5739

Researcher details: Lydia Gascoigne, Volunteer

The ‘Shakespear’ Sewing Machine and Female Industry in the 1870s

This machine, used in the small village of Mendlesham, was manufactured and used within a

significant period of naPonal whistleblowing of the realiPes of female industry, as

newspapers exposed the lives and working condiPons of ‘Sewing Machine Girls’.

This lock-sPtch sewing machine was first produced in the early-1870s by The Royal Sewing

Machine Co. Ltd. (named The Royal Sewing Machine Manufacturing Co. from 1882), formed

by Thomas Shakespear and George Illston in 1868, in Smallheath, Birmingham. Named the

’Shakespear' machine, a^er the founder, it features the patented shu_le mechanism and is

hand-powered by a wheel. It was used at A. & M. Cuang’s grocer and draper in Front Street,

Mendlesham for working with texPles, such as making calico sheets and alteraPons to

garments. Images of the shop front can be found within the Museum of East Anglian Life’s

collecPon (STMEA:A.5724-5726).

The machine is not simply funcPonal but also highly decorated, with details such as gold

embellishment and lions’ feet supporPng it on its base. It also features the head of William

Shakespeare, punning on its namesake and connecPng the machine to the model’s

catchphrase, ‘Not for an age but for all Pme’. The image below depicts a similar machine to

that in the collecPon, sold at Eastbourne AucPons in January 2019.



FIg. 1: A ‘Shakespear’ sewing machine. 1

AdverPsed frequently throughout the 1870s, the machine sold for £4 4s, situaPng it in the

mid-to-high range of machines which was also occupied by brands such as Singer and Atlas.

Other machines were adverPsed for as li_le as 30s or 40s, and thus the Cuangs’ purchase of

the ‘Shaksepear’ can be viewed as an investment into a machine of higher quality. A the^ of

a sewing machine, valued at ‘6lbs’, was recounted at the Bury Borough Quarter Sessions in

the Bury and Norwich Post on 12 January, 1875. Similarly, an account of a court session at 2

Mildenhall on 1 December, 1874 tells of a platelayer, James Cuang’s, the^ of a ‘Europa’

treadle sewing machine manufactured by Smith, Starley & Co. ’of the value of 4l. 4s’. Such 3

instances highlight the status of such machines within their contemporary society as

valuable commodiPes.

LiveAucPoneers, ‘19th Century Royal Sewing Machine Company Shakespeare’. Available from: h_ps://1

www.liveaucPoneers.com/en-gb/item/67758088_19th-century-royal-sewing-machine-company-shakespeare [Accessed 15 April 2020). A_ribuPon © LiveAucPoneers. Anon., ‘Bury Borough Quarter Sessions’, Bury and Norwich Post, Iss. 4829 (Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1875), p.6.2

Anon., ‘Mildenhall’, Bury and Norwich Post, Iss. 4823 (Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1874), p. 5.3



Fig. 2: AdverPsement (1873). 4

Fig. 3: AdverPsement (1871). 5

A. & M. Cuang’s shop opened in 1872 and they adverPsed jobs in The Ipswich Journal

frequently in the following years. Many adverts sought young women to assist in the shop’s

drapery. On 31 May, 1873, they adverPsed for ‘a Young Lady for the Millinery, to assist in the

shop when required’; on 25 September, 1875, ‘ a Young Lady as Improver to Dressmaking 6

and to serve in Drapery’; and on 28 October, 1876, ‘a Young Lady as Milliner, and to serve 7

behind the counter when required’. On 30 September, 1876, they also sought a ‘highly-8

respectable Cu_er and Tailor’, for whom there would be ‘a House found, or Board and

Anon., ‘MulPple Classified AdverPsements’, Le Follet, Vol. 27, Iss. 318 (Saturday, March 1, 1873), p. 5.4

Anon., ‘MulPple Classified AdverPsements’, John Bull, Vol. LI, Iss. 2639 (Saturday, July 8, 1871), p. 462.5

Anon., ‘AdverPsements & NoPces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7115 (Saturday, May 31, 1873), p. 4.6

Anon., ‘AdverPsements & NoPces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7356 (Saturday, Sept. 25, 1875), p. 5.7

Anon., ‘AdverPsements & NoPces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7470 (Saturday, Oct. 28, 1876), p. 3.8



Lodging’. This high-turnover or accumulaPon of staff indicates success in the business, 9

whose group of employees would have consisted of a variety of genders and ages. It seems

likely that this would have included more than one woman working as a seamstress in the

drapery. These adverts reinforce John Burne_’s asserPon that, despite their likely drasPc

underesPmaPon in censuses, ‘Victorian women provided a vast reservoir of labour’. 10

In the wider cultural context of the 1870s, the sewing machine stood at the centre of

debates surrounding female industry and unionisaPon. Whilst this machine would have

been used in a much smaller establishment than the vast factories of the ciPes, the role of

the seamstress would sPll have inevitably been Ped to issues of female pay, the valuing of

skill, and industrial mechanisaPon. Many adverts for sewing machines presented them as

liberaPng women due to their efficiency compared to hand-sewing, evidenced for example

in John Sco_’s booklet Genius Rewarded; or the Story of the Sewing Machine for Singer in

1880, which proclaims ‘the importance of the Sewing Machine […] in the countless hours it

has added to woman’s leisure for rest and refinement; [and] in the increase of Pme and

opportunity for that early training of children’. 11

However, as Julie Wosk recognises, ‘Singer’s sanguine adverPsing also belied an industry in

which the working condiPons for both men and women were o^en very grim’. The truth of 12

the toil of many women working at sewing machines began to enter newspapers shortly

before the founding of A. & M. Cuang's store. On 17 June, 1863, a ‘Tired Dressmaker’ had

her le_er published in The Times, a_ribuPng the death of one of her companions to ‘long

hours and close confinement’ in the workroom. The le_er sent shockwaves through 13

Anon., ‘AdverPsements & NoPces’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7462 (Saturday, Sept. 30, 1876), p. 3.9

John Burne_, ‘IntroducPon’, in The Annals of Labour: Autobiographies of BriEsh Working Class People, 10

1820-1920 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974), p. 48. John Sco_, Genius Rewarded: or, the Story of the Sewing Machine (New York, NY: J. J. Caulon, 1880), p. 9.11

Julie Wosk, Women and the Machine: RepresentaEons from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age 12

(BalPmore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2001) p. 32. Le_er from a ‘Tired Dressmaker’, first published in The Times (June 17, 1863), quoted from its reprinPng 13

under the Ptle ‘Death in the Work-Room in London’, in the Dundee Courier, Iss. 3077 (Saturday, June 20, 1863), p. 4.



society and the spreading of truth of the industry gained momentum. A le_er from ‘A

Sewing Machine Girl’ to the editor of the Manchester Guardian was also widely reprinted,

for example in The Women’s Union Journal on April 1, 1876, in which the writer exposed the

reality of her occupaPon:

It is not the fingers only that are “weary and worn” in our business; it is the feet, the legs, the body, arms, hands, fingers, and head. All have to be acPvely and incessantly employed while manipulaPng such a delicate instrument as a sewing machine. 14

Her call that ‘it is high Pme for some one to take us in hand, organise us and drill us into

some kind of a “union”’ was shortly answered in a public meePng which took place in

Manchester the following month. An account of the event, also published in The Women’s 15

Union Journal, states that ‘About 500 persons were present, nearly all of them girls’. The 16

arPcle also quotes Mrs Paterson, founder of the Women’s ProtecPve and Provident League,

who spoke at the meePng:

The le_er signed ‘A Sewing Machine Girl’ ought to be read far and wide. They in London had reprinted it, and every rich and idle lady who thought that women were well cared for should read it to see what some of her sex had to contend with. 17

This meePng represents a key act of female mobilisaPon in the interest of workers’ rights. At

this point in the nineteenth century, the sewing machine operated at the centre of a

discourse on female industry which incorporated all women, working or idle, poor or rich,

into its sphere.

Anon., ’Sewing Machine Workers’, The Women’s Union Journal: Organ of the Women’s ProtecEve and 14

Provident AssociaEon, Iss. 3 (Saturday, April 1, 1876), p. 9. Ibid.15

Anon., ’Projected Union of Manchester Sewing Machine Workers’, The Women’s Union Journal: Organ of the 16

Women’s ProtecEve and Provident AssociaEon, Iss. 4 (Wednesday, May 31, 1876), p. 19 . Ibid.17



Although the workers in A. & M. Cuang’s grocer and draper may have been unaware of such

sPrrings of unionisaPon elsewhere in the country, even their local papers can be seen to

describe the significance of the ‘Sewing Machine Girl’. For example, an arPcle in The Ipswich

Journal from 29 June, 1875 commends the gi^ of Mrs Ogilvie of Sizewell House, thirty miles

east of Mendlesham, as an insPtuPon for the training of young girls for occupaPons outside

of domesPc service. The author notes that

the sewing machine, the electric telegraph, the workshop, and the counter are all bidding briskly for young women of the class which formerly took to domesPc service as naturally as ducks take to the water. The consequence is that young women no longer need to look to service as a career. 18

It is not implausible that girls trained at this insPtuPon would have later applied to work for

A. & M. Cuang. Further to this, an advert by the sewing machine manufacturer Wheeler &

Wilson in The Ipswich Journal on 8 August, 1868 employed many of the same tropes as the

aforemenPoned booklet by Singer. It compares the ‘drudgery [of] the old hand-sewing’ to

the ‘posiPvely fascinaPng [..] click, click, of the merry machine needle’ which ‘excites rather

than depresses the spirits’. This passage uPlises similar language to an anPthePcally criPcal 19

poem, ‘The Sewing Machine’, published in Funny Folks on 17 July, 1875:

Click — click — click — Answer the martyrs of trade — Click — click — click — “That skilful machine is made To quicken the labour of brain and hands, And seems to hasten Life’s very sands In compePPon keen, Tasking our weary fingers more Than our pallid mothers’ were tasked before The curse of the Sewing Machine. 20

Anon., ‘The Social and Moral Effect of Mrs Ogilvie’s Gi^’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 7331 (June 29, 1875), p. 2.18

Anon., ‘A Wife’s Comfort’, The Ipswich Journal, Iss. 6745 (Saturday, Aug. 8, 1868), p. 12.19

Anon., ’The Sewing Machine’, Funny Folks: A Weekly Budget of Funny Pictures, Funny Notes, Funny Jokes, and 20

Funny Stories, Vol. III, Iss. 32 (Saturday, July 17, 1875), lines 21-30.



We cannot know on what terms the seamstresses at A. & M. Cuang’s grocer and draper

knew or viewed such polariPes of the debate surrounding sewing machines. Nevertheless,

the ‘Shakespear’ machine in the collecPon of the Museum of East Anglian Life funcPons as a

valuable lens through which burgeoning debates on the work of seamstresses in the 1870s

can be explored. Certainly, despite being used in a shop within a small village, it remains part

of a unique movement which amplified the voices of Victorian working women.

pdf2 - fnah research - sewing machine€¦ · stowmarket, suﬀolk ip14 1dl tel: 01449 612229 fig....

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