An overview of the economic, political and industrial factors that encouraged English laceworkers and their families to move to northern France during the nineteenth century and helped establish the French machine-made lace industry.

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Many family historians tracing English lace-making families are surprised to find ancestors living and working in northern France during the nineteenth century. Their presence can be traced through census returns, civil registrations and factory records in lace-making centres such as Calais, Saint Pierre-lès-Calais, Lille, Douai and Saint-Quentin.

 

Why France?

The answer lies in a combination of economic hardship, industrial change, trade restrictions and opportunity. Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, many skilled workers faced uncertain prospects at home, while France sought to develop its own machine-lace industry and welcomed British expertise. The movement of these workers, their families and their skills became one of the most significant transfers of industrial technology in the nineteenth-century textile industry.

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Industrial and Agricultural Change

In the 18th century, Britain’s Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions enabled it to begin overtaking rivals such as France and Russia, particularly in mechanised manufacturing and textile production. In the lace-making districts of Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands, new machinery promised greater output but also brought economic disruption, labour unrest and fierce competition.

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Economic Hardship and Social Unrest

In the first decade of the 19th century, as Britain’s economy expanded during the Napoleonic Wars, new industrial machines meant increased production and home-based textile production declined and factory-based manufacturing rapidly gained ground. The workers for these new factories also came from the countryside as innovative farm machines increased production but reduced the need for manual labour while the Enclosure Laws displaced tenant farmers and agricultural labourers. The Enclosure laws allowed landowners to consolidate small plots of land into larger farms, often forcing tenant farmers off their land.

The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 brought significant economic disruption to Britain. At the same time as new machines and industrialisation reduced employment opportunities, Britain’s army and navy released many thousands of soldiers and sailors who flooded the towns and villages looking for work. This contributed to social unrest in both the countryside and the townships.

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The Luddites in the Lace Districts

In the lace towns, rapid expansion during wartime left the lace manufacturers with significant overcapacity, forcing machine owners to cut wages and lay off skilled craftsmen. In turn, between 1811 and 1817, the lace-making districts became a focus of Luddite activity. Frame-breakers, protesting low wages, poor working conditions and the move from hand to machine automation, targeted industrial workshops. Lacemakers faced the constant threat of having their expensive, complex bobbin-net frames destroyed during nighttime raids.

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France’s Need for English Expertise

In France, the overwhelmingly rural, peasant-based economy was hampered by an outmoded banking system and the impost of war indemnities, resulting in slower factory industrialisation compared to Britain. The restored French monarchy under King Louis XVIII introduced aggressive protectionist measures to shield France’s domestic industry from foreign competition. The government placed prohibitive customs duties and flat bans on imported English manufactured goods, including machine-made Leavers and bobbin-net lace.

Britain also introduced protectionist measures to shield its struggling industries and agriculture and passed strict laws to prohibit the export of machinery, drawings and specialised textile tools and the emigration of skilled workers and engineers. Despite severe criminal penalties - including forfeiture of property and imprisonment - Britain’s lace manufacturers soon saw the benefits and substantial profits to be made by setting up factories in France. To do so meant smuggling machine parts and workers to northern France.

Ironically, the trade barriers designed to protect national industries created the conditions for the transfer of both machinery and expertise across the Channel.

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The First English Lace Manufacturers in France

Robert Webster and Saint Pierre-lès-Calais

Even before the end of the Napoleonic Wars, some English lace-machine owners and workers had established themselves in northern France. Despite periodic harassment by the French authorities, a number were permitted to continue operating their workshops. After the war’s conclusion, in 1815 or 1816 Robert Webster dismantled a machine and smuggled the parts into France. He reassembled it in the village of Saint Pierre-lès-Calais, just south of Calais.

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Expansion into Northern France

Other English manufacturers such as Clark, Pain, West and Pearson soon followed and, using drawings or memory, English frame smiths and mechanics rebuilt the complex machines and established lace workshops in Calais, Lille and Saint-Quentin. In early 1816 ex-workers of John Heathcoat took a machine to Douai. The makers soon enticed English workers to their workshops and by 1821 in Calais there were 11 factories with 38 machines and employing nearly 300 workers, most of them English.

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The English Community in France

Who were they?

The English migrants who settled in Calais, Saint-Pierre and other lace-making centres were more than manufacturers and mechanics. They were families who established communities that would endure for decades whether in France, after returning to England or through new lives in Australia and elsewhere.

In England, most family members of a lacemaker also worked in the industry. When an English lacemaker relocated to France, his family often went with him. This is clearly seen in the French census returns.

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The Migrant Workforce

Machine-made lace production depended upon a wide range of specialised skills. British workers brought experience and technical knowledge that helped establish and develop the French lace industry. As factories expanded, these skills were gradually passed on to French workers.

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Breaking the English Monopoly

Once established in France, the English lacemakers were very protective of their lucrative monopoly and early control of the French lace industry. However, gradually French workers learned the skills as they were employed by the English factory owners. In 1822, the French laceworkers were able to challenge English dominance over the industry when a Frenchman, Jean-Noël Dubout purchased two machines already built and worked by English workers. French ownership steadily increased, and English and French workers lived and worked side by side within the industry.

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The political and economic upheavals of 1848 would once again force many lace-making families to reconsider their future.

 

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