[TEXTILES]

[The Clothiers' Proposal,] To Satisfy the Woollen-Drapers in the Water-Measure of Cloth. With Some Farther Overtures, for the Benefit and Improvement of the Woollen Manufactury of this Kingdom. Humbly Offered to the Parliament of Great Britain

[London]: 1714. Broadsheet. [1]p. plus printed docket title on verso. Disbound. Small folio. Early folds and early stab holes in left margin. Trimmed close, with loss of almost all the first line of caption title. Minor foxing.

A scarce British leaflet petitioning Parliament for stricter measuring standards of cloth. The authors, writing on behalf of British woolen-drapers, ask that the French method of water measure replace the less accurate method of measuring cloth by the yard. Additional regulations relating to the industry are also requested, including the reinstatement of a requirement that "all Servant Maids, &c. be injoyned to wear the Woollen Manufactures of this Kingdom." The document, printed in the final year of Queen Anne's reign, is among the earliest examples of lobbying literature, which first began proliferating during the major changes in British government in the mid-1710s. ESTC records four copies, at the British Library, the Gloucestershire Record Office, Oxford, and the National Library of Wales.

Hanson 1964.

Item #21218

Price: $375.00