Read Book Online: VOLUME 1 - http://www.archive.org/stream/p1salemrich01richuoft#page/n5/mode/2up VOLUME 2 - http://www.archive.org/stream/salemgazet02richuoft#page/n3/mode/2up

One of my great great great great great grandfathers, John Calland used to buy cloths from Salem. I don't suppose that I will ever find out if he went there, and I expect they were delivered to him at Cuddalore, but I would love to know what these cloths would have looked like. Does anybody happen to know what sort of cloth or pattern made a cloth a "Salem?" The 18 th Century records of the trade in cloth is full of interesting names for the various types of cloths but I can only work out what a few are, and most seem to relate to particularly villages. Do they still make cloth in Salem? Regards Nick Balmer

I hear, Salem makes only steel these days! Joke apart, I think there are some spinning mills in salem.

Nick Balmer: This very Gazetteer answers many of your questions... Chapter VI : Occupations and Trade - Industries : Textiles http://www.archive.org/stream/p1salemrich01richuoft#page/260/mode/2up/search/textiles

Hello Subbiah, The fascinating thing about the extract that you have sent me, is that it doesn't answer the question I posed, but actually adds a subtle twist to the story that puzzles me a bit. John Calland was buying Salems in about 1755, at least 40 years before Edward Dashwood discussed in the book was sent up to Salem to set up textile manufacturing there. Had Tipu or the other Rajah's mentioned previously stopped the textile production from Salem that had been available in the 1750's? Were the EIC trying to take it over, or perhaps trying to re-establish it. I know that in the 1750's the EIC had had a lot of trouble getting the orders they had placed each year delivered in time for processing for the ships that arrived in November and December, and that had to be freighted in the following month. They resorted to both coercion and things like imposing joint and several liability on the Chetties who had contracted with the individual hand weavers in places like Salem. Regards Nick Balmer

Nick Balmer: You have come up with Interesting insights as ever. Your comment obviously refers to a period close to a hundred years before the Industrial Revolution in Britain when India was probably one of the largest exporters of cotton textiles in the world and Britain being one of the largest importers. There must have been such a huge demand locally that the local merchants must have found it attractive to quickly divert their orders for greater profit...so much so that the EIC had to impose severe liability clauses! Salem, Erode and the surounding areas continue to be textile spinning, weaving and processing centers even now.

Hello Subbiah, There seems to have been two effects in place in the 1740 to 1750 period. Local handicraft works operating in villages had no doubt been making cloth for centuries long before the European's arrived. They had previously been exporting to places like Java long before the European's arrived. The Industrial Revolution was preceded by an agricultural revolution in Britain and bits of Europe by about 1550, and this sparked a consumer revolution in the Netherlands by about 1630 and England by 1680. This meant that some people in those countries who were not aristocrats but who were an emerging Middle Class could buy cheaper fabrics. Houses also had glass windows, and smaller rooms with chimneys

This meant that warmth was no necessarily the most important consideration for women. They could opt to have a dress made of cotton rather than wool or linen for High Days and holidays. It was this rapidly growing market that meant it was worth importing cotton and prints from India. This meant in turn that it was worth Indian's stepping up production. There were lots of difficulties in doing this including security, quality of production, middle men (Chetties) etc. There seems to have been a credit system to provide materials to the handicraft workers workers who were too poor in their own right to fund the raw materials that went into the cloth, and there were issues about larger looms etc. There were moves to attract weavers from the inland villages into the settlements around Cuddalore. The local village authorities often resisted this, and I think there must have been a great deal of social tension created. The prosperity that some weavers acquired also attracted unwelcome attention from Pindaries and other heavies who wanted to muscle in. And then of course the European Wars spread to the Coromandel and must have caused huge issues for the poor old Indian villages that happened to get in the way. I think a lot of these were the very same ones the weavers had been in. I believe that the histories of these wars miss a very big point. They were written by soldiers or historian's who concentrate on the military political aspects of these wars. They fail to mention the economic and commercial aspects of these wars. I wonder if the first French and British land grabs in the Coromandel outside the main settlements was not as much about seizing the villages that held the best weavers as it was about fighting for supremacy. Otherwise why struggle over Arcot, or Tanjore? I think there is an economic history that has not been explored in sufficient depth here, although some Indian authors in the 1960's to 1970's often having received some post graduate education in Russia do touch on this.