Buying of Wool, Halifax Act 1555
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1555 c. 13 |
(2 & 3 Ph. & M.) C A P. XIII.
'FOrasmuch as the Parish ofHalifax and other Placesthereunto adjoining, being planted in the great Wasts and Moors, where the Fertility of Ground is not apt to bring forth any Corn nor good Grass, but in rare Places, and by exceeding and great Industry of the Inhabitants; and the same Inhabitants altogether do live by Cloth-making, and the great Part of them neither getteth Corn, nor is able to keep a Horse to carry Wools, nor yet to buy much Wool at once, but hath ever used only to repair to the TownofHalifax , and some other nigh thereunto, and there to buy upon the Wool-driver, some a Stone, some two, and some three and four, according to their Ability, and to carry the same to their Houses, some three, four, five and six Miles off, upon their Heads and Backs, and so to make and convert the same either into Yarn or Cloth, and to sell the same, and so buy more Wool of the Wool-driver; by Means of which Industry the barren Grounds in those Partsbe now much inhabited, and above five hundred Housholds there newly increased within these forty Years past, which now are like to be undone and driven to Beggery, by Reason of the late Estatute made, that taketh away the Wool-driver, so that they cannot now have their Wool by such small Portions as they were wont to have, and that also they are not able to keep any Horses whereupon to ride, or set their Wools further from them in other Places, unless some Remedy may be provided:' (2)For the Remedy whereof, Be it enacted by the King and Queen's Majesties, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament, and by the Authority of the same, That from henceforth it shall be lawful to any Person or Persons inhabiting within the Parish ofHalifax , to buy any Wool or Wools, at such Times as the Clothiers may buy the same, otherwise than by ingrossing and forestalling, so that the Persons so buying the same do carry or cause to be carried the said Wools so bought by them to the Town of Halifax , and there to sell the same to such poor Folks of that and other Parishes adjoining, as shall work the same in Cloth or Yarn (to their Knowledge) and not to the rich and wealthy, nor to any other to sell again: (3) And if either the said Wool-driver shall sell his said Wools at any other Place forth of the said Town of Halifax , or if any such shall buy their Wools at Halifax...
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