Early legislation required that wool must be traded through middle men and the wealthy Yeoman clothiers. In 1545 and 1552, during the reign of Elizabeth, laws were passed to discontinue the use of the middle men, in order to reduce the final cost of the cloth to the consumer.
The Halifax Act [1555] recognised that the parish of Halifax and areas thereabouts were
planted in the greate waste 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 greater part of them neither getteth corn nor are able to keep a horse to carry wool, nor yet to buy much wool at once ...
and exempted the parish from that requirement and allowed the middle men to sell directly to the poore folkes who were ...
unable to keep a horse to carry wool, nor yet to buy much wool at once
The Act applied to the Parish of Halifax with its 23 townships covering 120 square miles
Page Ref: KK_184
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