At Worcester the cloth industry was organized so that each process had its own guild and craftsmen, with their own rules and regulations as to prices, wages and quality, number of looms, journeymen and apprentices, all to prevent injurious monopoly. With the changes in the Church in the 16th century, great changes took place in village communities, and impoverished commoners turned to their spinning wheels to augment their dwindling resources. The result to the weaving trade was ruinous competition and the undercutting of the guild regulations on wages and prices.
An Act of Henry V111 attempted to regulate the Worcestershire trade, so while a cottager could make cloth for his own use, cloth for sale could only be made by clothiers from the towns of Worcester, Bromsgrove, Droitwich, Kidderminster and Evesham. Another Act of 1671 attempted to reaffirm the principles and methods of the guilds, condeming 'abuses and deceits', but the very strictness of guild regulations caused the industry to move out to rural areas. Their undercutting brought about the 'engrosser', the man who bought to sell again. Yarranton in 1677, said that the clothiers were in the hands of factors turned merchants. When the industry moved out into rural areas (Yorkshire etc), Worcester refused to accept the new demands and would not adapt, and eventually it faded out.
