126 FABRYKAthe Radziwills beside their palace at Nieswiez in Lithuania. Their example was
followed by many magnates, most prominently in the 1770s at Grodno by
Antoni Tyzenhaus (1733—85), Treasurer of the Grand Duchy, and in the 1780s
at Lowicz and Skierniewice by the King's brother, Archbishop Michal Jerzy
Poniatowski (1736-94). To the horror of his episcopal colleagues, the
Archbishop converted his two primatial residences into weaving-sheds, and per-
suaded his royal brother to buy 34 of 225 shares in the venture. In 1807, at
Ozorkow near Leczyca a new sort of experiment made its appearance. The
ancient estate of the Szczawczynski family, consisting of a manor, a mill, and
four hides of land supporting four families, was bought for the purpose of
founding a textile settlement. It was chosen for the abundance of soft water suit-
able for bleaching, and for the availability of unemployed weavers. Within ten
years of the land being leased to a consortium of ten clothiers and two tailors, it
was supporting over two thousand people. In 1818, at nearby Zgierz, a similar
settlement of wollen weavers was founded, and flourished. These two towns
were the precursors of half a dozen more, which were to develop in the sub-
sequent period into one of Europe's foremost textile regions.
Lodz's label as 'the Polish Manchester' is hardly justified, at least to anyone
who is connected with the Lancastrian metropolis. Lodz never aspired to the
political and cultural standing of Cobden and Blight's Manchester and was
more a follower than a pioneer in the history of textile technology. Yet its extra-
ordinary growth in the second half of the nineteenth century, after several false
starts, serves to illustrate the complicated nature of Polish industrialization and
the necessary coincidence of numerous contributory factors which made it
possible. In 1793, when Manchester was already clothing half of Europe, the
hamlet of 'Lodzia' sheltered only 191 souls. In 1840, after twenty years of state
promotion, it had reached only 20,000. After that it never looked back. In 1900,
it had 315,000 inhabitants; in 1939, 673,000; and in 1971,765,000.
The successive experiments which marked the early, precarious beginnings of
the textile industry in Lodz, were launched by Rajmund Rembielifiski
(1775-1841), the Prefect of Mazovia, who on a tour of inspection in July 1820
stopped near the hamlet, drew a line in the sand across the old road from Leczyca
to Piotrkow, and declared that the Government of the Congress Kingdom would
found a new town on that very spot. Rembielinski, a veteran of Kosciuszko's
Rising, who in 1804 had published a drama entitled Lord Salisbury and who had
served as the General-Intendant of Poniatowski's Army, was seeking the same
benefits for the state which had accrued to private entrepreneurs at nearby
Ozorkow and Zgierz. His first scheme was for the production of woollen cloth.
Large numbers of Silesian and Saxon weavers were known to be unemployed
after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, and a concerted effort was made to
recruit them into Poland. On the model of a standard agreement originally drawn
up in Zgierz, each weaver was offered 1.5 morgs of land, free materials for build-
ing a house, and six years' exemption from rent, taxation, and military service.
The government was to construct a bleach-works and dye-works to be managed