Indeed in good times the trade paid I/- to 1/3 (one shilling to one shilling and threepence ) a day; much better than the wages of agricultural labourers.
Nor was this craft limited to Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, but was carried on in Northamptonshire as well. The Northampton Militia lists of 1777 states that there were between nine and ten thousand young women and boys employed in lace making in and around Wellingborough and about nine thousand involved in the trade around Kettering.