The Irish Linen Board published its Spinning Wheel Entitlement List, as a result of a government initiative to encourage the cultivation of linen. It listed persons who had grown a specified area of flax plant. Those who had planted one rood were rewarded with one spinning wheel, with other rewards allocated according to the extract, below, for Sligo:
“A List of Persons to whom Premiums for sowing Flax-seed in the Year 1796 have been adjudged by the Trustees of the Linen Manufacture.
Persuant to the Scheme offered by them for encouraging the growth of Flax throughout the Kingdom viz. “To the Person who should sow between the 10th Day of March and the 1st Day of June 1796, with a sufficient Quantity of good sound Flax-seed, any Quantity of Land, well prepared and fit for the purpose, not less than 1 Acre-4 Spinning wheels, — 3 Roods 3 Ditto, — 2 Roods – 2 Ditto, — 1 Rood — 1 Ditto. And to the Person who should sow in like Manner any Quantity of like Land, not less than 5 Acres, a Loom, or Wheels, Reels, or Hatchells to the Value of 50 Shillings, and for every 5 Acres over and above the first five a like Premium.”
The claimants for one Rood, who are entitled to one Wheel each, are requested to apply to the County Inspector Mr. Thomas Holmes for their Wheels, there being a sufficient Number ready to distribute among them: The other Premiums will be discharged in Rotation as the Wheels can be made, of which due Notice shall be given.
Every Person preferring Reels may have two of them in lieu of a Spinning Wheel.
The Scheme of Premiums offered by the Board for the Year 1796, has had so extensive an Effect, that it will require 37,135 Wheels to discharge the One Rood Claimants; and not less than 88,719 Wheels, together with 287 Looms, to discharge the whole, which necessarily produces much delay in delivering.
As the highest Price is paid for the Wheels in order to have them of the best Fabric, of seasoned Timber, and of the full Size, no Claimant is to receive any Wheel deficient in any respect: They are all to be stamped with the Board Seal before delivery, and with the Maker’s Name.
And in order to render the national benefit proposed by the Trustees as efficacious as possible, they request that any neglect or delay of the Inspector in delivering Wheels of the best quality and equal excellence to the Pattern deposited with him, be instantly made known to them by information to any Trustee, or to the Inspector General, or by Letter to their Secretary, at the Linen-Office, Dublin.
N.B. Any Inspector, Deputy Inspector, or Surveyor, or other Person acting under him or them, who shall directly or indirectly receive any Fee, Gratuity, or Reward for the performance of his duty, becomes by such offence disqualified by Act of Parliament to hold any Employment under the Linen Board.”
For those persons who are tracing Irish ancestry this list can be worth consulting for possible ancestors. It is arranged by civil parish (and occasionally only the barony) and contains the names of nearly 60,000 individuals in all counties of Ireland, except Dublin and Wicklow, who had sown the required acreages of flax plant.