I hope to see you there - it's a wonderful Palladian setting, and I'm very much looking forward to meeting everyone!
 |
| Merino sheep produced short-staple wool suitable for cloth. |
Wool was such a ubiquitous material that 'cloth' was synonymous with woollen fabric.
Despite cotton's increasing popularity, woollen cloth was still essential for warmth in Britain's unpredictable climate. Fashionable gentleman like George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice wore blue cloth coats.
 |
| A wool-carding machine. |
It was primarily the processing of the yarn which moved into the factories during late Georgian times; 'carding', 'scribbling', 'slubbing', and spinning on machines like James Hargreaves' spinning-jenny.
 |
| A slubbing-machine or 'billy'. |
I'll be covering the innovations in the worsted industry in the May/June issue.
The Charlotte Dundas, financed by Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, and powered by a William Symington-designed engine, was trialled on Dalswinton Loch on 14 October 1788.
Images:
Left: ‘The first steamboat’, by Alexander Nasymth. Smiles, Samuel (ed.), James Nasymth Engineer; An Autobiography, John Murray, London, 1883.
The British Merchant Service, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Fetter Lane, London, 1898. Nigel Wilkes collection.
Image: A lady in evening dress - perhaps in mourning. Ackermann's Repository, December 1818. Courtesy New York Public Library.
 |
| Willoughby asks Elinor to stay. |
Illustration by Charles Brock for Sense and Sensibility. Willoughby asks Elinor to stay.
 |
| Thiepval Memorial. |
 |
| J W Dickman, Thiepval. |
John was the son of John and Mary Dickman, of 38, Kay St., Lower Openshaw, Manchester, and he served in the 8th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment. He was only 24 years old when he died on 15 July 1916 - just two weeks before my great-uncle Harry was killed. (Herbert died earlier that year).
What a terrible year that was for my family.
Photos copyright Sue and Nigel Wilkes.
In 1814, Jane Austen wrote to Cassandra to complain about the local dyer: ‘My poor old muslin has never been dyed yet. It has been promised to be done several times. What wicked people dyers are! They begin with dipping their own souls in scarlet sin’.
Dyes were used for many different fabrics: wool, worsted, linen, cotton, and silk.
The secret of Turkey-Red dyeing (from the Far East), was much sought after in Britain, but it was not until the 1780s that it was successfully accomplished in Britain, in Manchester and the Glasgow area.
The late eighteenth century also saw the introduction of new dyes from metals, like 'iron buff' and orange from antimony.
Image from the author's collection: Costume Parisien, Journal des Dames et des Modes, 1803. A ‘Robe de Mousseline Turque’ [Turkey muslin].
