Wickham's 'Blue Coat'

 

Merino sheep produced short-staple wool suitable for cloth.

My latest feature for the March/April issue of Jane Austen's Regency World is on the increasing mechanization of the woollen industry.

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.

Short-staple (short-fibre) wool was used for cloth, and a fleece required a great deal of cleaning and processing before it could be spun into thread and woven into cloth.

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.