Jacquard's Invention

 

My latest feature in my industrial revolution series for Jane Austen's Regency World magazine is on M. Jacquard's loom. 'Figured' fabrics were decorated with intricate patterns. Since ancient times, a draw-loom or draw-boy loom was used for weaving figured damasks. 

Some versions of this loom required a child helper to perch on top of the loom to help the weaver create complex patterns. This was a slow, expensive process, and several inventors simplified the loom to do away with the need for a child helper on top. 

Then early in the nineteenth century, over in France, M. Jacquard's new invention caused a stir.

His loom, which used a combination of punched-cards, hooks and needles, enabled far more intricate patterns to be woven. But the silk workers in his home town of Lyon were violently opposed to his machine, and broke up his loom in the public marketplace. 

Nevertheless, by the late 1820s, the Jacquard loom was used in Britain for weaving furnishing fabrics in silk, worsteds, cotton and wool in a variety of  designs.

Illustration from my collection: Powerlooms stuff manufacture. Jacquard powerlooms are on the left of the picture; looms surmounted by a 'draw-boy' apparatus are on the right.  Pictorial Gallery of Arts. Vol. 1, Useful Arts, The London Printing and Publishing Company, (London, c.1858)

A Strut(t) Around Belper I

North Mill, Belper

My poor blogs have been neglected for a little while, as I've been working hard on my new book for Pen & Sword, Regency Spies, but I hope to be posting more regular updates now. Continuing my series of blog posts on some of the fabulous places in Britain which I visited last year, today's post is on Belper, a Derbyshire town with some amazing industrial heritage.

Belper nailmaker, North Mill.

Belper was traditionally home to the framework knitting and nail-making industries. North Mill, Belper has a wonderful collection of textile machinery, so do take the time to explore it if you can. 

The museum has many more machines than I've been able to show you here, and some social history displays.

Stockings were formerly knitted from silk on machines, but the Strutt family invented an improvement to the frame so that ribbed stockings could be knitted from either silk or cotton (the Derby rib). Ribbed stockings were more elastic and easier to wear than former designs.

Spinning Jenny, North Mill.

Good quality cotton yarn was needed to knit stockings, however, so Strutt helped to bankroll Richard Arkwright's initial forays into cotton spinning - Arkwright's waterframe was a great improvement on James Hargreaves' original spinning jenny.

Arkwright's first cotton-spinning mill was built at Cromford (1771);  Jedediah Strutt's own cotton-spinning mill (the South Mill) in Belper, powered by water, was founded in about 1776; the North Mill was completed about a decade later.

Stocking frame, North Mill.

Arkwright's waterframe, North Mill.

In my next blog post, I'll take a look at conditions in the Belper mills for their women and child workers.

Growing Up at Work

If you search through the censuses for your ancestors , you may be surprised at how early youngsters were expected to work, compared with the present day. When my great-grandfather, William Kirkwood Dickman, was fourteen years old, he was a coach-painter’s apprentice in Gorton (1871 census). According to later censuses, when he grew up he continued working as a railway coach painter, and his death certificate in 1931 gives his occupation as railway coach painter.

Another ancestor, my great-great-grandfather Arthur Lomas, born in Alstonefield, Staffordshire, was a child silk worker – a ‘silk picker’ - he cleaned loose fibres from the warp threads for the weaver. Arthur, aged 12 at the time of the 1881 census, lived in Leek with his parents. He was a ‘half-timer’, i.e. he went to school for half a day, and worked the rest of the day.

Some of my other Lancashire ancestors worked in the county's famous industries, cotton and coal mining. My great-grandmother, Sarah Jane Pickvance, was a ‘sheet weaver’ at Farnworth when she was fifteen years old in 1881. In the same year, my great-grandfather John Richard Tudge (who later married Sarah) was a coal miner in Little Hulton; he was fifteen years old, too.

John was lucky to be born later in the century; the the 1842 Children's Employment Commissioners found children as young as five working in Lancashire pits. The 1842 Mines Act banned boys under ten, and all females, from mine work.

Images from the author’s collection:

A Spitalfields weaver weaving silk by hand in the 1880s. Engraving, unknown artist, Cassell’s Family Magazine, 1883.

A disused miners’ cage (lift) at Astley Green Colliery Museum.

This early twentieth century postcard shows a cotton weaving shed and a Lancashire lass in her holiday finery.

More Narrowboat Fun

It was lovely to see Macclesfield's silk museums featured on BBC1's The Boat That Guy Built last night. I was very interested to watch this episode as I explored the story of the silk industry and the growth of Cheshire's canal network in Regency Cheshire.

While Guy has brought Britain's industrial past to life each week while restoring his narrowboat, one aspect of life I don't think he's mentioned is that child workers were used in many of the trades and industries he's explored. Children were used as cheap labour in the silk and cotton industries, and metal industries, and you'll be able to read more about their stories in The Children History Forgot when it's launched later this year.
Image: Macclesfield, early 1900s. Etching by Roger Oldham (1871-1916) for Picturesque Cheshire (Sherratt & Hughes, 1903.)

Silk and Stewarts

It’s been so long since I’ve had time to update my blog that I’ve got lots of news!

First and most importantly, my son Gareth has just won a silver medal at the International Physics Olympiad in Croatia! Well done and congratulations to Gareth and all the other British team members for such as sterling effort, and a big thank you to his Croatian hosts for looking after him so well.

My book ‘Stolen Childhoods’ has gone in the post at last, so a big thank you is due to all my family for putting up with me while I’ve been glued to the PC for weeks.

The Highlander has just published my feature ‘Banned to Beloved’ which discusses the pacification of the Highlands and the impact on the clans’ traditional way of life, and tartan’s triumphant return thanks to Sir Walter Scott and others.

You can also read my hints and tips on tracing your silk ancestors in the July issue of  Discover My Past England, and on tracing your Stewart (Stuart) ancestors in this month’s Discover My Past Scotland.

Images:

Mary Queen of Scots. Scotland Picturesque and Traditional, Cassell & Co. Ltd, 1895. (Artist unknown, author George Eyre-Todd.)

A Highland Outpost. Engraving after the painting by John Pettie for Good Words, 1893.

December fashions, 1837. Morning visiting dress of fawn-coloured silk with pink satin hat. Ladies’ Cabinet of Fashion, Music and Romance, Vol. XII, 1837.

All images from the author’s collection.

Silk ancestors

My latest feature on researching your ancestors in the silk industry has just been published in the July issue of Family History Monthly. When I was doing the research for Regency Cheshire, I was struck by the long hours children worked in the silk industry. All raw silk was imported into this country, so changes in import tariffs badly affected the silk towns of Macclesfield and Congleton; many workers suffered hardship in the late 1820s when new legislation opened the floodgates to cheap foreign silks.  Changes in fashion could also have a huge impact on silk workers' livelihoods.
Image: London Promenade Dress with a ‘robe of one of the new mourning silks’.Ladies’ Cabinet of Fashion, Music and Romance, Vol. XII, 1837.

The first factory?

I caught up with Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys trip to Cromford and Derby last night, which I'd taped. I was anxious to see this episode as I am researching the early mills for my book The Children History Forgot, which focuses on child labour in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I was very surprised to hear Mr Portillo say that Richard Arkwright's factory at Cromford was the first water-powered factory in Britain. There was an even earlier silk mill built by George Sorocold for Thomas Cotchett at Derby in 1702, which had a waterwheel, but was not a success. (People and Industries, W.H. Chaloner, Frank Cass, 1963.)   He then contradicted what he'd said earlier by saying the first factory was built in Derby - which is correct!  Although Arkwright's was the first successful COTTON factory, the silk mill at Derby built by the Lombe family circa 1721 was the first viable water-powered textile factory in England.  If I remember rightly, the Old Silk Mill behind Mr Portillo in his piece to camera was built on the site of the Lombe mill. I was also surprised that Mr Portillo trotted out the hoary old chestnut about John Lombe being poisoned by an Italian woman for bringing the secrets of powered silk throwing to England, because this story was discredited by historians years ago. Makes good telly, I guess. Mr Portillo's visit to John Smedley's factory was lovely to watch, though - inspiring to see we still have some British industry left. We have lost so much.
Image: Sir Thomas Lombe's silk mill, Derby, completed in 1721. Charles Knight's Pictorial Gallery of Arts, Vol.1, c.1860.