256 The Wilton Carpet Industry. 
coarse and inferior products of the Wilton Factory, and the more 
general use of carpets on the Continent, he entered into an arrange- 
ment with a body of artists, superintendents, and workmen, to 
accompany him to Wiltshire, thus laying the foundation of a branch 
of manufacture in which we now excel all other nations. The 
artisans brought over were placed under the direction of two 
Frenchmen, Anthony Duffosy and Peter Jemaule, who were said to 
have been conveyed to this country concealed in a barrel, though it 
is by no means obvious why that extraordinary precaution should 
have been adopted in their case more than in that of the other artists 
and workmen. Be that as it may, the experiment proved highly 
successful, and though in 1751 the Wilton weavers lost their noble 
patron by death, the factory continued to flourish, and, while in 1768 
it employed only eighty hands, that number had considerably in- 
creased before the close of the century, and by gradual degrees has 
grown to its present proportions, with branches at Salisbury, London, 
and Manchester. Mr. S. C. Hall, who has long been recognised as 
one of the greatest authorities upon all matters respecting industrial 
art, writing of the products of the Wilton Factory, refers in terms 
of appreciation to the fabrics supplied from the Wilton looms. In 
1835, on the proprietor of the manufactory of ‘‘ Axminster carpets,” 
which was established at the little Devonshire town on the river Axe 
in 1755, relinquishing business, the looms and working drawings 
were transferred to Wilton, where for the last sixty years these costly 
carpets have been produced, in addition to the “ velvet pile” with 
which the name of the factory was first associated. Of the fabrics 
now produced at Wilton the “ Axminster” carpets are made almost 
entirely of fine wool, knotted in tufts upon a warp of threads by the 
hand of the weaver, and held together by an invisible ground work 
of flaxen thread, a shadowy outline of the pattern being traceable 
at the back. Owing to the fineness of the stitch the process, as can 
easily be imagined, is very slow, and an idea of the time required to 
weave a large carpet can be formed from the fact that one made a 
few years ago for the Sultan of Turkey was over nine months in the 
loom. The carpets called ‘“‘ Wilton” have a soft pile, lower and closer 
in texture than the Axminster, and are woven in a Jacquard loom 
Ae oo 
