A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



less than the amounts above quoted, which could 

 only be earned in a full week, and the weavers 

 considered the agricultural labourer as much 

 better off than themselves. At Haverhill there 

 were about seventy looms engaged in weaving 

 umbrella and parasol silks for Mr. Walters of 

 London. The work was more regular than at 

 Sudbury. A weaver could make 16 yds. in a 

 week, and the average wage for a full week, when 

 expenses had been deducted, was about 8*. 1 



The highest numbers employed in the silk 

 manufacture in Suffolk were reached in the 

 middle of the nineteenth century, when the 

 throwsters and weavers together numbered about 

 two thousand, as compared with about seven 

 hundred in 1 90 1. The reduction has been 

 chiefly in the boys and girls engaged in throwing 

 silk, but the weaving also has declined. Since 

 the opening of the new century, however, there 

 are signs of improvement. During the last ten 

 or a dozen years a number of Spitalfields firms 

 which had long found work for Suffolk weavers 

 have transferred their head quarters to Sudbury, 

 and there has been at the same time a tendency 

 towards amalgamation. Thus the old firm of 

 Messrs. Stephen Walters & Sons, which had 

 been established in Spitalfields for a century and 

 had employed Suffolk workers nearly as long, 

 became a limited company in 1899, having 

 absorbed the business of another old firm con- 

 nected with both Spitalfields and Sudbury, that of 

 Messrs. Kipling. In the same year it transferred 

 its London works to Suffolk, and since that date 

 it has enlarged its factories three times, and now 

 employs about two hundred weavers, mostly 



women, on power-looms. Umbrella silks are the 

 chief product, but silks for ties, dresses, linings, 

 &c, are also woven, and for some of these hand- 

 looms still turn out the best work. A similar 

 combination is represented in Vanners & Fennell 

 Bros., Ltd., established in 1900. The firm of 

 Messrs. Vanners was founded at Spitalfields in 

 181 8, and had had factories of hand-loom weavers 

 at Haverhill, Glemsford, and Sudbury for upwards 

 of thirty years. Messrs. Fennell Bros, started 

 business as late as 1895 with the enterprising 

 object of meeting foreign competition by adopt- 

 ing all the latest improvements in machinery as 

 applied to power-loom weaving. They have in- 

 troduced an invention not previously used in 

 England by means of which the silk is mechani- 

 cally rubbed as it is woven with a view to in- 

 creasing its wearing power. The amalgamation 

 therefore promises to unite the advantages of the 

 old and the new methods. The new company 

 exhibited an electrically-driven loom at the 

 Woman's Exhibition, Earl's Court, in 1900, 

 and was awarded a gold medal. Another firm 

 with a long and distinguished past, whose opera- 

 tions have been since 1894 confined to Sud- 

 bury, is that of Messrs. T. Kemp & Sons. 

 This firm succeeded Messrs. Girault & Co. of 

 Spitalfields in 1844, and subsequently absorbed 

 the business of Messrs. J. Hills & Co. of Sud- 

 bury. Messrs. Kemp employ nearly a hundred 

 hand-loom weavers in the making of broad silks. 

 In former days they also made velvets. More 

 than two-thirds of those employed are women 

 and girls, and this proportion is maintained 

 throughout the industry as a whole. 2 



MIXED TEXTILES (DRABBET, HORSEHAIR, COCOA- 

 NUT FIBRE) AND READY-MADE CLOTHING 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century 

 the textile industries carried on in Suffolk were 

 of very varied and fluctuating character. Of 

 these silk-weaving, the last to be introduced, was 

 becoming the most important. Of the old 

 woollen industry there remained the spinning of 

 a constantly-decreasing amount of worsted yarn 

 in the neighbourhood of Bury, and the weaving 

 of bays, buntings, and calimancoes already re- 

 ferred to, at Sudbury and Lavenham. A small 

 amount of woollen cloth was still made for local 

 consumption, but the place of this industry was 

 mainly taken by the making of hempen cloth 

 and of checks and fustians, which were mixed 

 fabrics of wool or cotton with linen. About the 

 year 1 8 1 5 these fabrics were in their turn re- 

 placed by drabbet, of which the warp was com- 



1 Rep. of Assist. Com. on Handloom Weavers (1840), 

 xxiii, 293-7. 



posed at first of hemp, and subsequently of linen, 

 and the woof or shute of cotton. Drabbet was 

 so called from its colour, but it was also dyed 

 olive or slate. It was used very largely for 

 farmers' smock-frocks, but also for undress gar- 

 ments worn by gentlemen's servants, grooms, 

 &c. At Haverhill, which was the principal seat 

 of the industry, there were in 1840 some 330 

 weavers of drabbet employed by half a dozen 

 masters who travelled about the neighbouring 

 country to obtain orders. The hempen yarn was 

 brought from Leeds and the cotton from Stock- 

 port. A full length of drabbet called a 'chain' 

 was a week's work for a man, but at least half 

 the weavers were women and children, who 

 could not on the average produce more than half 



* For most of his information as to the recent state 

 of the industry the writer is indebted to the firms 

 mentioned. 



274 



