997 



WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES. 



WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES. 



093 



3000 alpacas by 1870 ; and if this estimate be borne out, the increase 

 after that would be very rapid. The New South Wales government, 

 regarding the subject as one of great colonial importance, have made 

 liberal arrangements with Mr. Ledger ; for Yorkshire will eagerly buy 

 all the alpaca that Australia can produce ; and especially will this be 

 the case if the quality can be maintained at a high standard. 



WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES. The manu- 

 factures in wool and in worsted are so closely connected, in reference 

 both to their past history and to the industrial arrangements involved 

 in them, that it will be convenient to treat of them under one heading. 

 Wi'.ils are divided into two great classes clothing-modi and combimj- 

 . or sfiot-t-icools and long-wool*; and the fabrics woven from them 

 are termed woollens or wortleds, according aa the one or the other is 

 employed. Clothing-wools possess in high perfection that peculiar 

 property which enables the fibres to felt or interlace one among 

 another, and to form thereby the dense compact material of which 

 men's garments are so largely made in this country, as well as the 

 still thicker felt for hats [HAT MANUFACTTRK] ; whereas combing- 

 wools, though long in fibre, are deficient in the felting property, 

 and are therefore employed for stuffs, merinos, hosiery, and a 

 large number of fabrics which do not undergo the felting or fulling 

 process. 



l/ittur;/. It is probable that no other of the textile manufactures is 

 so ancient as that of wool. Sheep were reared from the earliest times, 

 ;'.n-l there can be little doubt that the use of the wool for clothing was 

 soon adopted. If a mass of woollen fibres be pressed firmly together 

 in a Hat layer, the fibres, by virtue of their felting property, will cohere 

 into a continuous sheet even without the process of weaving ; and this 

 rty could not fail to attract notice. The passages in the Bible 

 which seem to allude to the use of woollen garments are well known ; 

 and we have indirect evidence from various quarters to show the pre- 

 valence of a similar custom in the East generally, in early times. The 

 spinning of the fibres was most probably effected by the fingers ; while 

 the thistle or teazle, an at present, was used to comb out the fibres; 

 tli.> dyeing of the threads, too, it is quite evident, was well understood 

 by the ancients. Among the Greeks and Romans the woollen manu- 

 facture was of a domestic character ; but yet it would seem that the 

 clothing c,f large armies must have required arrangements of a more 

 Ire kind. The natives of India, after the epoch of Macedonian 

 conquests in that country, made shawl-cloths of exquisite beauty, con- 

 sisting, as is "supposed, of short wool woven without felting : and the 

 Greeks and Romans may have derived some of their modes of pro- 

 ceeding from such a quarter. But however this may be, the Romans 

 of both sexes wore woollen garments very generally. 



The decay of the arts consequent on the irruption of the barbarians 



into Hume did not apjicar to have extended to this manufacture. 



\Voi>!l,n 1. >thing was still made in most of the countries where the 



I established colonies ; and there are indications that in the 



10th century the manufacture became the occupation of a particular 



fraternity in the Low Countries. The wool employed was at first the 



produce of their own country; but they afterwards imported wool 



ther countries, and carried on the manufacture to such an extent 



that the Low Countries became in a great measure the clothing district 



for Europe. Sjin produced cloth for herself, and acquired, about the 



l">th century, con.-iderable reputation for the beauty of the fabrics 



< ed, consequent, we may suppose, on the fine wool which the 



.Spanish theep have for centuries produced. The Italians and French 



entered upon this manufacture at a later period. 



In the time of William the Conqueror, an inundation which occurred 



in the Netherlands drove many of the clothiers into other countries, 



and some of them came to England. William of Malmesbury says that 



the king, glad of such an accession, placed these Flemish clothiers first 



in Carlisle and then in the western counties. From that time the 



mention of clothiers is frequent in the old chronicles ; London, Oxford, 



Lincoln, Huntingdon, York, Nottingham, and Winchester, being euj- 



rnerated as towns wherein the manufacture was carried on ; while at 



towns there were cloth-dealers who paid a licence duty to the 



king for the privilege of buying and celling dyed cloths. It ha-i been 



stated [Wool. AND TIIK Wool. fuDl] that the king frequently derived 



mlile revenues from English wool ; and this circumstance led 



to the enactment of many laws, tending to the exclusion of foreign 



wool and the use of English wool only in our manufactures. The 



x)l from English broad cloth ; the limitation of 



the width of broad- cloth to two yards ; the determination of the width 

 of striped cloth made at Bristol ; the appointment of towns where 

 alone cloth could be bought and sold; the appointment of the office of 

 king's A nliiar/cr, whose duty it was to attend the cloth-markets, anil 

 measure all the cloth sold, to see that there was no deficiency of length, 

 I a fee for every piece of cloth to which he attached 

 his seal ; the prohibition to export woollen cloths until they had been 

 fulled ; the granting of permission to make certain coarse kinds of 

 cloth three-quarters of a yard in width ; the fixing of a leaden seal to 

 pieces of cloth wrought in London and the suburbs these are some 

 of the laws by which the government tried or hoped to regulate the 

 manufacture; and they will serve to convey an idea of the general 

 character of others. 



Edward III. brought about a great extension of the manufacture by 

 ',ie ftkilful weavers from the Netherlands. English 



wool was said to be worked up more successfully in the Netherlands 

 than in England ; and Edward thought that by getting over some of 

 the Flemings to this country, he could improve the native manufacture. 

 This seems to have been done ; and the following distribution of the 

 manufacture, consequent on this immigration, shows how widely this 

 branch of industry became spread Norfolk, fustians; Suffolk, baize; 

 Essex, says and serges ; Kent, broad-cloth ; Devon, kerseys ; Glouces- 

 tershire, cloth ; Worcestershire, cloth ; Wales, friezes ; Westmoreland, 

 cloth ; Yorkshire, cloth ; Somersetshire, serges ; Hampshire, Berkshire, 

 and Sussex, cloth. 



For several reigns subsequent to that of Edward III., the woollen 

 cloths made in England appear to have been chiefly of a coarse quality; 

 the majority of the manufacturers directing their attention chiefly to 

 worsted fabrics ; while the finer broad-cloths were imported from 

 Brabant, a proof that the exertions of Edward, though successful as 

 regards the extent of the manufacture, were not so in respect of 

 quality. By the reign of Henry VIII. the exports of English cloths 

 became very large, insomuch that when, through foreign wars, the 

 markets of Spain and the Netherlands were closed to the English, great 

 complaints aro.se among the manufacturers, who could not sell the 

 cloth which they sent to Blackwell Hall, a, kind of Cloth Hall whence 

 London dealers and merchants were supplied. About this time the 

 manufacture in the counties of Somerset, Gloucester, Wilts, and Wor- 

 cester was limited to corporate towns ; and the most absurd laws were 

 passed to confine it to those favoured spots. During the reign of 

 Elizabeth, owing partly to many of these restrictions being removed, 

 and partly to the immigration into England of many weavers driven 

 from the Netherlands by the persecutions of the duke of Alva, a con- 

 siderable advance was made in the English manufacture. In the 

 following reign the English dyers succeeded in obtaining a law pro- 

 hibiting the export of cloth in the white or undyed state, under the 

 expectation that they would be gainers thereby ; but, like many other 

 monopolies, it defeated its own aim ; the Dutch and Germans refused 

 to buy English cloth in the dyed state, and thus the exports fell so 

 enormously that dyers as well as manufacturers lost by the impolitic 

 prohibition. 



During the time of the Stuarts a narrow policy almost ruined the 

 manufacture. At one time there was an attempt to get all Spanish 

 wool brought to this country, and to no other countries ; at another 

 time the exportation of English wool, of fuller's earth, and other 

 materials of manufacture, was prohibited ; English clothiers refused to 

 receive Flemings among them, from a feeling of jealousy ; the London 

 merchants procured an act prohibiting all foreigners from buying and 

 selling ; and many other measures were passed, either by parliament or 

 by corporations, tending to cripple the free spread of the trade and 

 manufacture. Ireland suffered severely by this mischievous systom ; 

 for after being compelled to give up the exportation of cattle to Eng- 

 land, on account of the complaints of the graziers, she turned attention 

 to the growth of wool ; but this offended the English wool-growers ; 

 and if Irish cloths were sent to England, this roused the opposition of 

 the English clothiers ; so that from about 1640 to the end of the 

 century there was one continuous struggle in Ireland to bear up against 

 the selfish policy of England in respect to wool and its manufactures. 



Throughout the greater part of the 18th century the manufacture 

 steadily increased in England, especially in those fabrics made of long 

 or combing wool. When the inventions in spinning-machinery gave 

 an extraordinary impetus to the cotton-manufacture, that of woollen 

 became thrown comparatively into the shade ; but the application of 

 improved machinery has since increased the power of the manufac- 

 turers ; while the great improvements in the quality of German and 

 Australian wools, combined with the maintenance of a liberal policy in 

 commerce and interchange, have given to the woollen and worsted 

 manufactures in England a more healthy tone. 



Woollen Manufactures. It has been before explained that the 

 woollen manufacture relates to such fabrics as require the use of short 

 or felting wool. This wool undergoes a very large number of processes 

 in the course of the manufacture. If we take a piece of superfine 

 broad-cloth as a representative of this manufacture generally, the 

 following are the successive processes by which it is produced : 



More than one half of these, in the mot improved forms of pro- 

 ceeding, arc effected by machinery. 



The sorting of the wool is the first operation, and is one of much 

 importance, since the quality of the cloth depends greatly on a due 

 admixture of different kinds of wool. Each pack of wool contains 

 many different qualities, according to the part of the fleece whence it 

 was taken, and other circumstances ; and much tact and discrimination 



