"WOOLLEN AXD WORSTED MANUFACTURES. 



WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES. 1006 



and the sediment, nearly alike in composition, are drained in bags of 

 matting, pressed forcibly, and made to yield an oily fluid. The fluid 

 is used in making stearine, soap, and other saleable chemicals, while 

 the refuse oil-cake is sold as manure. The patentees supply all the 

 additional apparatus, besides buying the greasy wash at a stated price, 

 Crtaih, or wool-waste so saturated with oil as to contain more oil than 

 wool, is eagerly bought up by farmers as a powerful manure. 



Lofalitttg and Varieties of the Trade.- When it is considered that 

 woollen and worsted goods differ primarily in the length of fibre, 

 it is easy to imagine that many varieties may be produced, according 

 to the extent to which this separation is carried out. The various 

 modes too in which the warp and weft threads are made to interlace, 

 as explained in WEAVING, naturally lead to the production of many 

 different classes of goods. These four conditions, namely, the length 

 of fibre, the application or not of the felting quality, the production or 

 not of a velvet-like nap or pile, and the diversities depending on the 

 loom, give rise to innumerable and fancifully-named kinds of woollen 

 and worsted goods. Blankets, flannels, stuffs, merinos, mousseline-de- 

 laiues, bombazines, tammies, shalloons, says, moreens, calimancoes, cam- 

 tings, baize, and a host of other names, some of which are now 

 nearly or quitej out of use, or are giving way to others, point to the 

 diverse applications of long-wool in the production of woven fabrics ; 

 while kerseymere and other names indicate distinctions in the felted- 

 wool goods. But besides these diversities, there are others depending 

 on various circumstances ; such as the admixture of woollen with 



'1, or of either of them with cotton or silk, in the same fabric ; 

 tin: dyeing of the material, sometimes in the piece, sometimes uniformly 

 in the yarn, and sometimes in a party-coloured mode called cloiuliny ; 

 and the printing of devices on one surface. 



A few examples may suffice to illustrate this diversity. Plain broad- 



< a specimen of plain weaving, followed by the fulling process ; 

 whereas Icerteymere is a twilled fabric, similarly fulled. Sergei are 

 twills, having worsted warp and coarse woollen weft. Rlankett are 



<>f very soft yarn, afterwards worked up into a kind of pile by 

 milling; and many varieties of coarse cloth are of analogous structure. 

 Kinnbazeen is a twilled mixture of worsted and silk ; whereas !' 

 an untwilled mixture, showing more silk than worsted at the surface. 

 Raj-imie* and Matrix are made of wool, sometimes mixed with 

 cotton, and afterwards printed. Stuf is made wholly of worsted ; 

 while Merino is a fine woollen twill, sometimes printed. The material 

 called C'anhmcre, if properly so named, in made of the shawl-goat wool, 

 much in the same way as merino ; but most of the fabric* so called 

 are made of sheep's wool. ChaUit is a mixture of woollen weft with 

 silk warp, and is generally printed. Afouueline-de-laine was originally 

 all wool, but is now frequently mixed with cotton, and generally 

 printed. Norwich crape, unlike common crape, is composed of wool 

 and silk, something like challis, but without being printed. Crlpc de 



i - formed of worsted and silk ; and Italian net of worsted only. 

 In \\'ui*tcoatingt, fancy-weaving adds another to the sources of diver- 

 sity. Many of the above kinds are briefly described under their proper 

 names in thin Cyclopaedia ; while a number of additional kinds w ill bo 

 f"iind noticed under SHODDY MAUCFACTI UK. 



The West Riding of Yorkshire, the most important clothing-district 

 in England, exhibits an area of nearly 40 miles by 20 occupied by 

 clothing towns and villages. Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, 

 Dewsbury, and Wakelicld are the great manufacturing centres. Mixed 

 or coloured cloths are made principally in the villages west of Leeds 

 and of WakeQeld ; white or undyed cloths are made chiefly in the 

 villages occupying a belt of country extending from near Wakefield to 

 Shipley. Flannels and baizes are the principal woollen articles made in 

 and near Halifax, together with army cloth. Blankets are made on the 

 line between Leeds and Huddersfield. Bradford provides very largely 

 the spun worsted required for the various manufactures. Stuffs are 

 made at Bradford, Halifax, and Leeds ; and narrow cloths at Hudders- 

 field. Saddleworth furnishes broad-cloth and kerseymeres. In the 

 neighbourhood of Batley and Dewsbury are the shoddy mills. The 

 West of England takes rank next to Yorkshire, and formerly took pre- 

 cedence of it. The finest kinds of broad-cloth, from Saxony, 

 Australia, and Spanish wool, are made in Gloucestershire. The 

 manufacture is carried on in a district called the /Mlonu, and in other 

 parts of the country ; the town of Stroud being a kind of centre for 

 the whole. Wiltshire produces very fine cloths, at Bradford, Trow- 

 bridge, Westbury, Helksham, Chippenbam, and the surrounding 

 villages ; while cloth of various kinds is made at Wilton, Warminster, 

 Heytesbury, and Calnc. Taunton, Frome, Tiverton, and the surround- 



ilages constitute the Somersetshire clothing district. Devonshire 

 .:..! Dorset have little woollen manufacture. The Norfolk district was 

 long the principal seat of the stuff or worsted manufacture. Bomba- 



. crapes, camlets, and shawls have constituted the chief fabrics for 

 which Norfolk has been celebrated. These are the three great English 

 districts engaged in the consumption of wool ; to which may be added 

 Leieestenhire, where nearly all the worsted stockings are made. It 

 must be noted, however, that Yorkshire, with its abundant machinery 

 and cheap coal, is every year absorbing a larger and larger proportion of 

 the whole manufacture. In Wales the principal manufactures relating 

 to wool and worsted are strong webs or high-country cloths, small webs 

 or low-coontry cloths, flannels, stockings, socks, wigs, and gloves ; the 

 chief counties being Montgomery, Merioneth, and Denbigh. The 



strong webs are used principally for workmen's jackets, ironing cloths, 

 &c. ; while the small webs are largely used for slaves' clothing in the 

 West Indies. In Scotland the fine woollen manufacture is upon a very 

 limited scale ; but a good deal is done at Aberdeen, Stirling, Galashiels, 

 Jedburgh, Hawick, Inverness, Kilmarnock, and Paisley, in the produc- 

 tion of various kinds of woollen and worsted goods, such as coarse 

 plaiding, clan-tartans, woollen-hose, blankets, flannels, and especially 

 carpets and shawls. The manufactures of woollen and worsted goods 

 in Ireland are small in extent. 



Different usages prevail in different comities respecting the connec- 

 tion between employers and employed, buyers and sellers, in the 

 woollen and worsted manufactures. In the West of England the gene- 

 ral plan of operation is this : The master-clothier buys his foreign wool 

 from the importer, and his English wool from the wool-stapler. He 

 employs in all the different processes through which the wool passes 

 in the course of manufacture, distinct classes of persons, who some- 

 times work at their own houses, and sometimes in the factory of the 

 master-clothier. Each workman confines himself exclusively to a par- 

 ticular branch of the manufacture ; and this has been supposed to 

 have led to the excellence of the West of England cloth. 



A second mode is on the factory system, now extensively adopted in 

 the West Riding of Yorkshire. The master-manufacturer, who gene- 

 rally possesses a large amount of capital, employs a great number of 

 workmen in one or more buildings, under the inspection of himself or 

 a superintendent. In this system, as in the master-clothier system, 

 the workman has no property in the material on which he" is 

 employed. 



In the domestic system, which was the one originally adopted, the 

 arrangement is altogether different. Under this system the manufac- 

 ture is conducted by a number of small masters, who are generally 

 possessed of very limited capital, and who, besides their business as 

 manufacturers, mostly occupy farms of a few acres, partly for the 

 support of their families, and partly for the convenience of their manu- 

 facture. The domestic clothiers have in their houses from one to four 

 looms, on which they employ themselves, their wives, and children, 

 and perhaps other assistants. During harvest their wives, children, 

 and servants are sent out into the fields to work. Formerly these 

 clothiers used to carry the wool through all the stages of its manufac- 

 ture, till it was brought to the state of undressed cloth ; but of late 

 years they have availed themselves of public mills, which are esta- 

 blished in and among the clothing-villages, for the performance of some 

 of the processes. These mills have been erected on a joint-stock prin- 

 ciple, by shares of 501. or lOOt each, principally subscribed by the 

 domestic clothiers. When machinery began to bo extensively em- 

 ployed in the woollen manufacture, in the early part of the present 

 century, the domestic clothiers became violently excited, under the 

 apprehension that their trade would be taken from them by the newly- 

 invented machines. A parliamentary committee was appointed to 

 inquire into the probable operation of machinery in respect to the 

 well-being of the domestic clothiers : and after examining numerous 

 witnesses they made a report, in which they detailed the distinctive 

 features of the factory and the domestic systems, and came to a con- 

 clusion that " the two systems, instead of rivalling, are mutual aids to 

 each other ; each supplying the other's defects, and promoting the 

 other's prosperity." " Experience," says Mr. M'Culloch, " has proved 

 the correctness of these conclusions. The number of small manufac- 

 turers, and the quantity of cloth produced by them, have both increased 

 since 1 806 ; but, as the number of factories, and the quantity of cloth 

 made in them, have increased still more rapidly, the former constitute, 

 at present, a less proportion of the trade." One circumstance which 1ms 

 enabled the domestic system to maintain its ground, is, that the great 

 width of woollen cloth has been a difficulty in the way of power-loom 

 weaving ; the hand-loom cannot compete with steam in the stuff trade, 

 but it can in broad-cloth. The domestic system would nevertheleas 

 have succumbed, had not the clothiers prudently adopted the joint- 

 stock principle* for their mills. Each shareholder takes his own wool 

 to the mill to be cleaned, dyed, carded, and spun ; brings it home to 

 weave by himself and family ; takes it to the mill to be fulled, washed, 

 and tentered ; and sells it at the cloth halls to merchants who employ 

 dressers to finish it. 



As respects the sale of the cloth, halls have been established for this 

 purpose at Leeds, Halifax, Bradford, Huddersfield, and other towns, 

 which are attended on the public market-days by thousands of the 

 smaller class of manufacturers. The halls are divided into long walks 

 or galleries, consisting of rows of stands, each of which is marked with 

 the name of the person by whom it is occupied. On these stands the 

 cloth is exposed for sale ; and when the market opens, the manufac- 

 turers take their stations at the stands behind their goods, the mer- 

 chants or buyers passing, to make their purchasers, through the 

 avenues between the rows. The time during which the halls are open is 

 limited usually to about one hour and a half ; but in this short interval 

 purchases to a very large amount are made. The cloth-halls at Leeds 

 are appropriated exclusively to the use of those who have served regu- 

 lar apprenticeship to the business of cloth-making. They are managed 

 by trustees, and many of the stalls are the freehold property of the 

 persons who occupy them. All the cloth sold in the halls is rough 

 and undressed. Those by or for whom it is bought have what are 

 termed finishing-shops, where the cloth is shorn, dressed, and fitted 



