INDUSTRIES 



Government contract, but this ceased a little 

 later. A different kind of cloth was then 

 used for hammocks, and one manufacturer, 

 Thomas Westbrook, used to make 300 pieces 

 a week of 24 yards each. A little later the 

 industry declined, and only 700 pieces were 

 made in the whole town. However, the 

 industry found employment for 3,000 men, 

 women, and children in Abingdon and the 

 surrounding villages, and above 1,800 in the 

 town alone. The Abingdon Sack Hiring 

 Company, under the directions of Mr. Cope- 

 land, manufactures sacks and sacking and rick 

 cloths. But the old reputation of the town 

 as a centre of the clothing industry is chiefly 

 maintained by the manufactory of Messrs. 

 Clarke, Sons & Co., who employ hundreds of 

 workpeople both in the town and in the 

 surrounding villages. 



The Abingdon Carpet Manufacturing 

 Company's works (Messrs. Shepherd Brothers) 

 have been established many years. The firm 

 has still original hand-looms working upon 

 jute weaving in the same style as in 1825, 

 when Abingdon was the first town to establish 

 this industry. The manufacture of rush 

 and twine matting existed in Abingdon in 

 1808, and was then considered a new inven- 

 tion, and large quantities were sold, being well 

 adapted for halls and staircases. In the 

 company's works ' Isis ' matting is woven 

 from the rushes that grow on the banks of the 

 Thames, also cocoa-nut matting, and rugs 

 and carpets and heavy ' Windsor ' pile. 



It is pleasant to reflect that the industry 

 has not quite forsaken the county which once 

 produced Reading broadcloth and Winch- 

 comb's Kersies. 



SILK MANUFACTURE 



It is generally held that the silk trade did 

 not make much progress in England until the 

 year 1585, when the Flemish weavers were 

 driven from their country by religious perse- 

 cutions. If that be so, the industry must 

 have found almost its earliest home in Berk- 

 shire, for at Wokingham in this county it was 

 evidently established soon after that year, and 

 the making of silk stockings became at an early 

 date an important feature of its industrial 

 history, and was legislated for by the muni- 

 cipality. It is impossible, as far as we can 

 determine, to discover who first started the 

 making of silken hose in Wokingham. The 

 industry was however much practised in the 

 town at the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century, as the following drastic laws relating 

 to the trade appear among the old bye-laws of 

 the borough promulgated in 1625 : * 



' 2 1 st. Order against persons refusing to 

 knitt silk stockings not having any other trade 

 and their penalty. Poor people refusing to 

 work at the trade of Silk Stockings and not 

 suffering their children to be put to work in 

 the said Trade or any other but rather their 

 idle and naughty form of life, It shall be 

 lawful for the Alderman 2 to commit them 

 for so refusing to work to the house of cor- 

 rection there to remain till they put in 

 sufficient surties either to avoide the Town 

 or to work in the same trade which shall be 

 appointed them. 



1 MSS. in the possession of the Corporation of 

 Wokingham. 



2 Under the charter of the old corporation of 

 Wokingham the alderman was the chief magis- 

 trate, corresponding to the mayor in other towns. 



' 22nd. None to sett up the trade of Silk 

 Knitting unless having served seven years 

 apprentice to it under penalty of twenty 

 shillings to be forfeited for every month. 



' 23rd. None under the age of 25 years to 

 keep at the same traid if not a penalty of 

 zos. to be forfeited every month. 



' 26th. Unmarried persons silk knitters com- 

 pelled to serve for wages under penalty of 

 forty shillings for every default.' 



The encouragement of idleness could not be 

 laid to the charge of the old corporation of 

 the town. 



It is known that James I. was very solicitous 

 to promote the English silk trade, and the 

 cultivation of silkworms, in order that his 

 subjects might be independent of foreign 

 supplies. He is said to have planted a garden 

 of mulberry trees on the site of Buckingham 

 Palace, but the venture was not successful. 

 Following the royal example the good people 

 of Wokingham planted numbers of mulberry 

 trees in and near the town in order to supply 

 themselves with the necessary material for 

 their industry. Some of these may still be 

 seen in many of the old-fashioned gardens at 

 the rear of the houses in the town. 



There is no evidence that the famous stock- 

 ing loom invented by the Rev. William Lee, 

 who like many other inventors profited little 

 by his wonderful ingenuity, ever found its 

 way to Wokingham. The manufacture was 

 evidently conducted on the domestic system, 

 women and children knitting the stockings in 

 their own homes and bringing them to their 

 employer. How long the trade flourished 

 we have no means of ascertaining, but at the 



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