INDUSTRIES 



times, and demand both skill and judgement to 

 regulate. 1 



This greater complexity of the woollen-cloth 

 manufacture is probably one reason why 

 Gloucestershire has lagged behind Yorkshire, 

 which was the first to take up the worsted in- 

 dustry. The original disparity has been again 

 accentuated by the rapid change of fashion that 

 set in, when it was discovered how much greater 

 variety of colour and design could be introduced 

 into worsted cloth. Fancy tweeds were first 

 brought in about 1830 and soon increased in 

 popularity. Between 1842 and 1880 the im- 

 provement in worsted coatings was enormous, 

 and at the present date they are almost exclu- 

 sively worn in this country. Their neglect of 

 this new fashion was due, it must be admitted, 

 to short-sightedness on the part of Gloucester- 

 shire manufacturers ; and, while they could 

 hardly have been expected to foresee the vast 

 extent of the approaching change in the cloth 

 trade, they have certainly stuck to their old 

 methods of industry with somewhat unnecessary 

 perseverance. Worsted cloth is now, however, 

 being woven by a few of them with great 

 success. The actual numbers employed in the 

 worsted manufacture are hard to discover, as the 

 last census did not quote them separately. In 1 891 

 they amounted to sixty-seven as compared with 

 four in 1851, but the numbers must now be 

 considerably greater. Yet tradition and here- 

 ditary custom have both operated against such a 

 development in the Stroud district, whereas 

 Yorkshire had a larger population from which to 

 draw its workers, and one that was quicker in 

 appreciating new methods and inventions. The 

 relative cost of coal in the two districts has been 

 rather unfavourable to Gloucestershire manu- 

 facturers, who show also a lack of power to 

 organize their trade that was noted as one of 

 their defects as far back as 1779. And, lastly, 

 the worsted fabrics adopted by the north lent 

 themselves to the introduction of the shoddy 

 manufacture to an extent impossible, even 

 were it desired, in the broadcloth industry ; 

 and thus Stroud clothiers fell behind yet a 



1 The most interesting processes of finishing are 

 those performed by the teasing machine, which raises 

 the nap of the cloth, and the shearer, which clips it 

 off. The former consists of cylinders, closely studded 

 with teazles, through which the cloth is passed ; the 

 latter, of rollers, with spiral knives upon them, some- 

 what resembling a grass-lawn mower, but with the prin- 

 ciple just reverted the article to be shorn traversing, 

 instead of being traversed by, the cutters. Before the 

 invention of this machine the nap was clipped by hand. 

 Teazles, it may be noticed, though some of them are 

 now imported from France, have been largely grown 

 in Gloucestershire, especially at Sandficld and Crom- 

 hall, where they find a congenial marly toil. With 

 the change of fashion, and decline in the manufacture 

 of highly finished cloth, teazles are, however, grown 

 in ever smaller quantities, and there is said to have 

 been only one lot to cut this year (1906) at Cromhall. 



second stage in the general struggle for increased 

 cheapness. 



But by far the most immediate cause of diffi- 

 culty to Gloucestershire industry has been the 

 scarcity in the supply of the fine wool on which 

 all makers of fine cloths rely. This is due to the 

 eight-years' drought in Australia, which, since 

 the introduction of the merino sheep by Mac- 

 arthur, has produced the larger part of the fine 

 wool imported by this country, the rest being 

 supplied by New Zealand, South Africa, and the 

 East Indies. The best of all still comes from 

 Silesia, where the merino has been bred since 

 1765. Till within the last forty or fifty years, 

 indeed, Stroud manufacturers used still to 

 journey to Breslau personally to select their 

 purchases of wool. Now, all their wool is bought 

 at the London Wool Exchange. Spain, for- 

 merly their chief mart, had been given up after 

 the Peninsular War, when the quality of the 

 Spanish merino deteriorated. Though up to 

 1800 England was importing annually from 

 Spain as much as 6,000,000 Ib. of wool, by 

 1857 the yearly imports had fallen to 383,000 Ib. 

 Their place was taken by German wool, of 

 which as much as 26,000,000 Ib. was im- 

 ported to England in 1830. After that date, 

 however, Australia and South Africa drew up in 

 the race. The imports from these two countries 

 rose from 1,967,000 Ib. and 33,000 Ib., respec- 

 tively, in 1830 to 49,209,000 Ib. and 14,287,000 

 Ib. in 1857, by which date German imports had 

 fallen to 5,993,000. By 1869 Australia and the 

 Cape were sending in some 200,000,000 Ib.a year. 

 While discussing sources of raw material, it 

 may be well to note the disuse of Cots wold 

 fleeces, the fine quality of which originated the 

 Gloucestershire woollen industry. This has been 

 the result, partly of the deterioration of wool 

 that accompanied the increase in the animal's 

 bulk, partly of the great improvement of the 

 merino breed elsewhere. Rudder, writing in 

 1779, mentions that the longer Cotswold wool 

 was still combed for worsteds, and the shorter 

 woven into army cloth ' ; now it is considered 

 too coarse for anything but blankets or very 

 rough materials. The only factories in which 

 local, though not pure Cotswold, fleeces are 

 used are those of a Stroud manufacturer, 

 Mr. Apperly, who has of late begun to employ 

 the wool from his own Hyde Farm, and from 

 other celebrated flocks of the neighbourhood, 

 such as those of Sir John Dorington and Sir 

 Nigel Kingscote. After many experiments he 

 has succeeded in softening the wool, so as to 

 turn out an excellent material, known as ' Hydea ' 

 cloth, for dresses, suitings, and overcoatings. 



The main products of the Stroud Valley still, 

 however, consist of smooth, highly finished 

 cloths, such as hunting and military scarlets, 

 white buckskins, doeskins, liveries, riding cords, 

 beavers, meltons, vicunas, llamas and cheviots, 

 1 S. Rudder, op. cit. 23. 



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