THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY & NATURALIST. 



35 



employers and employes in this county, in the early 

 part of the present century, had been as much alive 

 to the signs of the times as the people of the mid- 

 land and northern parts of England were, and had 

 moved forward with the times, it is scarcely worth 

 our while now to inquire, tor the fact remains that 

 either through want of enterprise or want of know- 

 ledge among the employers, want of support by 

 capitalists in the county, or want of intelligence 

 among the workers, some old manufacturing indus- 

 tries in Hampshire which had long been carried on 

 in it, could not be dragged out of the old rut, and, 

 consequently, could not be made to pay, and therefore 

 became extinct. 



The awakening intelligence of the present day, in 

 my opinion, however, is such as will cause people to 

 inquire whether in the future some more manufactur- 

 ing employments may not be profitably carried on in 

 Hampshire, than those which exist at the present 

 time. Labour-saving machines and inventions for the 

 economy of power are now among the objects which 

 manufacturers ot all kinds have to steadily keep in 

 view. Any further improvement in machinery in the 

 direction of economising steam power must imply a 

 less consumption of coal and a less necessary depend- 

 ence on coal, and perhaps bring into consideration 

 the question of water power, as a source, possibly, 

 of electricity for a motive force. Such changes, what- 

 ever they may be, can scarcely take anything from 

 us, and they may be such as may enable such a 

 county as Hampshire to extend its present industries. 

 I think there can be little doubt that the future will 

 continue to bring new adaptations of scientific pro- 

 cesses and methods into practical use in various 

 trades and industries, and this appears to me to be 

 another reason why all who are interested in the 

 prosperity of Hampshire, may take a hopeful view of 

 its future. There is, of course, another aspect of this 

 subject, viz., the educational aspect in regard to the 

 scientific education, both of masters and workmen, 

 for it must be plain to everyone that as modern 

 manufacturing processes are becoming more and 

 mone closely identified with the applications of scien- 

 tific principles, it will in the future be a matter of 

 prime necessity for employers and directors of works 

 to be well acquainted with the latest improvements in 

 their particular trades, and for the employes to be 

 so intelligently instructed, as to be well aware of the 

 scientific principles on which their particular work 

 depends, and, therefore, more skilful artizans. 



One of the most important manufactures which 

 Hampshire has lost is its old manufacture of woollen 

 cloth and worsted goods. This manufacture was 

 carried on for centuries at Winchester, Romsey, 

 Alton, Andover, Basingstoke, Whitchurch, South- 

 ampton, Odiham, Petersfield, Alresford, and Fording- 

 bridge. This trade in the middle ages formed one of 

 the most profitable occupations of the people ot this 

 country. The wool was produced on the Hampshire 

 downs, and in all the places I have named there were 



manufacturing processes of some sort carried on by 

 which it was spun and woven into cloth and worsted 

 goods. The name " Winchester cloths" was a term 

 well understood as a trade name for Hampshire goods 

 of this description, and the usual size of these pieces 

 was from twenty-six to twenty-seven yards in length . 

 Village medley cloths was another trade name for 

 those produced by handlooms in villages. The 

 trade guilds of weavers and fullers were im- 

 portant bodies at Winchester, which was, no 

 doubt, the distributing centre of this old 

 local industrj'. Alton, however, appears to 

 have had a woollen export trade of its own in plain 

 and figured barragons, ribbed druggets, serges, white 

 yarn, tabinets, bombazines, and other goods, which 

 early in this century found a market in America, and 

 were in much demand in Philadelphia and its neigh- 

 bourhood, as a material for summer clothing. 

 Worsted yarn was also spun in the villages round 

 Alton within a ten miles radius. At Andover, the 

 latest cloth trade was the making of shalloons in the 

 early part of this century. About the same time 

 coarse woollens and fine linen were woven at Odi- 

 ham, a small manufacture of linseys was carried on at 

 Alresford, druggets and shalloons were made at 

 Basingstoke, serges were made at Whitchurch, and a 

 factoiy existed at Fordingbridge for spinning woollen 

 yarn. Romsey also had at one time 200 looms em- 

 ployed in weaving, and in Southampton there was a 

 " Company and Fellowship of the Art and Mystery of 

 Cloth workers/' who used to make kerseys, serges, 

 and other kinds of cloth. 



Although its old woollen manufactures have been 

 lost, Hampshire still produces a great quantity of 

 wool. At the annual wool sale in Winchester 90,000 

 fleeces are commonly sold. The wool which our 

 county produces is sold at from tod. to is. 4d. per lb., 

 and the worsted manufactured goods made from this 

 quality of wool, which are brought back to this county 

 and some no doubt bought by the people who sold 

 the wool, fetch as much as 43. per lb. in the condition 

 of manufactured worsted. Unless there is some mis- 

 take in these prices, which I quote from Dr. Beres- 

 ford Earle, of Winchester, there ought to be a 

 possibility in these figures for a revival of a local 

 industr3 T . 



Another decayed Hamphire manufacture is that of 

 silk. Silk throwing mills were established in 1792 

 in St. Peter's-street, Winchester, the drums of 

 the old machinery bdng turned by manual labour. 

 This was soon improved upon by the removal in 1797 

 of the works to a site near the Abbey Mills to get the 

 advantage of water power. Women and children 

 were the chief employes in the trade, and the wages 

 earned were not more than seven shillings weekly. 

 This industry, however, appears to have grown, for 

 in 1807 there were more mills at work, the silk was 

 both spun and woven at Winchester, one firm alone 

 employing 300 hands, and the raw material was 

 imported from Bengal and Italy. Silk mills were also 



