HANDLOOM WEAVERS OF DELAINE

[rossylass]

I wondered why my gggf was a handloom weaver as late as 1851 & after much squinting at the Roughlee census I discovered that he was a weaver of delaine & set out to do some background reading. I read that delaine weavers could achieve an income of 14 - 20 shillings a week mid 19th century & that it was harder to tempt them into the factory system than it was the cotton weavers, who earned less. I also read that delaine weaving was the mainstay of the area around Blacko in poorer times (around the mid 19th century), & that the main woollen cloth market for the Pendle Forest had been in Heptonstall & Halifax & that these links were maintained. Could anyone tell me whether my ggf was likely to have been an outworker with his materials provided & marketed by an employer, or whether he may have been independent, having to buy the raw material & then take it all the way to Heptonstall, or even Halifax?

[Stanley]

No certainty Rossy but the odds are he was weaving for a clothier. If he was doing this he didn't have to worry about marketing as the clothier did it and he was almost certainly local. If he was independent he could do all his trading at the Cloth Hall in Colne which was where the market is now on the main street. For an insight into this trade have a look at the Barcroft Papers (LINK) Ambrose Barcroft was a clothier and lived at Barrowford. He sent most of his cloth into Lincolnshire by packhorse. The handloom weavers were in sharp decline by 1851 because of the advent of the steam mills but many survived until late in the 19th century by which time they were almost certainly independent. Another excellent source is the autobiography of David Whitehead of Rawtenstall (1790-1865) (LINK)

[rossylass]

Thank you. Took a peek at the Barcroft papers and will hotfoot to the library.

[Stanley]

I did an article 'Ronge and White Iron' . I'll post it again under Research Topics.

[rexwatson]

I haven't it to hand, but see TImmins' book on handloom weaving, ' The last shift'. He deals with all fabrics, and shows how handloom work lasted longer than at one time thought. The older book by Bythell just deals with cotton.

Rex

[Stanley]

There are weavers in the 1851 census in Barlick and odd ones still survive of course in the remote parts of Scotland and Ireland. To qualify for the Harris Tweed label the cloth still has to be handwoven but on modern iron hand looms.