History of Weaving

'In my grandfather's time the cloth weavers had their looms and did their work at their houses. The broad cloth loom was worked by two persons and this way of working the broad loom had always been adopted, I should say, from the first time that weavers began to weave broad woollen cloth. This double handed weaving as it was called, often brought on disputes between the parties who had to work at the looms, for when one person was absent the other was obliged to remain idle, but by and by there was a very simple plan adopted, by which one person could work the broad loom much better than two persons could before.

Though simple, it was an excellent discovery for before it was adopted the weavers stood at each side of the loom. The shuttle was thrown across the loom by the weaver at the right hand side and caught in the left hand by the other weaver; so the shuttle in that old fashioned way was continuously thrown from one person to the other.

There were, at that time, many master weavers who were rather respectable men who kept from 4 to 6 looms in their house - those who had room for them. The master weaver kept journeymen and women, and gave the journeyfolk about 2/3 the price of the work so as to pay himself for the loom room. Some ill feeling often existed on account of this, for the master weaver became too pressing on the journeyfolk.

At this time there were small makers of cloth, and they sometimes went by the name "slingers" or "embezzlers" and sometimes tempted the journeymen to purloin yarn so as to get a cheap lot to help them make a piece of cloth. Work people were often tempted or entrapped by those slingers or embezzlers and if they were not actually caught doing the thing, they were sometimes informed against and brought before a magistrate to answer the charge of receiving embezzled wool or yarn. If the small clothmaker could not give a fair account of it he came under a fine and non-payment subjected him to a period of imprisonment.

There were persons who kept little mills and who rather connived at those things for they took the slingers cloth to hire to finish it for them. Now this was a very bad system going on at the time inasmuch as people who had been strictly honest before, sometimes became enticed by those slingers and lost their employment and their character and perhaps were never likely to get work at a regular master clothiers again. These things going on often made the large master clothiers' suspicious, and justly so; for these slingers often ran into the market with a piece or two of cloth and sold it at a reduced price - and still getting a good profit from it. I believe now that all those slingers have died out.

Fatherless and motherless boys and girls were often apprenticed by the parish to some master weaver. They had to do all the drudgery of the house and were kept almost as petty slaves and wore through an irksome life. The master weaver claimed the honour to himself of making the cloth. Certainly he wove the yarn to form the cloth but of the forwarding machines in making the and finishing the cloth he knew very little.

The power loom was gradually introduced into the clothing trade of the Stroud district without any opposition or particular excitement. The power loom was complete in itself and was an acceptable acquisition to the other machinery employed in the clothing trade. The hand loom weaving was hard, laborious work.

About the time the power loom was being introduced there were advantages held out to persons to emigrate to Australia* which drew many of the hand loom weavers away, and young persons did not care very much about learning the hand loom work, for young females who had followed the hand loom had gradually swollen and ganty looking legs and by their half sitting position at their work they often became short and mumpy in their persons, for their feet, hands and head went together.'

*Free settlers to Australia were enticed by the cheap passage available from landlords, workhouses or central government. They were also given the opportunity of acquiring land on which to raise sheep and they could see the possibilities of a new woollen trade growing up.

This was particularly attractive to people from the Cotswolds who had been raised in this industry and who thought they could profit from their knowledge.

The sailing time to Australia was three months but this didn't deter; by 1851 the population of Australia was 437,665 and had grown rapidly to three million by 1889.

Sir William Marling wrote a paper on the Woollen Trade and read this extract at a speech he gave at Stroud Textile School in 1908.

"On the whole Mr Mile's recital is a sad one (he was describing the report put together by W.A. Miles in 1838) and in striking contrast to the happier conditions prevailing today in the Stroud valley. Various remedies were devised to cope with the distress; amongst them the cultivation of allotment gardens, and the encouragement of migration to other districts where labour was in more demand, while not a few benevolent residents in the district exerted themselves in assisting emigration. Some parishes, such as Uley and Bisley, borrowed money for this purpose, and Mr Miles gives a statement of the cost of emigrating 68 persons from Bisley Parish, who sailed on August 31st 1837 from Bristol. The total cost of these 68 persons was 191 pounds the whole of which sum was defrayed by public subscription or by borrowing on the security of the rates."