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In the 18th Century the production of textiles was the most important industry in Britain. Most of the work was carried out in the home and was often combined with farming. There were three main stages to making cloth: carding, spinning and weaving. Most cloth was made from either wool or cotton, but other materials such as silk and flax were also used.
The woven cloth was sold to merchants called clothiers who visited the village with their trains of pack-horses. Some of the cloth was made into clothes for people living in this country. However, a large amount of cloth was exported.
Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole
Island of Great Britain
(1724)
"Among the manufacturers' houses are likewise scattered an infinite number of cottages or small dwellings, in which dwell the workmen which are employed, the women and children of whom, are always busy carding, spinning, etc. so that no hands being unemployed all can gain their bread, even from the youngest to the ancient; anyone above four years old works." |
George Walker, The Costume of Yorkshire
(1814)
" The manufacture of cloth affords employment to the major part of the lower class of people in the north-west districts of the West Riding of Yorkshire. These cloth-makers reside almost entirely in the villages, and bring their cloth on market-days for sale in the great halls erected for that purpose at Leeds and Huddersfield." |
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