Weavers worked in own cottages and sent silk to Macclesfield factory
THE road out of Ormskirk, Lancashire to the East, Wigan Road, was for centuries a lesser-travelled route for coaches and carts than the North/ south coaching route between Liverpool and Preston and onwards to Scotland.
It wasn’t a popular route West until Southport started to emerge as a Victorian resort, drawing day-trippers from the Wigan area by road and then rail.
The road was Moor Street End up to where the hospital is now, then it became Tinkers Hill Lane, turning into what is now Tower Hill, the junction of Tower Hill and Wigan Road was known as Tinker’s Hill in the late 18th and early 19th Century.
The wide open expanse of moorland stretching up towards the long ridge between Greetby Hill and Scarth Hill gave access to clean fresh air away from the smoke-filled streets of the town.
Many silk weavers worked in their own cottages along this stretch of road, most of them probably worked in their own small weaving sheds, traditionally the Ormskirk silk weavers stubbornly avoided the large factory built off Burscough Street in the early 1800s by an East Lancashire investor
Driven outside of the town by the increasing market tolls, the silk weaving families found the location advantageous.
Much of the silk material was destined for the Macclesfield Silk Factory through local agents. This avoided having to take time out to sell on the local market and it also gave a secure income.
By the mid-1840s the trade was struggling, most silk weavers were not finding enough work for a full week and it was the female weavers who lost work first, the available orders being given to the head of the house first to ensure some income.
Competition for the work came from Wigan and Manchester but with the cotton trade growing in the mid-19th century many silk weavers were able to move into the big factories in those towns.
Ormskirk attempted to establish cotton mills but failed. Competition from the far superior quality silk from France and Spain had hindered English silk production for many years.
The choice of the aristocracy had always been French silk from Lyon, a softer weave and much preferred for ladies clothing.
English silk was woven from reels imported from Japan, until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1872, and that had made the cost of reels an issue and reduced the margin of profit for the agents engaging the local weavers.
The industry was given support from Queen Victoria, who insisted on purchasing silk from English weavers.
Ormskirk silk weaving from the early 18th Century had started with ribbon silk which found a market locally with both domestic and professional dressmakers and also with milliners.
A brief resurgence of the trade occurred in the late 1870s, with many silk weavers in the town setting up their looms again to meet the demand created by the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War, when imports of French silk were restricted.
Prices for silk pieces went up and the Ormskirk Weavers quickly responded to demand. Several Ormskirk shops selling men’s and women’s clothing advertised their merchandise as ‘delivered from the fashion houses of London and
Paris’ and ‘made from the superior silks of the French’.
However, the trade was rife with false claims of the origin of the silk material and the local buyers, only ever used to the same quality of product, often had no idea that they were wearing English Woven silks.
The silk weaving of Ormskirk is further linked to Macclesfield, Lancashire through the life of John Staniforth, born in Ormskirk in 1840.
John, son of silk weavers John and Ann Staniforth (nee Sholicar), grew up in Martin’s Square, Burscough Street amongst silk weaving.
His father John died within a few months of John’s birth leaving mother Ann with five small children.
Ann remarried another silk weaver John Lea who raised the Staniforth children. John initially started work as a young boy as a roper and then joined the railway as a porter.
In his early 20s John moved to Macclesfield to work in the silk factory.
Within just a few years he had married and established himself as a silk manufacturer with his own employees.
This was likely to be by renting looms in the large mill.
John Staniforth became an extremely successful silk manufacturer, at one point employing 200 weavers, he became very involved in local politics and in 1890-91 and again in 1900 was the Mayor of Macclesfield.
John died in 1905 after a very rewarding career in silk manufacturing and public service. He was the chair of governors of the Macclesfield Grammar School; chairman of the Technical School and the School of Art.
Ormskirk silk weaving had died out in the latter years of the 1800s, going from around 300 hand loom weavers in the town in the 1850s, mostly living and working in the East of the town, to none by 1900.