Ancestors At Work
Jayne Shrimpton untangles the lives of our kin who worked in Britain’s silk industry
Did any of your forebears work in the silk industry?
The production of luxury goods from silkworm cocoons originated in China c2640 BCE, the closely guarded secret of silk farming or ‘sericulture’ eventually reaching medieval Europe via the Silk Road. The manufacture of silk ribbons and other small wares developed in England from the mid-1400s, and the fledgling silk industry was boosted immensely by the arrival of Huguenots fleeing the Netherlands and France in the late 16th and late 17th centuries. Thousands of these Protestant refugees settled in Spitalfields, East London, and put their superior weaving expertise to use. They also employed many poor homeworking ‘throwsters’ whose job was to ‘throw’ (spin) the silk – twisting the ‘filaments’ (strands) into lengths of strong thread for weaving. The district became the centre of Georgian silk manufacture, producing fashionable, high-quality plain and figured silks.
Silk yarn and woven fabric were also produced elsewhere from the later 1600s, notably in Macclesfield in Cheshire, initially known for silk-covered buttons. Silk-throwing took place in long, narrow, brickbuilt sheds called ‘shades’, while the hand-weavers of both Macclesfield and Spitalfields typically worked in garrets,
the glass-ceilinged attics of their own cottages, or loom space rented in top-storey rooms running the length of buildings owned by manufacturers.
In 1721 Thomas Lombe built the first water-powered throwing mill at Derby, signalling the beginning of mechanised factory production, and water-powered throwing mills were established wherever there was plentiful water and labour. Although they were concentrated in Cheshire, water-powered silk-throwing mills spread to other counties in the late 1700s and early 1800s, including Dorset (Gillingham and Sherborne), Gloucestershire (Chipping Campden), Somerset (Bruton) and Suffolk (Sudbury).
Jobs For The Poor
The parish overseers usually welcomed the establishment of a local silk business, because the workers in the new mills tended to be former paupers who had received poor relief.
The processing of silk yarn was frequently a family occupation, with mainly women and children carrying out simpler tasks such as the preliminary winding of filaments. The unskilled trade of ‘winder’ was usually conducted at home, and often combined with agricultural jobs. Typically throwsters and winders received piece rates for work completed, and this could be fairly reliable. For instance, 48 silk winders in Dorset each earned an average weekly income of 1s 5d during 1793. But when business was slack, wages were reduced.
Initially much silk thread prepared in the provinces was sent to London for weaving, but the 1773 Spitalfields Weavers Act, which regulated local weavers’ wages and the price of finished goods, prompted manufacturers to have their silks woven more cheaply elsewhere, especially in East Anglia and the north-west of England. In 1776, partly to assist Spitalfields’ weavers, the Government levied high import duties on woven goods from France and subsequently prohibited all imports of woven silks. However, as a result of the repeal of the Spitalfields Act in 1824, wages fell further. Some long-established weaving families switched occupations, or migrated to silk centres elsewhere.
New advances in technology also had major impacts. Whereas early silk ribbons and materials were hand-woven on narrow looms, during the 1790s and early 1800s broadlooms producing wider fabric were introduced into the Cheshire silk towns and other major centres like Braintree, Derby, Leek and Paisley.
Subsequently, mechanised powerloom weaving transformed the production of silk fabric from around 1820. Manufacturers found that they could best control their workers and the quality of their goods in purpose-built mills, and by the mid-19th century power-loom weaving in factories was superseding home-based handloom work. Mill-weavers operating machinery toiled in huge single-storey weaving sheds housing as many as 50 looms on one floor. Historically weavers were usually male, considered more intelligent than other textile workers, and handloomweaving was a skilled occupation. However, from the early 19th century formal apprenticeships were rarer and power-loom operators were often relatively inexperienced, with little training.
Some large silk mills carried out all of the different processes from winding to weaving under the one roof, while others specialised in particular stages of manufacture. Even the silk waste produced by throwing could be separately treated and spun into yarn. Traditionally most workers were women and children, with supervisory and more ‘skilled’ jobs reserved for men. Over time, some mills introduced faster-operating machinery, and conditions deteriorated as operators had to work longer shifts for less pay. The 1833 Factory Act enabled inspectors to fine oppressive employers, but not until 1844 was the official minimum age for minors working in silk mills fixed at nine years.
Silk manufacture also reflected shifts in fashion. For example, as cotton garments grew increasingly popular in the early 19th century, at the expense of traditional silk dress and suit materials, demand arose for new products such as mourning fabrics like black-crimped silk crêpes. Textile dyeing and printing also advanced
‘The workers in the new mills tended to be former paupers’
114,570 The number of silk workers recorded in the 1851 census. By 1871 the figure had fallen to 75,180
Wasting silk One of the offences for which children were often beaten in Georgian silk mills
29% The proportion of Macclesfield’s entire population who were employed in the silk industry in the 1901 census
4d The wages per yard for a 17-year-old silk weaver in Whitchurch Silk Mill, Hampshire, working 8am– 7pm six days a week in 1930
Over 150 years The length of time that the Spitalfields-born company David Evans & Co ran silk-printing operations in Crayford, SouthEast London, only closing them in 2001
in the mid-19th century, and as innovative dyed and woven silks printed with repeating designs grew fashionable, more silk dye works and silk-printing companies employed local people.
Foreign Competition
From 1824 import duties were gradually lifted, and full freetrade arrangements were in place by 1860. Faced with competition such as ‘exotic’ Eastern silks, silk manufacture began to decline. Silk throwsters, who had enjoyed reasonable economic stability for a century, now suffered particular hardship, and some silk firms ceased operating altogether. However, the industry had always been adaptable: for instance, silk-ribbon manufacturers from Coventry switched to producing silk bookmarks, pictures and postcards, while companies like Courtaulds of Braintree, Essex, pioneered synthetic fibres around the turn of the 20th century. From the 1920s ‘art silk’ (rayon) became fashionable, machinewoven and printed alongside conventional silks.
Inexpensive, easy-to-wear manmade fabrics largely superseded more costly, fragile silks during the early to mid-1900s. However, between the wars demand grew for silk stockings. Stocking silk was woven mainly in Midland hosiery factories centred on Leicester and Nottingham. During the Second World War all remaining Macclesfield silk firms undertook war work, weaving parachute silk, making underwear for airmen and for jungle warfare, and producing the now famed ‘escape’ maps. Today only a few manufacturers still produce luxury silk goods, but for over three centuries hundreds of thousands of our forebears across the country worked in the silk industry, in diverse roles.