Smooth as silk
CHRISTOPHER PROUDLOVE weaves a tale of talent and invention in Coventry
THE two young apprentices have long since flown the nest, so it was a surprise to come across a sock worn by one of them at primary school. How could we identify this long-lost single sock? Simple, it had a Cash’s name tape sewn inside.
How do we know it was a Cash’s name tape. Don’t ask silly questions. It’s obvious. J & J Cash cornered the name tape market generations ago – our own mothers stitched them into our school uniforms, so who else?
The Coventry company must be one of the country’s longest-surviving silk weavers and, as we have discovered, while the previous focus has been on the better known rival manufacturer, Thomas Stevens, Cash’s have much more to interest collectors.
Silk has been woven in Coventry since the first quarter of the
17th century, growing in importance when the woollen industry declined in the face of foreign competition and changes in fashion.
Fancy silk ribbon weaving for dresses and bonnets began in the city in about 1700, but when Joseph Marie Jacquard invented his loom in 1804, it was the French who led the way in mass-production of silk woven designs. The Jacquard produced mile after mile of ribbon to patterns on punched cards fed automatically through the loom.
Skilled Huguenot weavers, escaping religious persecution in Europe, settled in Coventry and by 1840, half the city’s workforce was employed in the industry.
Thomas Stevens and John and Joseph Cash were early adopters of the technology, but in 1860, the Anglo-French Free Trade Bill removed duty on imported silk, brocade and ribbons and cheap foreign goods flooded the home market almost to destruction.
Coventry was one of the victims with mill closures and mass unemployment as firms collapsed. Looms were left idle and in a two-year period alone, some 9,000 weavers left to find alternative work.
Entrepreneur Stevens saw opportunity in the downturn. He had been experimenting with the Jacquard looms and hit on the idea of adapting them to produce vertical rather than horizontal designs.
A series of inventive alterations allowed the production of silk pieces in multiple colours with exquisite detail and a seemingly threedimensional effect. When cut into short lengths and finished with silk tassels, the resulting woven silks made charming bookmarks.
Three years after the slump, Stevens had created a new market and his woven bookmarks, which he called by the patented name of Stevengraphs, were selling like hot cakes.
The livelihood of his family and his loyal workforce was assured.
Stevens persuaded booksellers and stationers to sell his eye-catching and colourful creations depicting texts from the Bible, poems, Christmas, New Year, birthday and Valentine’s Day greetings, portraits of royalty, and contemporary scenes.
Stevens subsequently claimed to have produced 900 different designs for the home market, the Continent and the United States, although only about half that number has been catalogued by current research.
Encouraged by his early success, in 1879, Stevens introduced massproduced woven silk pictures, which he fitted in simple cardboard mounts so they would last longer.
They were introduced at the little-known York Exhibition, which opened on May 7 that year. Centrepiece was a stand with two Stevens looms operating throughout the duration, producing scenes of local interest: the London and York Stage Coach and Dick Turpin’s Ride to York, before the eyes of eager buyers.
Their striking almost threedimensional effect impressed visitors who bought them straight from the loom for a shilling (5p) each.
New pictures were issued each month and at least 70 different topics are covered including portraits of royalty, sporting, military, religious and political figures; exhibitions, castles and well-known buildings; horse racing; coursing and fox hunting; sports; battleships and even fire engines. Some are surprisingly rare, others relatively common, with prices to match.
They were exhibited in America, France and Holland, and won some 30 medals and diplomas at trade shows exhibitions.
Stevens died in 1888, but the factory was run by his two sons until it was made a limited company in 1908. Sadly, however, fashions were changing and by about 1914, demand for Stevengraphs dwindled.
The portraits of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, produced in 1938, were probably the last to be made before the factory was totally destroyed during World War II in the Coventry Blitz of 1940.
Elder sons of a wealthy “stuff” (textiles) merchant, Quakers John and Joseph Cash were no less entrepreneurial. They survived the 1860 slump and prospered by switching production to narrow cotton ‘frillings’ patented in the same year. Silk commemoratives, woven labels used by garment manufacturers to identify their products in the shops, followed, while woven name tapes still in demand from parents, required to identify their children’s school clothing, appeared in the 1870s.
Silk weaving had been done by workers in their own homes on a piece rate using materials supplied by merchants but the Cash brothers recognised the need for change.
By 1857 they had built two rows of smart, well-equipped weavers’ cottages each with a garden near the canal in Kingfield. Each had a third storey called a topshop, equipped with a Jacquard loom.
In 1862, the topshops were knocked into a single space with the looms powered by a central steam-engine, effectively creating cottage factories. These were rented to weavers with the brothers controlling production.
Cash’s Stevengraph-style woven pictures and bookmarks appeared for the first time in the 1870s.
The warp and weft of silk thread, woven countless times in each picture, allow for intricate detail and vibrant images from a bewilderingly large library, overseen by chief designer Leslie Mallett.
Subjects range from natural history to flowers, butterflies, birds, animals, famous landmarks, Christmas cards, calendars, and even Disney characters, all financed by profits from name tapes and labels.
Sold framed and ready to hang, the pictures are helpfully identified on the reverse with printed information on a pasted label.
Family members ran the company until 1976 and it is now part of the Hong Kong-based Jointak Group.
While Stevengraphs change hands in antique shops for prices ranging from £30 to £100-£150 for rarities, Cash’s pictures are no less appealing and collectable and can be had for around £10.