Chapter One
Origins
At one time, the Lord Chancellor of England sat in Parliament on a sack stuffed with wool, representing the source of much of the wealth of the country. That wool did not come from the northern counties, but from the downs, the west country and the south. Yet by the eighteenth century, that trade in wool was on the move and within a few short years had taken root in the north, in particular in the West Riding.
It was not a new industry to the area. The West Riding has always produced some wool, but this was a domestic industry. Coarse, poor-quality cloths known as kerseys â intended mainly for home use â were made, bought and sold in the small open markets of Halifax, Bradford and Leeds. Only around the York area were finer cloths made.
But the Industrial Revolution changed that. Huddersfield, which had been a small market town, found itself at the centre of a thriving industry.
Landscape
Huddersfield is the meeting-point for several narrow valleys. The water from numerous streams runs down the steep hillsides and the valleys funnel it into the rivers Colne and Holme, which meet in Huddersfield, and the Fenay Beck. Their waters join the River Calder 3 miles (5km) north-east of Huddersfield. The valleys have few areas that can be turned to arable use, or even good grazing for cattle. Moorland tops are covered in rough heather and poor grazing, where even sheep have to be helped to survive.
View across the Colne valley.
But this inhospitable landscape is one of the reasons why the wool textile trade has thrived. There is no limestone here, so the water is soft and ideal for washing wool. Water also provided power to work the early fulling mills, and later nearby mines supplied coal to power the mills of the Industrial Revolution. Iron supplies were available for the machinery and the scene was set.
The narrow valleys prevented large-scale settlements, but scattered hamlets on the hillsides needed a central mill for corn and later for fulling. These mills were owned by the local landlords and had to be used by all. They were watermills, often found near a bridge, a place that people from the villages could easily reach with their goods.
Almondbury was originally a much more important place than Huddersfield, but the mill for its manor was at Kingâs Mill â on the River Colne near Aspley â and eventually Huddersfield overtook the earlier settlement in size and importance. Holmfirth became a centre for the villages of Holmbridge, Holme and New Mill, whilst Milnsbridge served the same purpose for the villages of the Colne Valley.
View across the Holme valley.
The Textile Industry
The textile industry began in the cottages where it was often carried on alongside farming or other occupations. The clothier would buy raw wool, usually about 50 â 60lb (22 â 27kg); the poorest weavers could afford to buy only 14lb (6kg) whereas the richest would probably go further afield and buy large quantities of wool, often of better quality.
The raw wool would then be picked over by hand to remove the bits of vegetation and dirt, before being carded (combed out) and spun by the women of the family â hence the term âspinsterâ for a single woman who earned her living by spinning wool, which the men of the household would then weave. Outside many cottages can still be seen the âwuzzingâ holes, where wet yarn was placed in baskets and hung on a stick, to be swung or âwuzzedâ round to dry.
After weaving, the fabric had to be cleaned of all the dirt and grease by soaking it in liquid ammonia, the commonest form of which was urine, and then it was taken to the fulling mill to be properly washed and scoured. Once dry, it was âburledâ to remove all the remaining bits of vegetation or dirt, before being returned to the fulling mill, where it was âmilledâ to felt the fibres together.
It was then stretched out on âtenterhooksâ to its original length and shape. There was often controversy over this, because if it was stretched too much, the dried cloth could be sold as being a longer length, but it would shrink considerably when washed. The government appointed inspectors called ulnagers to measure cloth and attach a seal to prevent such cheating. The fabric produced was a rough âkerseyâ, narrow in width and natural in colour. Better cloth was produced in East Anglia or the west country, which were then the main textile areas.
Teasel heads used in carding.
Early fulling mills often later developed into scribbling mills, and eventually cloth-finishing mills or cropping shops, where the cloth was brushed with teasel cards to raise the nap, then cropped to give a better finish. Water power was used at first, but as early as the 1790s it was proving insufficient and mills using the Fenay Beck were installing steam engines to supplement the poor water supply.
Manpower â or sometimes horsepower â was also used. Once larger machines were invented, water power was needed and mills developed by the river. When steam power took over, the mills could be built anywhere, but the cost of transport played its part in their final location.
Smaller buildings were built, still attached to â or next to â the ownerâs home on the valley side. On the steeper-sided valleys, the top floor often had âtaking-in doorsâ facing the back road, where bundles of wool could be brought into the house directly to the loom.
The clothier spent the week weaving a single piece of cloth, which would then be taken from his home, perhaps high up on the moors, to the market. The better-off weavers would have a donkey or even a pony, but many shouldered their roll of cloth and walked however many miles were needed.
They went to Almondbury or, by the later seventeenth century, to Huddersfield. There, the churchyard walls were the only place to display cloth until the Cloth Hall was built in 1766. Buyers could carry away small pieces of cloth by packhorse and the early roads were rough tracks on the hilltops. Early turnpiked roads followed these tracks and ancient mileposts can still be seen isolated on the moors, but then came the canals which encouraged businesses to move down to the valley floor.
Whilst some weavers were able to continue and expanded their workshops along the valley sides, these small proto-mills were not able to compete with the larger ones being built nearer to the new forms of transport. Improved roads and, later, railways followed the line along the valley floor and ribbon development of industry and housing followed.
Cotton also was produced in the Huddersfield area. Many of the early mills in the Colne Valley began as cotton mills, before converting to wool. The textile industry diversified, and some areas specialised. Fancy goods seem to have been produced mainly to the south-east, around Almondbury, Kirkheaton and Lepton, and out to Shepley, Cumberworth and Denby Dale. North-west, in Lindley and towards Outlane, velveteen and cords were produced, whilst woollen goods continued to be made in the Colne and Holme valleys.
In addition, there were silk mills, waste reclaimers, and even flax and linen merchants, who supplied the yarns for the cloth mixtures.
The Process
Wool is collected, then sorted. Each fleece is made up of different types of fibres and qualities. The wool is scoured to remove dirt and the sheepâs natural grease. Lanolin is produced from this stage and is used in soaps, ointments and cosmetics.
For the woollen cloth industry, the raw wool is carded to tease out dirt. The fibres are mixed higgledy-piggledy and are shorter than those used in worsted. The yarn is then divided into slivers ready for spinning. Originally done by hand, carding was mechanised early in the development of the cotton industry.
Worsted yarns are washed and dried, then combed. This separates out the short fibres or noils, and ensures that the fibres are smooth, straight and lying parallel. The long fibres are wound into âtopsâ ready for spinning, which can be used for different purposes.
The early spinning machines invented by Hargreaves could only produce yarn suitable for weft, whilst Arkwrightâs frame, invented a few years later, produced warp yarn. It was Cromptonâs Mule, invented in 1779, which produced yarn suitable for either warp or weft, that allowed large-scale production of yarn. These machines all began in the cotton industry, but the wool industry was quick to see their advantages and adapt them to their needs.
Yarns can then be woven. Small hand looms were used in the home, and some homes had two or three looms on the top floor where the light was best. Cloth woven with complicated designs were called âjacquardâ and could be produced using specially punched cards that controlled which threads were raised for the weft yarn to pass through. Weaving was speeded up by the invention of Kayâs âflying shuttleâ but it was not fully mechanised until Cartwrightâs inventions at the end of the eighteenth century.
The completed cloth then has to be âfinishedâ. This includes examining for faults and mending any breaks in the threads, before putting the cloth through a series of processes to stabilise it and to alter the final feel. For example, the nap may be raised by brushing with teasels or wire brushes, and this nap is then âcroppedâ short. Cropping can be done on wet or dry cloth to give different finishes.
Wet cloth has to be dried. Originally this was done by stretching it on âtenterhooksâ â lines of which could be seen on the hillside â but, later, drying sheds or rooms near the boiler-house were built.
Cloth may be dyed at this stage, although sometimes it is done earlier. The chemical industry also developed in this area as a direct result of the needs of textile manufacturers.
Nineteenth Century
Initially the cloth had been sold in the Cloth Ha...