The Woollen Industry

Introduction

The economic engine
The woollen industry was the principle basis of the British economy in the Middle Ages through until the nineteenth century. By the mid fifteenth century cloth was England's major export.
Stroud and the surrounding area was in the centre of very early industrial development. Many of the mill sites are of medieval origin and the pattern of industry in and around Stroud was defined by the end of the fifteenth century.
This part of the Cotswolds was perfect for the industry: there was the availability of Cotswold wool; the constant supply of water from the River Frome and its tributaries, and the suitability of the natural salts in the spring water for cleaning and dyeing.
Up until the middle of the nineteenth century, the woollen mills in Gloucestershire could rival those of the north of England in terms of the amount and quality of cloth that was produced. There were 150 mills in the Stroudwater area at the start of that century, many within the Stroud valleys. Woodchester was a key centre. The valleys with their rapid streams made this part of the Cotswolds a natural choice for the mill builders.
However, the industry went in to rapid decline from the 1850s and by the start of the twentieth century there were only 20 active mills the county and now it is less than a handful.
The industry was brought to its prominent position within the UK economy by the action of Edward III who imported weavers, dyers and fullers from Flanders to improve the quality of the industry. Hence the Flemish names such as Clutterbuck, Playne and Paul that are found in the district. They were encouraged to come with promises of a better life, better food and the prospect of marrying 'English Beauties.'
Like many villages, Woodchester and Selsley grew and prospered because of the wool. Its grand houses (see photo) were built by clothiers and families who had built their fortunes from the wool trade ( the Pauls, Clutterbucks, Marlings, Wathens among others.)

Defoe wrote in 1724 'it was no extraordinary thing to have clothiers in that county worth from ten thousand to forty thousand pounds a man, and many of the great families who now pass for gentry in these counties have been originally raised from and built up by this truly noble manufacture.'
The Pauls of Woodchester settled in Gloucestershire in the seventeenth century, by 1762 Onesiphorous Paul had been created a baronet.
The mills themselves were also magnificent buildings and fortunately many still survive albeit now used for other commercial purposes or converted in to residential units.
The area was renowned for its superfine broad cloth. This was a high quality fabric; much of it was sold undyed to overseas markets although some was sent to Coventry to be finished.
The yarn was prepared in the mills from mainly local wool. Weavers came to the mill to collect the yarn which they would weave on a loom at home.
It was only in the nineteenth century that looms began to be installed in the mills and this met with much resistance from the weavers; the industry was also hit by recession, wages were reduced, in 1825 there were riots in the area. But the decline was already starting (although census records in the 19th century still show how many families were linked to the cloth trade in one form or another) and gradually, the mills were converted to other manufacturing tasks such as pianos, walking sticks and small scale foundries.

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Description of some of the most important mills

The industrial heartland
Between 1750 and 1820 there were ten mills in the Woodchester and Selsley district: Ebley, Dudbridge, Hawkers, Lightpill, Rooksmore, Woodchester, Southfield, Churches, Frogmarsh and Merrets. By 1867, Hawkers, Rooksmore Frogmarsh and Merrets were no longer cloth mills.
Woodchester Mill: In 1605 Henry Dudbridge sold 'all that messuage tenement ffullynge myll and water myll or gryst myll with their appurtenances' to Sir George Frocester. Later the mills passed back to the Dudbridge family through marriage. In the 18th Century there were various owners and tenants including:
Samuel Paul, 1744-1768.
Obadiah Paul, 1768-1792
Sir Samuel Wathen, 1792- 1802
In 1838, the mills were run by Wathen & Cook and they manufactured superfine Saxony broadcloth, employing over 200 hundred people. The power in the mill was part water and part steam: two powerful water-wheels and a forty horse steam engine.
By 1900 cloth manufacture has ceased and eventually the mill became a piano factory although during the Second World War it was used by the Gloster Aircraft Co. There have been a number of fires at the mill which destroyed the main building but several of the smaller nineteenth century buildings remain.
Southfields Mill: This mill was built around 1730 by Sir Onesiphorous Paul and it was there that he invented the napping machine used to raise the nap in small regular knots at regular intervals along the cloth.
By the 1830s the mill was owned by the Bird company and then changed hands several times before manufacture of cloth ceased in 1906. In the 20th Century, Arthur's Press occupied some of the smaller buildings that had not been demolished. The mill no longer exits but the beautiful clothiers house owned by Sir Onesiphorous remains and this is where he received Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1750.
Frogmarsh Mill: The first mention of Frogmarch Mill was in 1658 and over the next two centuries passed through many hands including the Clutterbuck family and the Shurmurs. Cloth continued to be made their until the mid-1800s but in 1867 it was recorded that pins were being manufactured by the firm of Perkins, Critchley and Marmont.
There is still activity taking place at the mill. Most of the buildings are of nineteenth century origin but the teasel tower opposite dates from the early 1600s.
Dudbridge Mill: the first record of a mill here is 1685. The site increased in size quite considerably over the years. In 1889 there were 90 looms and 6,950 spindles recorded. Cloth manufacture went on to 1933. Since then the site has altered considerably but there are still some old buildings visible.
Norris's Mill, Dudbridge: In 1716 James Small of Ozleworth, clothier, leased a tenement and 'fuelling mill and gyggmill and cloth press therein' for 7 years at 43 pounds per year to Stephen Dangerfield of Randwick, clothier. In 1718 Dangerfield transferred the lease to Daniel Fowler for 27 pounds per year.
Hawkers Mill: In 1659 Arthur Browning of Oldbury on Severn, cloth worker, conveyed a messuage and fulling mill which contained two stocks to Daniel Fowler of Kings Stanley. The property was conveyed by lease and re-lease to Richard Hawker, dyer, of Dudbridge in 1743 and at this date there were 2 stocks, 1 gig mill and 1 knapping mill there. By 1772 cloth finishing has become an important aspect of the work done there for, in his will, Richard Hawker mentions the 2 fulling and 1 gig mill and three knapping mills with 'all those my dyehouses' which he left to his son John. When he died, however, the devisees of his will sold the estate to Samuel Stephens Marling. In the early 1800s seventeen furnaces were in continued operation and much dying was taking place. In 1873 Marling leased the mill to Adolphus Smith of Dudbridge, a dyer. Smith was also allowed the 'right to take and use so much only of the water of the brook or mill stream there as may be required for washing wool at eight wool washing baskets and for the supply of the steam engine and dyeing furnaces there, such water to be taken there through the sluice.'
In 1880 the lease was renewed and various improvements were noted including a new boiler house which took water from Selsley Hill.
Rooksmore Mill: An early mill although the first record seems only to be from the 19th century when Joseph Haigh was making cloth there in the 1820s and 1830s. Grist and Niblet were using the premises for flock manufacture in the 1850s. The site is now a retail site selling furniture among other things.
Churches Mill: The earliest mention of this mill is from 1637 when John Churches was the owner. A descendant, another John, mortgaged the premises in 1716 which at that time comprised a fulling mill with 2 stocks, a gig mill and a grist mill. Another descendant, Thomas Churches died in 1762 and was buried in Woodchester Church.
(These accounts have been taken from Jennifer Tann's book 'Gloucestershire Woollen Mills' first published in 1967.)

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The Visit of George III in 1788

A day of great excitement
This account of the visit of George III is taken from Paul Fisher's "Notes and Recollections of Stroud, Gloucestershire" first published in 1891.
'On Thursday, August the 14th, 1788, His Majesty King George the Third, with his Royal Consort, Queen Charlotte and the three eldest Princesses, having spent some weeks in Cheltenham, for the benefits of the King's health, passed through Stroud on their way from Cheltenham to see the clothing manufactory of Mr Obadiah Paul at Woodchester Mill.
Upon this great occasion crowds assembled to welcome the Royal party; and flags and triumphal arches were erected, - the chief arch being thrown across the road at the Chequers, where they entered the town from Badbrook.
The King made his progress on horseback, the Queen and Princesses being in open carriage
escorted by the influential persons of the neighbourhood. His Majesty wore a blue coat, with a scarlet collar - the Windsor uniform - and a cocked hat with which he acknowledged the salutations of the people; and when he raised his hand for that purpose, a rent was visible under the arm of his Majesty's coat.
The route from Stroud was by way of Wallbridge, where the Royal Party visited the junction of the Thames and Severn Canal with the Stroudwater Navigation, and witnessed the passage of a barge through the lock there, from the former to the latter canal.
The usual route from Wallbridge to Woodchester was steep and circuitous; and as the King's coming had been previously announced, a temporary way was made for him through the grounds of Spilman's Court and Stringers. It entered the former a little above the house called Bowmead; and, (crossing the highway that leads from the village of Rodborough to Dudbridge,) it passed through the latter and came into the Bath turnpike road, near Lightpill mill...
Great preparations were made by Mr Paul at Grigshot House to receive the Royal Party and to shew them the manufactory, machinary etc.
They breakfasted at Hill House, the seat of Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, Bart.; and were afterwards entertained by the Right Honorable Francis Lord Ducie at Spring Park.
It may not be uninteresting to add that Woodchester mill, visited by the King in 1788 stands on the same stream, and below Southfield mill, which Prince Frederick, his father, had visited in 1750.'

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The Riots of 1825

Social upheaval
The riots were a culmination of unrest among the weavers who has seen the nature of their work change and wages gradually diminishing and also individual manufacturers refused to pay a uniform rate for the job. There had been disorder in 1756 and further confrontations in 1803 but in 1825 all the workers went on strike and membership of the Stroud Valley Weavers Union increased from 400 to 5000. There were a number of affrays and disturbances. There were also large gatherings such as the 6000 people who congregated on Selsley Common to listen to what the manufactures had to offer.
The unrest became worse, the troops were called in and a number of rioters were imprisoned.
However, eventually the clothiers all agreed to a single rate which the weavers also agreed upon. But the strike was followed by a recession; then a lot of the work was taken in-house and then the Power Loom was introduced all of which caused an increase in unemployment among the weavers.

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The Life of a Weaver in the Early 19th Century

Hard work and low wages
The following extract is from the Stroud Journal, published in 1868. It was further reproduced in the booklet 'The Stroudwater Riots of 1825' by John Loosely and published by the Stroud Museum Association in 1993.
In the extract, the author remembers life for his grandfather around the time of the riots:

'In my grandfather's time the cloth weavers had their looms and did their work at their houses. The broad cloth loom was worked by two persons and this way of working the broad loom had always been adopted, I should say, from the first time that weavers began to weave broad woollen cloth. This double handed weaving as it was called, often brought on disputes between the parties who had to work at the looms, for when one person was absent the other was obliged to remain idle, but by and by there was a very simple plan adopted, by which one person could work the broad loom much better than two persons could before.
Though simple, it was an excellent discovery for before it was adopted the weavers stood at each side of the loom. The shuttle was thrown across the loom by the weaver at the right hand side and caught in the left hand by the other weaver; so the shuttle in that old fashioned way was continuously thrown from one person to the other.
There were, at that time, many master weavers who were rather respectable men who kept from 4 to 6 looms in their house - those who had room for them. The master weaver kept journeymen and women, and gave the journeyfolk about 2/3 the price of the work so as to pay himself for the loom room. Some ill feeling often existed on account of this, for the master weaver became too pressing on the journeyfolk.

At this time there were small makers of cloth, and they sometimes went by the name "slingers" or "embezzlers" and sometimes tempted the journeymen to purloin yarn so as to get a cheap lot to help them make a piece of cloth. Work people were often tempted or entrapped by those slingers or embezzlers and if they were not actually caught doing the thing, they were sometimes informed against and brought before a magistrate to answer the charge of receiving embezzled wool or yarn. If the small clothmaker could not give a fair account of it he came under a fine and non-payment subjected him to a period of imprisonment.

There were persons who kept little mills and who rather connived at those things for they took the slingers cloth to hire to finish it for them. Now this was a very bad system going on at the time inasmuch as people who had been strictly honest before, sometimes became enticed by those slingers and lost their employment and their character and perhaps were never likely to get work at a regular master clothiers again. These things going on often made the large master clothiers' suspicious, and justly so; for these slingers often ran into the market with a piece or two of cloth and sold it at a reduced price - and still getting a good profit from it. I believe now that all those slingers have died out.

Fatherless and motherless boys and girls were often apprenticed by the parish to some master weaver. They had to do all the drudgery of the house and were kept almost as petty slaves and wore through an irksome life. The master weaver claimed the honour to himself of making the cloth. Certainly he wove the yarn to form the cloth but of the forwarding machines in making the and finishing the cloth he knew very little.
The power loom was gradually introduced into the clothing trade of the Stroud district without any opposition or particular excitement. The power loom was complete in itself and was an acceptable acquisition to the other machinery employed in the clothing trade. The hand loom weaving was hard, laborious work.
About the time the power loom was being introduced there were advantages held out to persons to emigrate to Australia* which drew many of the hand loom weavers away, and young persons did not care very much about learning the hand loom work, for young females who had followed the hand loom had gradually swollen and ganty looking legs and by their half sitting position at their work they often became short and mumpy in their persons, for their feet, hands and head went together.'

*Free settlers to Australia were enticed by the cheap passage available from landlords, workhouses or central government. They were also given the opportunity of acquiring land on which to raise sheep and they could see the possibilities of a new woollen trade growing up.
This was particularly attractive to people from the Cotswolds who had been raised in this industry and who thought they could profit from their knowledge.
The sailing time to Australia was three months but this didn't deter; by 1851 the population of Australia was 437,665 and had grown rapidly to three million by 1889.

Sir William Marling wrote a paper on the Woollen Trade and read this extract at a speech he gave at Stroud Textile School in 1908.
"On the whole Mr Mile's recital is a sad one (he was describing the report put together by W.A. Miles in 1838) and in striking contrast to the happier conditions prevailing today in the Stroud valley. Various remedies were devised to cope with the distress; amongst them the cultivation of allotment gardens, and the encouragement of migration to other districts where labour was in more demand, while not a few benevolent residents in the district exerted themselves in assisting emigration. Some parishes, such as Uley and Bisley, borrowed money for this purpose, and Mr Miles gives a statement of the cost of emigrating 68 persons from Bisley Parish, who sailed on August 31st 1837 from Bristol. The total cost of these 68 persons was 191 pounds the whole of which sum was defrayed by public subscription or by borrowing on the security of the rates."
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Wages in 1839

The table below details the weekly wages earned by workers in the cloth trade during 1839. The week always meant 60 hours and sometimes more.

Trade	Weekly Earnings
Wool Sorters	30s
Wool Scourers	14s
Wool Pickers (Women)	6s
Wool Feeders (Children)	3s
Mule Spinners (Men)	20s
Warpers (Women)	7s
Millmen	20s
Burlers (Women)	6s
Shearmen	13s
Brushers	14s
Drawers and Markers (W)	9s
Spinners (Women)	6s

This can be compared to the typical farm labourers weekly wage at the time which was 9s with cottage and garden.

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*To see how the village of Woodchester was dominated by the cloth industry it is worth looking at the 1851 Census.
*The Bird family of Woodchester moved from the village to north America and set up a mill business. They even built a house called Woodchester Villa. A history of the family can be found here.

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