Weaver

Saxon looms were simple wooden frames supporting vertical warps weighted down by baked clay loom weights. (A reproduction upright loom can be seen in Trowbridge Museum) The warp threads passed through heddles, made of a series of string loops, which enabled the weaver to create a shed, or space for his weft to pass through. A simple plain cloth was woven on a vertical loom. By the middle ages, a horizontal loom was in use.

In the early 1800s, weaving was still being done as outwork, although some clothiers were starting to set up weaving shops in their factories. (see clothiers) Loom design changed very little until mechanisation. (A good example of a wooden hand loom is on display in Trowbridge Museum) Pedals enabled the weaver to create patterned weave. A harness supported the heddles, the beater and the shuttle boxes. Weft was used damp for broadcloth. Weaving became a man’s job. John Kay invented the ‘flying shuttle’ in 1733 which speeded up cloth production. The metal tipped shuttle was carried on wheels and was flicked across the shed by a picker.

Hand Loom Weaver

By the 1830s, power looms were in use in the Trowbridge area. (There is a Hattersley loom in Trowbridge Museum).

In 1840, it was estimated that an able bodied handloom weaver could only weave about 2 yards (just over 2m) of cloth (cassimere) in one day.

Broadcloth needed two weavers working together to pass the shuttle across the warps.

By the 1850s, power looms were in use in the Trowbridge area. (There is a Hattersley loom in Trowbridge Museum).

More recently, shuttle-less power looms came into use. Warp threads were carried by ‘rapiers’ or air jets. Cloth produced on a rapier loom has a false selvedge.

Click here to find out more about Cassimere Cloth

This description of a weaver’s life is from Broughton Gifford in 1859. Our hand-loom weavers work at their own homes, in their weaving ‘shops’, many hours for little money. When in full employment, they are fourteen hours a day at it, hands, arms, legs and feet in full play. A good weaver can turn out four, five or six yards per day, for which he receives 10d, 8d or 6d a yard. But this is not all profit. He has to pay perhaps two children, at least one to change the shuttles for him. Another child ‘quillies’. Besides, he is subject to deductions for all faults. Nor is he then employed every day. If trade be very brisk, he may reckon on five days of such work each week: often he has to be content with three or none. On the whole, it may be questioned whether he is better off than his agricultural brother, as regards means of living: in respect of strength and health, he is certainly in a worse condition. Nor is the prospect before him re-assuring. That he has so long held his own against the steam power-loom of the factory is a marvel to all observers, a strong evidence of his skill, endurance and energy.

Time was, when the weaver kept his pony or hackney on the common, and drove backwards and forwards with his ‘goods’ to his master at Trowbridge in style. Now he is compelled to trudge afoot, driving a pair of hand-trucks before him; and is glad enough to bring back a ‘chain’ with him after hanging about the master’s office all day for it.

Within the last few years, the description of cloth thus manufactured has entirely changed. It used to be all ‘broad’. Now none is so. The power looms do all this. Our cloth is ‘narrow’, ‘fancy stuffs’ for summer wear, jacketings, trouserings and waistcoatings. That the hand-loom weaver retains this slender portion of the trade is greatly owing to the circumstance that the master manufacturer doubts as yet, whether it would be worth his while to lay out his capital in the purchase of looms and machinery, specially adapted to this kind of cloth. Were his orders greater, and likely to be permanent, he would imitate his Yorkshire confrere, enlarge his mill and do all there.

Ivan Clark Weaving in Trowbridge Museum

April 1867. An inquest at the Ring of Bells, Hilperton Marsh on George Willis, a weaver, about 50.

He had lived a most wretched life for some time past. His house contained scarcely the slightest vestige of furniture. There was a loom he worked at and in the corner of the room, a bundle of rags which he used for a bed and an old chair. He had lately given way very much to drink.