Silk weaving in Scotland?.....

ninatoo · Post by **ninatoo** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 1:14 am

Hi all,

This is a bit of a long shot, but I am wondering of there was ever a silk weaving industry in Scotland? I am trying to trace my elusive Cotterill ancestors who came from England, but I have one of them Joseph, listed as a silk warper, in 1870 when his son John Cotterill married in Partick. I was thinking that if he could have plied that trade somewhere in Scotland, there may be some evidence of the family in the censuses or marriage/death records for the area.

Nina

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 1:35 am

Hi Nina

Please see http://www.Scottishtextileheritage.org. ... ticleNo=39

We also have an expert on textiles in Scotland on the DG, but to my eternal shame, I can't recall with certainty his name at this time of the night, perhaps Russell ??, who may well be able to add to my feeble contribution

David

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:37 am

Hi Nina

I'll rise to David's bait Phhhhuih expert indeed!!!

Yes there was a continuing industry in silk weaving through the mid 1800's. Initially it was confined to cottage based hand looms and one or two villages continued to do specialist weaving even after the industry was mechanised.
The introduction of the Jacquard loom sounded the death knell of nearly all of the handloom weaving industry since the card operated loom could turn out repeating patterns more faithfully than a hand operator could. The introduction of power looms led to them becoming centralised in factories where they could be looked after by cheap female and child labour so the man of the house was out of a job.
By this time (1850's on) more and more diverse industries were developing along the Clyde so a move 15 or so miles to the village of Partick was just a days walk! We have relatives who made the same journey and the family names of the Kilbarchan weavers are scattered all over the country now.
Just an afterthought. If they could afford the ferry across the river Partick is/was probably less than 5 miles away!

Russell

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:42 am

Back again Nina

If you're searching census returns I suggest you restrict your searches to the South West of Scotland. Most silk weaving was done in Ayrshire/Renfrewshire areas.
The East of Scotland tended to work Jute, linen, hemp, wool - I was about to say 'coarser threads' but that denigrates the quality of the work they produced.

Russell

ninatoo · Post by **ninatoo** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:52 am

Thanks Russell. Hopefully your information will help me in my searches!

Nina

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:05 pm

Russell wrote:Hi Nina

I'll rise to David's bait Phhhhuih expert indeed!!!

.....everything else snipped ...............

ROFL

And one of those situations where I'm glad that I didn't have a mouthful of coffee that could well have been sprayed all over the keyboard, - the saving grace being that I've used artificial sweeteners for many years, - ever had to clean up a keyboard contaminated by a sugary drink

OK, OK, especially given Sam frae Californeeay's comments in another thread, see http://talkingscot.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 46&start=0 from which I quote ......

QUOTE

As to the question of me being an expert.

I hate being called an expert. Anyone who calls themselves an expert should be taken outside and shot with their own words.

So many experts, it turns out, can be surprised by wee tidbits they never knew anything about. There is no subject that can ever be entirely learned 100%. There are always new things to find out as I can testify to in all the years I've been working at the Los Angeles Centre. Whenever I'm invited to give a talk to a group or society around Southern California I make it very cear I'm no expert. I'm knowlegable in my subject, but no expert. Some friends and associates think it funny to introduce me as being an expert just to see my reaction.

ENDQUOTE

OK, so Russell is a knowledgeable person

, but there's many fewer letters to type in "expert".

My own favourite definition of "expert" is someone who knows ever increasingly more about an ever increasingly narrow area of specialisation, until they end up knowing everything about nothing

But then, by his reply, Russell has demonstrated exactly what I meant

David

Post by **Liz Turner** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:46 pm

There was a silk mill in the village of Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire - sadly now converted into flats! My mum gave a book compiled by the WRI in 1966 and sold by them to raise funds. I'll have a look tonight and see if anything is mentioned in that about the mill.

Liz

Post by **Liz Turner** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:17 pm

Hi there!

Further to Russell's post above (Lochwinnoch is right on the border between Ayrshire and Renfrewshire), here's an extract from the book about Lochwinnoch's weaving and silk trade.

Extract from A Short History of the Village and Parish of Lochwinnoch by the local SWRI – written 1966.

Occupations and Industries

… Spinning went on in most houses – in fact it was a daily occupation of the women, who spun and dyed the wool from their own sheep. This was in turn woven by their husbands, or sent to the village weaver to be woven into cloth. Afterwards the cloth was made up at home, or by the village tailor, who claimed exclusive rights to make women’s clothes as we as men’s, until about the end of the 15th Century.

About 1707 the farmers were encouraged to sow flax or lint seed; Crawfurd in this “Cairn of Lochwinnoch” tells us that “twenty-two farmers or rather their wives each sowed a peck. The guid wives spun it with rocks into thread”. These rocks or “whorls” were made of hard stone found at the quarry on the ground known as “Whirl Hill” and were used before the spinning wheel was introduced.

Linen manufacturers made some progress and at that period several houses of two storeys were built of free-stone from the Barr Quarry. These houses were in addition to the Kirktown. There was a company formed about 1740 which built a small factory for weaving linen, and this was extended in 1752. They made sprigged and spotted lawns and purled gauzes and cravats, all of linen. Humphrey Fultown introduced silk weaving in 1759 and by 1780 the silk gauze trade had replaced the linen. This in turn was overturned by cotton between 1785-90.

Weaving can claim equal antiquity with farming. Spinning was a daily occupation of the women and many farmers eked out their living by working at the loom. Flax and wool were woven, but into coarser fabrics, the finer fabrics being obtained from abroad.

Thread making was introduced in 1722 and more mills were erected, some with their own bleachworks, like Kirkwoods at Bridgend, Caldwell of Clarksbrig, Adam of Burnfoot, and Campbell of Calderhaugh. Michael Naismith introduced this industry and it was taken up by quite a few of the ladies. Caldwell’s were the first thread makers, but there were about twenty thread mills in the Parish. This trade lasted about 100 years, the last manufacturers also be Caldwell of Clarksbrig. ….

… The other mill at Calderhaugh, built in 1789, and originally driven by the waters of the river Calder, is now a quarter of its original size, having been burned in 1878. In 1825, a steam engine was erected to augment the water power for driving the machinery. This is the “Silk Mill”, but has not so many workers now. Silk is woven and tie-cloth of silk woven with acrilan and with wool. Marl tie-cloth is also woven, and mohair stoles and scarves (both tartan and plain), and wool head squares.

Beside these large mills, weaving was carried on extensively in private dwelling houses in Johnshill and elsewhere, some houses having as many as six or ten looms. Men and women wove bedmats and shawls.”

There is more in the book about the local bleachfields and the methods used, and about the local water mills, only one of which still used the wheel to drive machinery in the 1960s.

The building which is still referred to locally as “the silk mill” was converted into flats, probably around the late 1980s/early 1990s and is still beautiful to look at from the outside.

This extract is from a 46 page book and the local SWRI acknowledged the work of Miss M Speirs, Mrs E Anderson and Mrs B Marr who did so much research in the compilation of this book. [Miss Speirs, whom I vividly remember! was the infant mistress in the school when I was there in 1965; Mrs Anderson was well known locally for her interest in the village. She was a teacher in the Junior Secondary at Lochwinnoch, and also the grandmother of one of my classmates. Mrs Anderson died only last year; Mrs Marr was also a teacher at the Primary School and her son was in my class.] So it was definitely a book about the village by folk who lived in and loved it.

scml · Post by **scml** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:05 pm

Hi Nina,

I know there was some silk industry in Paisley, Renfrewshire, as in the 1851 census for one side of my family, a daughter is listed as a Silk Winder, Weaver.
This is at 3 Neilson Street, Paisley. It must have been a large building as there are at least seven families with all members of the family in a textile trade rangeing from Calico print work, Hand Loom weaver, Shawl Fringer, Weaver winder, Block Cutter Printwork, Hand Sewing Muslin, Hand Loom Silk Shawl Weaver, etc
The following houses in the street also have some type of industry.

Hope this helps

Jockbird · Post by **Jockbird** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:50 pm

Apols swift hijack here

BUT thanks for such an informative thread.

I have some Kilbarchans weavers (Thorburn) but I also have Wilsons from Kilmarnock, then onto Paisley, who were Silk Loom Weavers, I have Williamsons in Glasgow who were silk/handloom weavers and I've noticed that a lot of the daughters of my Ayrshire Ballantines, Hardies, Muirs etc were sewers or handloom weavers.

Thanks for a great insight as to what their homes/worklives may have been like.

Donna