NOTES ON OCTOBER 2007 MEETING

The Early Woollen Industry in Cumbria

The Alston Moor Historical Society was pleased to welcome well-known and highly regarded historian Mike Davies-Shiel to their October meeting. Mike has a very wide range of topics in his speaking repertoire but perhaps the one in most demand is ‘The Early Woollen Industry in Cumbria' and this is the one he delivered most eloquently to the Society. The talk was well illustrated in a most detailed and comprehensive manner and covered aspects of the industry dating back to medieval times.

The wool industry in Cumbria was arguably bigger and more important than is generally realised at the present time. There were more than 600 fulling mills in Cumbria - more than in any other part of the country and there is much evidence of this heritage. Family names such as Webster, Shepherd, Yeoman , Fuller, Kilner, Chapman and Shearer, plus many others, can be traced back to their wool connections. Spinsters would be the nimble fingered daughters of the family who would produce the spun threads. In due course their hands would become rheumatic and they would, like their mothers before them, then only be able to work as carders, combing out the wool before passing it to the spinsters.

There are a number of expressions that have been brought into every day language which are derived from the wool industry. When a sheep was being judged for the quality of its fleece, the strands of wool would be parted and if the skin showing was healthy, the animal would be declared ‘in the pink'. The wool cloth would always shrink and the pieces were always made too big so that the buyer got ‘full measure' rather than ‘short measure'. A piece of cloth would start life at over 32 yards but after shrinkage would be a minimum of 21 yards. To keep the piece of cloth square during processing, it would be held rigid on a frame (tenter) and held in position by tenterhooks – another word in modern usage but the antecedents of which may not be known. There is evidence of many tenterbanks throughout Cumbria, including the Alston area, where a number can be seen along the Nenthead road. Tenterbanks are strip plateaus of land over 30 yards long where the tenter frames were erected.

Whole towns and villages were devoted to the production of cloth, such was the demand. In medieval times 95% of the population were poor and it was considered that wool cloth was good enough for them. Clothing was, much as it still is, a social statement and it was possible to learn the place of an individual in the social hierarchy by observing the style and quality of clothing. The longer the garment, the more highly placed and rich would be the wearer. Thus nobility clothing would be down to the ground while the well-to-do merchant classes would be knee length. The bulk of the population, coming in the category of ‘poor', would wear short apparel but just long enough to cover the private areas!

In 1571 Elizabeth 1 passed an act that required all but the upper classes must wear a knitted and fulled cap on Sundays and Holy days on pain of a fine of 3s.4d – something like 40 days wages. Understandably knitted goods became the ‘in' thing and demand for knitting yarn increased. Inevitably, as would be the case in modern times, people were looking for something different to their neighbour either by way of colour or style. The ensuing 200 years saw the development of an enormous market for new fashionable clothes and Royalty no longer dared to restrict the right of the public to express themselves more flamboyantly than hitherto. Thinner cloths of more than one colour and with patterns and designs, e.g. stripes and herring bone, woven into them became available. Most of these ‘New Drapery' patterns can be seen in the c.1769 pattern book in Kendal Town Hall.

Cumbria was so successful in the wool industry as the raw materials needed to support woollen mills were present in abundance. The land, whilst not necessarily good for arable crops, was well suited for the rearing of sheep and there was an abundant supply of bracken, soft water, rain and water power to operate the mills.

Whilst many of the traces of the wool industry are no longer apparent, its legacy is still there for all to see. Inns and hostelries are named after facets of the industry e.g. the Woolpack, Golden Fleece, Shearers Arms, Shepherds Arms, Shoulder of Mutton, and Drovers Arms. Throughout Cumbria buildings bear signs and design features relating to wool. There are many examples in Penrith including at Shearers Yard. Coats of Arms include implements relating to the wool trade and bear testimony to its importance to the prosperity of the area.

The next meeting of the Society will be on the 7 th November in the Alston Masonic Hall when Terence Cousin will speak about the impact of drainage projects on the North Pennines and its waterways.