EVOLUTION OF THE WOOL TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 142, 13 December 1923, Page 20

EVOLUTION OF THE WOOL TRADE

ROMAN FACTORY AT WINCHESTER

(raou o» own coitMSPOMDraT.) LONDON, 19th October. Sir Henry Whitehead, a well-known figure in the wool trade.in this country, gave an interesting lecture last, week at Halifax, when he presented some facts of history which are not generally known even by those most intimately connected with the trade. r

There is a complete plant of scouring, pulling, and pressing apparatus in the runuf at Pompeii, said Sir Henry, which, although of a primitive nature, showi that the manufacture and finishing of cloth was known to the Romans and •who at that early period knew how to take advantage of the felting properties of wool. In the museum at Lyons there is an exhibit of Persian fabrics of the fourth century, which shows that the Persians were artist* in the production of tissues something like 1500 years ago, and probably earlier. The earliest mention of cloth made in these islands is the record of. Queen Boadicea wearing a tumo of wool cloth checked with many colonrs, which, he contended, showed that the ancient Britons had a primitive knowledge of making cloth, although' history did not record how. The earliest mention of a factory for wool spinning and weaving was the establishment of one at Winchester by the Romans during their occupation of this country To encourage the wool industry Charles 11. made an enactment that every Englishman should be buried in a wool shroud, and this extraordinary law was actually on the Statute Book from 1678 to 1815. This was said to have contributed very largely and Very substantially to the growth of wool manufacture in this country. Even to-day, Sir Henry pointed out, the wool trade has a national recognition in the fact that it is the "Woolsack" on which the Lord Chancellor sits. In 1752 Yorkshire presented a petition to Parliament, describing wool manufacture, as the most extensive in the Kingdom, and the most certain source of riches. That,was only partially true today, proceeded Sir Henry, but ifnhey used the word Empire instead of Kingdom, then the words of 1752 were equally true, as the wealth derived from the wool growers of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, combined with the manufacturers of Britain, made the British Empire a veritable land of the golden fleece. Also, in' 1752, Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, KeighleJ, Birstall. Guiseley, and Bingley, as th'l great wool centres, united in a petition to Parliament against the use by the farmers of pitch and tar branding Bheep, as "this spoiled the wool for weaving."