EDWARD BLANKET.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 30, 25 July 1891, Page 205

EDWARD BLANKET.

The world has been ungrateful enough to one of its truest benefactors, the inventor of the blanket, to leave even his bare existence in doubt. One may search the dictionaries of biography in vain for the life of Edward Blanket, sometime Mayor of Bristol. In most of those encyclopa-dic productions that profess to inform the ignorant about everything, but in truth do little but mislead them, we are airily told that the myth that blankets take their name from that of the Mayor of Bristol must be dismissed as possessing no foundation. And we are offered a choice of derivations. It comes, we are told, through blanchet, the printer’s blanket which he lays between the tympans or machine cyclinders, from blanc,' because, says Menage, ‘ etoit originairement d’etoffe blanche,’ as to which it might be added, one would not have thought it. But we may ignore the etymologists if we can accept the fact that Edward Blanket is interred at St. Stephen’s Church, Bristol. The name of Blanket figures on the civic roll five hundred years ago. But the story of his life, to say the least, is involved in not a little obscurity. There is no doubt whatever that Bristol was at that time a seat of the woollen manufacturers, for Leeds and Biadford as yet were not. The Bristol weavers, too, were, no doubt, a nourishing community. Edward Blanket must, however, have been in a very small way of business, and, as the story goes, it was owing to his poverty that he hit upon the happy idea which made him a benefactor to mankind. One cold night, finding the hard, unyielding covers of camlet, which were all that was known in the way of bedclothes in his day, singularly unsatisfactory, Mr Blanket, we are told, thought of a piece of soft, untrimmed cloth, and conceived the happy idea of using it as bedcovering. We may judge of the results, for the next day he set his loombs working to manufacture cloth to keep folks warm by night instead of by day. 11 is easy to imagine the revolution that followed. A new luxury was ottered to the world at the time when luxuries were rare. * Blankets ’ were, it is said, at once in demand for the Royal palaces, and the noble castles, and even the Welsh, as we may well believe, hastened to give over sleeping under their goat skins. Thus Edward Blanket achieved, if not fame, at least wealth and honour. There are legends of politics and Parliament, but if true he did not eclipse his reputation as a manufacturer. But all that remains to remind us of him to-day is a tomb in the north aisle of St. Stephen’s Church, on which are two figures lying on their backs (though we do not know whether they are actually covered with a blanket), which represent, it is said, the worthy clothier and his wife. The story as it stands is not without a certain dramatic interest of its own. And it may be said to be si non vero, ben trovato. But we doubt whether the use of blankets hail not originated long before the time of the Worthy Mayor of

Bristol. The manufacture of woollen goods is one of the most ancient on the face of the globe, and is said in the school books to have existed in Babylonia. But, it may be remarked that if we can believe the archmologists there are very few things which did not exist in Babylonia, or were unknown to the Assyrians, with their purple and gold. And it is not a little remarkable that their discoveries (for doubtless, the manufactures of Babylonia took out patents) should have all been so totally forgotten. But did not Jason go in search of the Golden Fleece? Long before Jason s time, however, we have on the highest authority evidence that woollen coverings were regarded as a dangerous luxury, for did not Moses prohibit the Jews from wearing clothes woven as woollen-linen. Coming down to later times, we know that England was famous for its woollen goods from the earliest period : and even during the Roman occupation Winchester was noted for its cloths, if not its blankets. The annals of worsted in Norfolk show that that branch of the industry was introduced by Flemish weavers. But where did they get it from? Ami where did the woollen weavers of Flanders, who headed by John Kemp, were received with open arms by Edward 111., get their knowledge from ? Holland, again, which was so famous for the dexterity of its artificers engaged in this manufacture, is at least as likely to have invented blankets as a Bristol clothier. Nor did the invention of blankets, if it be rightly attributed to Edward Blanket or not, lay the foundation of the English woollen trade. Foreign competition may have had something to do with it, for we know that the woollen workers were busy in France and Flanders, and we know that a number of English manufacturers emigrated and established important centres at Leyden and Alkmaar, which shows that the outlook was not promising in the old country. The real truth appears to be that blankets were not invented by anybody so much as developed by a process of evolution. The primitive man who covered himself with skins of animals, instead of like, as some will have it, his first progenitor the baboon, encouraging a growth of natural covering, laid the foundations of that luxury for which we, his hapless descendants, have now to pay the penalty. It makes one shudder in these regenerate days to think of the Oriental camlet that was made of camel’s hair. It must have been a covering fit for a hermit, or for an anchorite anxious to do penance. But the camlet itself underwent changes of a curious character, coming to be made of hair of Angora goats, and then later this was mixed with silk, or with the warp of silk and woof twisted together with wool or hair. Our blankets to-day would have made our ancestors stare. One is tempted, indeed, to think that the wares vended by Edward Blanket 500 years ago must have been very poor affairs after all, for all the fuss that, as the story goes, was made about them. But, although it sounds strange, the finest blankets, it appears, find their way into the American market. In the States they will have, as everyone knows, things as luxurious as they make them, and the wealthy New Yorkers insist upon blankets being manufactured for them at about a hundred dollars a pair or so. The trade is quite enthusiastic about the quality. But this is not to be wondered at. and we hope that the fact will be of some comfort to the British manufacturers, now that they are depressed by a study of the McKinley tariff*.