I have known for quite a while about the Weavers in my mother's family who left Belgium as Huguenots and settled in Spitalfields in London in the late 16th century.
What I hadn't fully realised is that the silk industry was operating in other centres outside London. Some of these centres of industry were due to the arrival of the Huguenot refugees. Others came later, in the late 18th century as employers in London looked for ways to evade the regulations of the Spitalfields Acts. Silk mills could be found in a number of counties, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire to name a few.
The silk industry comprised many parts including the import of the raw threads, creation of dyes, designs and the cloth itself, then there were also mercers and exporters of the finished article. There were several mills in Hampshire including at Overton and Whitchurch. The Whitchurch Mill has been restored and is a working mill today, open to visitors and tourists. William Maddick took over the Whitchurch Mill and converted it to weave silk in the early 19th century. He was a successful silk manufacturer from Spitalfields. He may have known other people in the industry in Hampshire before he arrived.
There are streets in existence today in Andover named Spindle, Silkweavers which provide clues to past industry there. The family of my great great great grandmother Mary Hammond were silk workers in Andover. In the 1841 census both Mary and her mother are listed as Silk Weavers. The work was hard, unhealthy and poorly paid and they mostly worked from home, the loom taking up a large portion of space there.
Andover had grown with the wool trade and was one of the smaller towns where a thriving community of silkweavers became established. Mary's father John, was recorded as a weaver on the marriage certificates for some of her siblings. Mary had nine brothers and sisters and at least seven of them are recorded at some stage as weavers. England at this time, early 19th century, was facing some unrest. Age old methods were changing on the land and through industralisation. The early years of the century and the war with Napolean made imports difficult and pushed up the prices of food. New machinery meant less men were required to work the land, and for the weavers the larger mechanised looms were too large to have in their homes and could produce silk more quickly than those working at home.
On 20 November 1830 about 300 labourers marched into Andover demanding better pay and conditions for farm workers. They destroyed a large amount of property at an iron foundry which was manufacturing some of the new agricultural machinery. These riots took place in a wave across southern England and became known as "Swing Riots". Several of the ringleaders were arrested and tranported to New South Wales. Despite this unrest, seven of Mary's siblings chose to take their families from Andover and move to the overcrowding, disease and pollution of Spitalfields. Maybe they hoped there might still be the chance of employment in the historic centre of the silk trade in England.
Between 1823 and 1856 two mills operated near New Street in Andover employing up to 90 women. It is possible that Mary, her sister Ann and their mother worked at one of them.
Henry VIII had hoped to be able to produce silk in England and had many Mulberry trees planted, however the variety which was suitable for silk worms was not suitable to the English climate. Raw silk was imported from India and parts of Europe. The cocoons needed to be unravelled and wound into skeins. Children were often employed to do this as they had smaller, more agile fingers to unknot the thread if required or to re-tie broken filaments.
The skeins were then placed into bales and taken to the mill to be processed. Here the silk would be cleaned, twisted and wound on to bobbins. Silk throwing is the process where the filament from the bobbins is given its full twist, doubling is when the filaments or threads from three or more bobbins are wound together. These last two steps can occur more than once. Often the process as a whole was referred to as silk throwing, or as twisting and spinning.
Some of Mary's brothers were recorded as Silk Throwers, sometimes this referred to the Master, and sometimes to a child. The role was originally a hand process relying on a turning wheel that twisted four threads while a helper (who would be a child) ran the length of a shade, hooked the threads on stationary pins and ran back to start the process again. The shade, similar to a rope walk, would be between 23 and 32 metres long. Supposing that twelve rolls were made in a day, the child would run about fourteen miles barefoot.
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