Silk industry of Cheshire

The supply of silk from Italy was precarious and some hand throwing was done, giving way after 1732 to water-driven mills, which were established in Stockport and Macclesfield.

To the east of the county the landscape changes dramatically from the alluvial plain of Central Cheshire to the hill country of the Peak District.

In 1700 the favoured silk was produced by a moth (Bombyx mori), that used it to spin a closed cocoon to protect her larvae.

Silk fibres from the Bombyx mori silkworm have a triangular cross section with rounded corners, 5–10 μm wide.

The cocoons were harvested and placed in troughs of hot water that dissolved the gum and allowed the single thread to be wound into a skein.

[5][6] The process was described in detail to Lord Shaftesbury's Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Employment of Children in 1841: For twisting it is necessary to have what are designated shades which are buildings of at least 30 or 35 yards in length, of two or more rooms, rented separately by one, two or four men having one gate and a boy called a helper... the upper storey is generally occupied by children, young persons or grown women as 'piecers', 'winders' and 'doublers' attending to their reels and bobbins, driven by the exertions of one man...

Supposing the master to make twelve rolls a day, the boy necessarily runs fourteen miles, and this is barefooted.

[7] In 1700, the Italians were the most technologically advanced throwsters in Europe and had developed two machines capable of winding the silk onto bobbins while putting a twist in the thread.

In the twentieth century, Macclesfield Silk Pictures became famous, these were woven on these looms by firms such as the BWA (Brocklehurst Whiston Amalgamated).

Buildings would be divided from one owner working the silk in a vertical mill, to multiple tenants who would specialise in different aspects of the industry.

In an inventory of Stephen Rowe's house in 1617 – amounts of raw materials, namely hair, thread, linen yarn and silk – quantities of finished buttons- four gross – and in addition goods to the value of £3 9s 6d put forth to out workers.

Chapmen could be merchants who rode through the villages hawking their silkcloth and buttons, but many owned land and traded directly with the London.

Silk processing skills were established in England by French Protestant Huguenots refugees after they had been expelled France following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

[13] But silk-throwing was already happening in Cheshire, for example in Rainow where a John Massey is recorded as owning one black cow, some sheep, three old ladders and a silk twisting wheel.

The architect George Sorocold built it next to Thomas Cotchett's failed 1704 mill (which used copies of Dutch throwing machines) on the west bank of the River Derwent.

To the north of the powered Italian works an un-powered doubling shop was built at some time before 1739, and when this mill was sold in 1739 to Thomas Wilson an inventory taken which still exists today.

Lombe's patent had been fiercely contested by artisans in Stockport and Macclesfield who looked to supply the Spitalfield silk weavers.

Samuel Oldknow later introduced cotton to Stockport in 1784, capitalising on the machine manufacturing and textile skills developed in silk.

This prompted John Clayton and his new partner Nathaniel Pattison, a silk merchant from London, to raise £5000, and secure the water rights and the agreement of the town council to build the Old Mill at Congleton.

Samuel Finney of Wilmslow described this and explained that a good woman could earn four shillings a week, and even a child of six could support themselves by assisting in the preparatory processes.

Charles Roe built the Button Mill in 1743, where he installed two Italian filatoio (water-driven throwing machines of the type used in Derby), and a dye house.

Charles Roe left the silk industry in 1760, selling his share in his business for £10,000, and when the Seven Years' War finished in 1763, there was great hardship.

One of the weavers, Margaret Moborn was induced to leave and work for the James Pearson in a weaving shed in Sunderland Street.

Recessions continued on a ten yearly cycle and as fewer firms survived, the techniques were refined, new products were produced, and management became more adept.

In hard times 3,000 townsfolk left and joined them, and in 1900 the Paterson newspaper regularly included the Births, Marriages and Deaths column from the Macclesfield Chronicle.

Macclesfield Sunday School was founded in 1796 by non-conformists, and the large building that now houses the Heritage Centre was built in 1813–1815.

Hand embroidery was a cottage craft, Augustus William Hewetson came to Macclesfield at fourteen, on the death of his father.

It was described by Yates in 1822:The first silk mill which is the largest and most conspicuous structure in Congleton, is built of brick, with a pediment containing the dialplate of a clock in the centre.

Between 1860 and 1950 fustian cutting was Congleton's dominant industry and took over the empty spinning and throwing mills, though from 1930 to the late 1970s towelling and making-up were important.

Berisfords ribbons, founded in 1858, continued making labels from Victoria Mill, in Worrall Street into the twenty-first century.