Handloom weaving in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire in the 19th century: the building evidence

Abstract

This paper reviews the building evidence for the survival of the home as workplace in 19th-century Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. Handloom weaving prospered rather than declined in the immediate aftermath of the introduction of mechanized spinning, and this prosperity is reflected in the numbers of purpose-built houses containing weaving shops in these two counties. Most were built not by the weavers or clothiers, but by people outside the textile industry as a source of income. The authors have attempted to classify the surviving stock of handloom weavers’ houses into a number of types and to account for their distribution. Documentary evidence has been utilized to determine for how long handloom weaving survived in a domestic context, and it is suggested that in some areas the domestic handloom remained in active use for at least 40 years after the first introduction of the power loom into Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. The paper is therefore a contribution to the archaeology of resistance, showing how this particular group of artisans cherished their illusory independence and resisted integration into the factory system for as long as possible.