Built of Wool: Worsted Collection

In 2009, Bradford District Museums and Galleries’ worsted collection was recognised by the Arts Council as being a collection of international importance and given ‘designated collection’ status. It preserves Bradford’s unique textile heritage and highlights the significant international role of Bradford, ‘Worstedopolis’, in the worsted industry. In a display at Bradford Industrial Museum and this blog, Dr Lauren Padgett, Assistant Curator of Collections, details what makes it so important.

The Rise of Worstedopolis

Worsted wool, originally manufactured by Flemish weavers in Worsted, Norfolk, in the 12^th century, is unlike woollen wool. It’s made from longer, straightened and, most importantly, combed wool fibres to create finer, stronger and smoother wool. Woollen manufacturing uses short uncombed fibres so it’s harder, fuzzy and bulky. In the 15^th century, King Edward IV allowed Bradford to hold two annual fairs so its wool trade thrived. Described as ‘a praty quik market toune’ in 1536, Bradford soon specialised in worsted. By 1770, it rivalled Norfolk in worsted production.

In the 19^th century, Bradford became the worsted capital of the world, or ‘Worstedopolis’ (a word coined by Bradford historian William Cudworth in 1888), for several reasons. It had access to key resources and supplies, such as: water, used to clean/scour wool; coal, to run steam-powered mills; sandstone, to build mills and warehouses; and canal networks, to receive bales of imported raw Australian merino wool best suited for worsted manufacturing.

Bradford’s worsted trade outgrew its small market place so Piece Halls, the first opening in 1773, and then larger wool-trading centres (Wool Exchanges) were built, expanding trade. By the 1820s, Bradford’s domestic/cottage system of spinning and weaving in homes, on spinning wheels and hand looms, had switched to the factory system, allowing worsted production on an industrial scale in mills.

 In 1798, Holme Mill, Thornton Road, became Bradford’s first steam-powered mill. The arrival of German merchants in Bradford in the 1830s led to the development of Little Germany, an area of trade warehouses and businesses, which improved Bradford’s commerce. In the late 1860s, fashion favoured worsted, particularly for tailored suits; Bradford’s worsted cloth catered for this fashion trend. Throughout the 19^th century and into the 20^th century, Bradford textile industrialists and inventors developed new mechanised methods of drawing, combing and weaving which improved and increased worsted production.

By 1836, there were 73 worsted mills in the parish of Bradford and 2,738 power looms in its mills. By the 1850s around two thirds of England’s wool was produced in Bradford. In its most successful era, Bradford’s wool industry provided 70,000 jobs, employing one in three Bradford workers. In 1900, the Bradford Observer newspaper declared “If we look around at our mills, our warehouses and our public buildings it needs no great effort to imagine that Bradford is built of wool…”.

Preserving the Past

However, by the mid-20^th century, Bradford’s wool trade was declining, largely due to overseas competition and the increasing popularity of synthetic fabrics and informal clothing, reducing the demand for worsted.There were approximately 2,000 textile mills in Bradford in 1925, reducing to 1,123 mills in 1950, then 825 in 1967. Two Bradford mills were closing every week.

By 1966, Bradford Council recognised that Bradford’s textile heritage was being lost as textile businesses collapsed and machines were scrapped. It decided to establish an industrial museum to preserve Bradford’s industrial past. Bradford’s Museums Service began collecting objects from these closing businesses and mills to build up a technology collection focusing on Bradford’s worsted industry.

Moorside Mills, a spinning mill originally built in 1875, closed and went up for sale in 1970. Bradford Council purchased and developed it before it opened as Bradford Industrial Museum on 14^th December 1974. By 1975, only 15 working textile mills remained in Bradford. At the Museum, the collected textile machines on display demonstrate the process of worsted production from raw fleece to woven cloth.

Worsted Collection

Over the following decades, Bradford’s Museums Service created a comprehensive collection of worsted-related objects as well as ones linked to supporting industries, such as engineering companies that made mill engines. The worsted collection includes textile machines and tools, fabric samples and designs, clothing, employee clocking-in machines, business documents, wool testing equipment and photographs of machines, mills and workers.

There are prototype models and examples of textile machines, invented by local industrialists, that modernised worsted production: Samuel Cunliffe-Lister’s nip and Isaac Holden’s square-motion combing machines, and Geoffrey Ambler’s Superdraft device which sped up the drawing process. One collection highlight is the 1853 sample book of Titus Salt’s pioneering alpaca cloth and another is a collection of fabric samples from Lister’s of Manningham Mills, Bradford – once the largest silk factory in the world – of its famous silk, velvet and artificial furs, as well as experimental Resilitex, a World War Two camouflage material.

There is a range of looms produced by Hattersley of Keighley, which made the worsted industry’s first power loom in 1834. On display are different innovative models of Hattersley looms as well as those of other makers, showing the development of mechanised weaving over the years, from a wooden 1840s hand loom to a 1980s Saurer power loom.

Today, our worsted collection is continually developed through displays, documentation, research and projects to further understand and enhance the collection, and better preserve and promote Bradford’s textile heritage. Projects include the West Yorkshire Textile Heritage project which explored significant textile collections in West Yorkshire museums and, more recently, a collaborative Arts and Humanities Research Council project to connect museum textile collections digitally across the UK.

To see objects from the worsted collection, visit Bradford Industrial Museum to see a display about it and look around the spinning and weaving galleries.