Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Before 1800 weavers were present, but what type of weaving was undertaken is
not often clarified. However, in 1663 a ‘narrow-weaver’ acted as bondsman for a flaxdresser,
while two other weavers’ inventories list hempen cloth or tow. 103
In 1718 a
Tardebigge linen weaver took on an apprentice. 104
These examples indicate the use of
flax and hemp amongst the weavers of this zone, but some weavers owned sheep, and
many farmers hereabouts had large flocks. Many weavers may have woven both woollen
and linen cloth according to demand. In 1700 John Fewster of Sambourne had ‘thirtyfour
linen and woollen geares’ amongst his weaving equipment. Fewster had four looms
- probably more than the average for a local family weaving business. 105
For the most part this zone’s weavers probably received raw material and
marketed their products through towns such as Alcester and Bromsgrove, but there were
clothier-dealers in the villages too. In the early eighteenth century Thomas Lacy of
Feckenham was described as a dyer and husbandman, while Geoffrey Sambrook was a
wool-merchant and butcher. The vagaries of the textile and farming trades still dictated
against the small-time trader putting all his eggs in one basket, if he wished to avoid
financial crises. 106
In the 1720s Feckenham boasted two clothiers, who both doubled as publicans.
We can speculate that their pubs served as dealing centres, where they received yarn spun
by the local womenfolk and supplied it to the small family weaving businesses of the
103 WoRO, marriage licence of William Court, Feckenham, narrow-weaver, Sept. 1663, and of Thomas
Phillips, Offenham, flax-dresser, 1663 (month unclear), witnessed by William Court, Feckenham, weaver.
WoRO, probate of Edward Pearkes, Tardebigge, weaver, 1687, £23-0-6, and Humphrey Lewis,
Tardebigge, weaver, 1680, £22-9-2.
104 TNA, IR1/45, Abraham Miles of Tardebigge, linenweaver.
105 WoRO, probate of John Fewster, Sambourne, (Coughton), weaver, 1700, £74-13-10.
106 WoRO, probate of Thomas Lacy, Feckenham, dyer/husbandman, 1711, £14-1-10. Lacy was only
appraised at £14 with no specialist dyeing equipment listed; his dyeing business was probably a smallscale,
occasional affair. References to Geoffrey Sambrook include SCLA, ER139/142 and WaRO,
Coughton burials, 1723, burial of Jeffery Sambrooke, butcher, poor.
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