The more looms system was a productivity strategy introduced in the Lancashire cotton industry, whereby each weaver would manage a greater number of looms. It was an alternative to investing in the more productive Northrop automatic looms in the 1930s. It caused resentment, resulted in industrial action, and failed to achieve any significant cost savings.
For one hundred years the weaving sheds of Lancashire had been equipped with cast iron constructed looms not dissimilar to the original Roberts loom, invented by Richard Roberts. They were driven by leather belts from line shafts. They were closely packed together in pairs with a narrow alley. One weaver was responsible for four looms; it was her duty to replace the weft in the shuttle when it ran out. The weft was on a pirn, so she stopped the loom, found the shuttle, removed it, and bent the shuttle peg containing the pirn towards her; removed the pirn and replaced it with a fresh one. She placed a loop of thread close to the inside of the eye and in an operation called kissing the shuttle, sucked it through. The shuttle was ready. It was placed back in the sley, [lower-alpha 1] and all loose threads cut off and removed. A final check and the loom was restarted. The loom operates at 220 picks per minute [lower-alpha 2] and the weaver is paid by the piece. [lower-alpha 3] She was adept at balancing her work keeping all the looms running, so only one would be stopped at one time. Labour costs were a significant proportion of the cost in producing cloth. [3]
In the UK depression of the 1920s and the subsequent world depression, methods were sought to reduce the labour cost by reducing the number of weavers employed. This was controversial, as the weaver saw themselves as underpaid per piece and were being forced to underwork as production had exceeded demand. Before the war, the weaver had been paid 25% more than an unskilled engineering worker but in the late twenties the skilled weaver has paid less. However, for a woman it was a well paid job.
The weavers were represented by the Amalgamated Weavers' Association. [4]
The more looms system was one management inspired solution to bring more looms into production using a reduced number of weavers overall. The Lancashire cotton industry had considered re-equipping with the Northrop automatic loom with automatic weft stop and shuttle replenishment. Experiments in 1932 showed that with Northrops a weaver could tenter 40 looms though 24 was more usual. This solution was rejected as the industry couldn't raise the capital needed to reinvest, and there were doubts whether the investment could be recouped. [5]
The mechanics of their contract were such that an underemployed weaver could not claim unemployment insurance, and unlike the spinners who had a strong union system they were not prepared to work to a rota of staggered employment and voluntary unemployment, so the insurance would cut in. [6]
The more looms system was designed to substantially reduce labour costs in order to make the industry more competitive. [5] It would take out some looms and reduce the workforce by thirty percent. The more looms system aimed at doubling the number of looms that a weaver would tenter while making modest changes to the conditions of working. One was to respace the looms using horizontal alleys at the end of each eight loom set making access easier. Another was to increase the size of the cop on each pirn to make refilling times longer. The speed of the loom was reduced to 180 picks per minute. The piece rates were to be adjusted so the weaver on more looms would be marginally better off. [4] Experiments carried out in Burnley in 1929 showed a wage saving of 20% to 30% could be made which would reduce the overall cost of the cloth by 2% to 7%. [4]
The unions' approach was confusing. They wanted to implement more looms, but were opposed to it as it didn't pay a man enough so his wife could stay at home. [4] The employers' associations would not pay such a rate. The Burnley Employers Association attempted to introduce the system without union agreement in 1931. This resulted in the industrial disputes of 1931, when the Amalgamated Weavers' Association (AWA) organised a strike, which led to a country-wide lockout. [7] The Nelson Weavers' Association, in which Independent Labour Party members were prominent, felt that the AWA was too keen to make concessions, and organised its own delegation. Led by Zeph Hutchinson, this met with Arthur Greenwood and ILP Members of Parliament. [8] The employers were not united and backed down. [7]
In 1932 the employers issued a wage cut, and after a month of struggle an agreement was brokered which included a 6 looms more-looms option. [4] In 1933 Burnley employers introduced a 6-looms system for about a third of its workers. A third continued on the four loom rates and a third continued a four loom system while paying 6 loom rates.
The Cotton Industry Act 1934 legalised weavers' wage rates forcing employers to pay the standard wage rates that had been negotiated through collective bargaining. [3] The effect of the 1934 rates were that a four loom weaver would have an average wage of 33s 9d while a six-loom more-loom weaver would get 41s 7d. [9]
By 1935 employers in other towns had discovered that they were not realising any savings and would incur costs in implementing the system, [10] the employers enthusiasm for change waned. [11]
Improvements in weaver's rates were made in 1936, though not an agreement for a minimum wage. An upturn in demand in 1937 reduced the number of underemployed weavers, and more-looms was put on hold. [10]
During the hostilities all manufacture was under Government control. Buildings were requisitioned for the war effort, and the quiet spinning mills and weaving sheds of Lancashire were put to other purposes. A good example is how Rover and Rolls-Royce moved into Barnoldswick to produce and later design aero engines. When weaving was re-established in the early 1950s, expectations and attitudes had changed, and the thousand loom sheds such as Queen Street Mill were laid out in eight and ten loom sets and the weavers were on minimum wage contracts. Britain had become a net importer of cotton cloth. Slowly each mill began weaving out. The last mill Bancroft Shed closed in December 1978. [12]
A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft, woof, or filling. The method in which these threads are interwoven affects the characteristics of the cloth. Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band that meets this definition of cloth can also be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back strap loom, or other techniques that can be done without looms.
The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialisation of textile manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 or 1765 by James Hargreaves in Stan hill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England.
A power loom is a mechanized loom, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. The first power loom was designed and patented in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright. It was refined over the next 47 years until a design by the Howard and Bullough company made the operation completely automatic. This device was designed in 1834 by James Bullough and William Kenworthy, and was named the Lancashire loom.
The flying shuttle is a type of weaving shuttle. It was a pivotal advancement in the mechanisation of weaving during the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution, and facilitated the weaving of considerably broader fabrics, enabling the production of wider textiles. Moreover, its mechanical implementation paved the way for the introduction of automatic machine looms.
A shuttle is a tool designed to neatly and compactly store a holder that carries the thread of the weft yarn while weaving with a loom. Shuttles are thrown or passed back and forth through the shed, between the yarn threads of the warp in order to weave in the weft.
Textile manufacturing is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods such as clothing, household items, upholstery and various industrial products.
Four Loom Weaver, probably derived from "The Poor Cotton Weaver" is a 19th-century English lament on starvation. One source also names it Jone o Grinfilt though this title usually refers to different lyrics and score, which is about the naiveté of country folk. Actually, it is very similar to Jone o'Grinfilt Junior which can be found in John Harland's Ballads and Songs of Lancashire. Jone o Grinfilt is believed to have been written by Joseph Lees of Glodwick, near Oldham in the 1790s.
The Draper Corporation was once the largest maker of power looms for the textile industry in the United States. It operated in Hopedale, Massachusetts for more than 130 years.
A weavers' cottage was a type of house used by weavers for cloth production in the putting-out system sometimes known as the domestic system.
The Northrop Loom was a fully automatic power loom marketed by George Draper and Sons, Hopedale, Massachusetts beginning in 1895. It was named after James Henry Northrop who invented the shuttle-charging mechanism.
The Lancashire Loom was a semi-automatic power loom invented by James Bullough and William Kenworthy in 1842. Although it is self-acting, it has to be stopped to recharge empty shuttles. It was the mainstay of the Lancashire cotton industry for a century.
Queen Street Mill is a former weaving mill in Harle Syke, a suburb to the north-east of Burnley, Lancashire, that is a Grade I listed building. It now operates as a museum and cafe. Currently open for public tours between April and November. Over winter the café is opened on Wednesdays. It is also viewable with private bookings.
A beamer was an occupation in the cotton industry. The taper's beam is a long cylinder with flanges where 400 plus ends (threads) are wound side-by-side. Creels of bobbins with the correct thread, mounted on a beaming frame wind their contents onto the beam. The machine is watched over by a "beamer".
A weaving shed is a distinctive type of mill developed in the early 1800s in Lancashire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire to accommodate the new power looms weaving cotton, silk, woollen and worsted. A weaving shed can be a stand-alone mill, or a component of a combined mill. Power looms cause severe vibrations requiring them to be located on a solid ground floor. In the case of cotton, the weaving shed needs to remain moist. Maximum daylight is achieved, by the sawtooth "north-facing roof lights".
Bancroft Shed was a weaving shed in Barnoldswick, Lancashire, England, situated on the road to Skipton. Construction was started in 1914 and the shed was commissioned in 1920 for James Nutter & Sons Limited. The mill closed on 22 December 1978 and was demolished. The engine house, chimneys and boilers have been preserved and maintained as a working steam museum. The mill was the last steam-driven weaving shed to be constructed and the last to close.
"Kissing the shuttle" is the term for a process by which weavers used their mouths to pull thread through the eye of a shuttle when the pirn was replaced. The same shuttles were used by many weavers, and the practice was unpopular. It was outlawed in the U.S. state of Massachusetts in 1911 but continued even after it had been outlawed in Lancashire, England in 1952. The Lancashire cotton industry was loath to invest in hand-threaded shuttles, or in the more productive Northrop automatic looms with self-threading shuttles, which were introduced in 1902.
Piece-rate lists were the ways of assessing a cotton operatives pay in Lancashire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They started as informal agreements made by one cotton master and their operatives then each cotton town developed their own list. Spinners merged all of these into two main lists which were used by all, while weavers used one 'unified' list.
Harle Syke mill is a weaving shed in Briercliffe on the outskirts of Burnley, Lancashire, England. It was built on a green field site in 1856, together with terraced houses for the workers. These formed the nucleus of the community of Harle Syke. The village expanded and six other mills were built, including Queen Street Mill.
Steaming or artificial humidity was the process of injecting steam from boilers into cotton weaving sheds in Lancashire, England, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The intention was to prevent breakages in short-staple Indian Surat cotton which was introduced in 1862 during a blockade of American cotton at the time of the American Civil War. There was considerable concern about the health implications of steaming. Believed to cause ill health, this practice became the subject of much campaigning and investigation from the 1880s to the 1920s. A number of Acts of Parliament imposed modifications.
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