Cotton Spinning and Weaving The British had always woven cloth out of wool and flax (to make linen). From the seventeenth century, the country had been importing bales of cotton cloth from India at great cost. As the East India Company’s political control of parts of India was established, it began to import, along with cloth, raw cotton, which could be spun and woven into cloth in England. Till the early eighteenth century, spinning had been so slow and laborious that spinners (mostly women, hence the word ‘spinster’) were required to supply sufficient yarn to keep a single weaver busy.
Therefore, while spinners were occupied all day, weavers waited idly to receive yarn. But a series of technological inventions successfully closed the gap between the speed in spinning raw cotton into yarn or thread, and of weaving the yarn into fabric. To make it even more efficient, production gradually shifted from the homes of spinners and weavers to factories. From the 1780s, the cotton industry symbolised British industrialisation in many ways.
This industry had two features which were also seen in other industries. Raw cotton had to be entirely imported and a large part of the finished cloth was exported. This sustained the process of colonisation, Manpower (in this picture, woman- power) worked the treadmill that lowered the lid of the cotton press. ACTIVITY Ironbridge Gorge is today a major ‘heritage site’.
Can you suggest why? so that Britain could retain control over the sources of raw cotton as well as the markets. The industry was heavily dependent on the work of women and children in factories. This exemplified the ugly face of early industrialisation, as will be described below.