A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE been the same morning growing on the sheep's back. At 5 a.m. two sheep were shorn, the wool washed, stubbed, roved, spun and woven ; the cloth scoured, fulled, tented, raised, sheared, dyed and dressed. At 4 p.m. the cloth was finished. James White and his nine tailors finished the coat long before the sun had set, and the baronet appeared wear- ing it in the presence of 5,000 people. The coat was a hunting kersey, ' of a dark Welling- ton colour.' There were great festivities, a large oil-painting was made of the persons who were engaged or interested in the feat. The coat was exhibited at the great exhibi- tion of 1851, and still hangs in the hall of Buckland House as a permanent memorial of a curious industrial achievement. At Reading, when the Civil War put an end to the making of the good broadcloth for which the town was famous, the Oracle was turned into a garrison and then into a work- house for the poor. An attempt was made to revive the industry. An entry in the Corporation Diary in 1695 states that Samuel Watlington, ' who had 200 of Mr. Kendrick's money, should employ 20 poor persons charge- able to each parish.' In the following year an order was made ' for the blue-boys' gowns to be bought of Mr. Watlington, mayor, of that cloth which is made in the Oracle.' 1 In 1703, owing to the loss of 1,100 caused by the mismanagement of the custodians, all the looms were ordered to be taken out of the building. In 1716 poor people were em- ployed there in spinning coarse flax for sail cloth. Sheeting, sail cloth, floor cloth, and sacking goods continued to be manu- factured here [for over a century. The in- dustry spread, and manufactories were opened in other parts of the town. In 1719 a peti- tion was presented to the House of Com- mons from the Mayor, Aldermen, burgesses, and clothiers, drugget-makers, etc., of the borough of Reading, in behalf of themselves and several thousands depending upon them. In Katesgrove Lane Mr. Musgrave Lamb had in 1816 an old-established factory which produced sail cloth remarkable for its strength and whiteness, owing to a peculiar process the yarn was exposed to in boiling before it was woven. This sail cloth was extensively pur- chased by the Government for the use of the Navy and by the East India Company. About 140 looms were employed in this trade alone, some of which were capable of weaving cloths six or seven yards wide. 3 At the beginning of the last century a floorcloth 1 Coates, Hist, of Reading, p. 147. a Man, Hist, of Reading, p. 161. manufactory existed in the town, the cloth being sent to London to be painted. Sacking was also made at Wantage, a poor substitute for the far-famed Berkshire cloth, once well known in the chief markets of the world. Dr. Mavor reported that in 1808 considerable quantities of sacking and hammocks were manufactured at Wantage for the use of the Government, and that five principal masters have establishments for making a kind of white cloth, called foul-weather, chiefly for the use of the labouring poor. The water was excellently adapted for fulling and many hands were employed. The cause of the decay of Berkshire cloth- making is not far to seek, apart from the special causes which have already been enumerated. The activity of the northern clothiers, the improvement in the manu- facture of cloth, the introduction of machin- ery, and with it the factory system, spinning- jennies, carding machines, and like inventions, due to the spirit of industry and inventive genius "of the clothiers in the large manufac- turing districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, turned the tide of fortune elsewhere. Dis- tressed weavers and spinners fled northward, and the prosperity of the county as a great manufacturing locality for a time ceased. At Newbury the trade lingered on well into the last century, where in 1808 kerseys, cottons, calicoes, linen and damask were manufactured, and also a colony of Witney blanket makers settled in the town and produced blankets in no way inferior to the products of the famous Witney looms. Only in one town in Berkshire does the clothing industry still find a home, and that is in the town once famous for the same manu- facture, Abingdon. Leland stated in the time of Henry VIII. that ' the town stondeth by clothing.' It had its great merchants in mediaeval times, and the abbot had his full- ing mill, which became as ruinous as his own monastery. The charter of James I. shows that an attempt was made to revive the clothing industry by establishing a wool market, and the setting of the inhabitants to the working of sheep's wool, woollen thread and yarn. Amongst the members of the companies into which the inhabitants were ' to be sorted and severed,' clothworkers and sheremen are mentioned in the year 1669. The spinning and weaving of flax was a flourishing industry in the eighteenth century. Coarse cloth used for sacking, and other purposes, which have already been mentioned, continued to be made, and is still to some extent maintained. At the beginning of the last century the Abingdon manufacturers of sacking had a 394
