INDUSTRIES Government contract, but this ceased a little later. A different kind of cloth was then used for hammocks, and one manufacturer, Thomas Westbrook, used to make 300 pieces a week of 24 yards each. A little later the industry declined, and only 700 pieces were made in the whole town. However, the industry found employment for 3,000 men, women, and children in Abingdon and the surrounding villages, and above 1,800 in the town alone. The Abingdon Sack Hiring Company, under the directions of Mr. Cope- land, manufactures sacks and sacking and rick cloths. But the old reputation of the town as a centre of the clothing industry is chiefly maintained by the manufactory of Messrs. Clarke, Sons & Co., who employ hundreds of workpeople both in the town and in the surrounding villages. The Abingdon Carpet Manufacturing Company's works (Messrs. Shepherd Brothers) have been established many years. The firm has still original hand-looms working upon jute weaving in the same style as in 1825, when Abingdon was the first town to establish this industry. The manufacture of rush and twine matting existed in Abingdon in 1808, and was then considered a new inven- tion, and large quantities were sold, being well adapted for halls and staircases. In the company's works ' Isis ' matting is woven from the rushes that grow on the banks of the Thames, also cocoa-nut matting, and rugs and carpets and heavy ' Windsor ' pile. It is pleasant to reflect that the industry has not quite forsaken the county which once produced Reading broadcloth and Winch- comb's Kersies. SILK MANUFACTURE It is generally held that the silk trade did not make much progress in England until the year 1585, when the Flemish weavers were driven from their country by religious perse- cutions. If that be so, the industry must have found almost its earliest home in Berk- shire, for at Wokingham in this county it was evidently established soon after that year, and the making of silk stockings became at an early date an important feature of its industrial history, and was legislated for by the muni- cipality. It is impossible, as far as we can determine, to discover who first started the making of silken hose in Wokingham. The industry was however much practised in the town at the beginning of the seventeenth century, as the following drastic laws relating to the trade appear among the old bye-laws of the borough promulgated in 1625 : * ' 2 1 st. Order against persons refusing to knitt silk stockings not having any other trade and their penalty. Poor people refusing to work at the trade of Silk Stockings and not suffering their children to be put to work in the said Trade or any other but rather their idle and naughty form of life, It shall be lawful for the Alderman 2 to commit them for so refusing to work to the house of cor- rection there to remain till they put in sufficient surties either to avoide the Town or to work in the same trade which shall be appointed them. 1 MSS. in the possession of the Corporation of Wokingham. 2 Under the charter of the old corporation of Wokingham the alderman was the chief magis- trate, corresponding to the mayor in other towns. ' 22nd. None to sett up the trade of Silk Knitting unless having served seven years apprentice to it under penalty of twenty shillings to be forfeited for every month. ' 23rd. None under the age of 25 years to keep at the same traid if not a penalty of zos. to be forfeited every month. ' 26th. Unmarried persons silk knitters com- pelled to serve for wages under penalty of forty shillings for every default.' The encouragement of idleness could not be laid to the charge of the old corporation of the town. It is known that James I. was very solicitous to promote the English silk trade, and the cultivation of silkworms, in order that his subjects might be independent of foreign supplies. He is said to have planted a garden of mulberry trees on the site of Buckingham Palace, but the venture was not successful. Following the royal example the good people of Wokingham planted numbers of mulberry trees in and near the town in order to supply themselves with the necessary material for their industry. Some of these may still be seen in many of the old-fashioned gardens at the rear of the houses in the town. There is no evidence that the famous stock- ing loom invented by the Rev. William Lee, who like many other inventors profited little by his wonderful ingenuity, ever found its way to Wokingham. The manufacture was evidently conducted on the domestic system, women and children knitting the stockings in their own homes and bringing them to their employer. How long the trade flourished we have no means of ascertaining, but at the 395
