Editing Weaving (section)

===Industrial Revolution===
{{Main|Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution}}
[[File:Weaving shed-Marsden.png|thumb|By 1892, most cotton weaving was done in similar weaving sheds, powered by steam.]]
Before the [[Industrial Revolution]], weaving was a manual craft and wool was the principal staple. In the great wool districts a form of factory system had been introduced but in the uplands weavers worked from home on a [[putting-out system]]. The wooden looms of that time might be broad or narrow; broad looms were those too wide for the weaver to pass the shuttle through the shed, so that the weaver needed an expensive assistant (often an [[apprentice]]).  This ceased to be necessary after [[John Kay (flying shuttle)|John Kay]] invented the [[flying shuttle]] in 1733. The shuttle and the picking stick sped up the process of weaving.{{sfn|Guest|1823|p=8}} There was thus a shortage of thread or a surplus of weaving capacity. The opening of the [[Bridgewater Canal]] in June 1761 allowed cotton to be brought into Manchester, an area rich in fast flowing streams that could be used to power machinery. Spinning was the first to be mechanised ([[spinning jenny]], [[spinning mule]]), and this led to limitless thread for the weaver.

[[Edmund Cartwright]] first proposed building a weaving machine that would function similar to recently developed cotton-spinning mills in 1784, drawing scorn from critics who said the weaving process was too nuanced to automate.<ref name=BBC2>{{cite news |title=Historic Figures: Edmund Cartwright |work=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/cartwright_edmund.shtml}}</ref> He built a factory at [[Doncaster]] and obtained a series of patents between 1785 and 1792.  In 1788, his brother Major [[John Cartwright (political reformer)|John Cartwight]] built Revolution Mill at [[Retford]] (named for the centenary of the [[Glorious Revolution]]).  In 1791, he licensed his loom to the Grimshaw brothers of [[Manchester]], but their Knott Mill burnt down the following year (possibly a case of arson).  Edmund Cartwight was granted a reward of £10,000 by [[UK Parliament|Parliament]] for his efforts in 1809.<ref>English, W. (1969). ''The Textile Industry''. pp. 89–97.</ref><ref>Chaloner, William Henry (1963). ''People and Industries''. pp. 45–54.</ref>  However, success in power-weaving also required improvements by others, including H. Horrocks of [[Stockport]].  Only during the two decades after about 1805, did [[Power loom|power-weaving]] take hold. At that time there were 250,000 hand weavers in the UK.{{sfn|Timmins|1993}}  Textile manufacture was one of the leading sectors in the [[Great Britain|British]] [[Industrial Revolution]], but weaving was a comparatively late sector to be mechanised.  The loom became semi-automatic in 1842 with Kenworthy and Bulloughs [[Lancashire Loom]]. The various innovations took weaving from a home-based [[artisan]] activity (labour-intensive and man-powered) to [[steam engine|steam]] driven [[factory|factories]] process. A large metal manufacturing industry grew to produce the looms, firms such as [[Howard & Bullough]] of [[Accrington]], and [[Tweedales and Smalley]] and [[Platt Brothers]]. Most power weaving took place in weaving sheds, in small [[Mill town|towns]] circling [[Greater Manchester]] away from the cotton spinning area. The earlier combination mills where spinning and weaving took place in adjacent buildings became rarer. Wool and [[worsted]] weaving took place in [[West Yorkshire]] and particular [[Bradford]], here there were large factories such as Lister's or Drummond's, where all the processes took place.{{sfn|Bellerby|2005|p=17}} Both men and women with weaving skills emigrated, and took the knowledge to their new homes in New England, to places like [[Pawtucket, Rhode Island|Pawtucket]] and [[Lowell, Massachusetts|Lowell]].

Woven '[[Greige goods|grey cloth]]' was then sent to the finishers where it was bleached, dyed and printed. [[Natural dye]]s were originally used, with [[synthetic dye]]s coming in the second half of the 19th century. A demand for new dyes followed the discovery of [[mauveine]] in 1856, and its popularity in fashion. Researchers continued to explore the chemical potential of [[coal tar]] waste from the growing number of [[Gasworks|gas works]] in Britain and Europe, creating an entirely new sector in the [[Chemical industry#Expansion and maturation|chemical industry]].<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Nenadic |first1=Stana |last2=Tuckett |first2=Sally |year=2013 |title=Colouring the Nation: Dyeing and printing techniques |url=https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections-research/our-research/highlights-of-previous-projects/colouring-the-nation/research/dyeing-and-printing-techniques/the-rise-of-synthetic-dyes/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170421193631/http://www.nms.ac.uk:80/collections-research/our-research/highlights-of-previous-projects/colouring-the-nation/research/dyeing-and-printing-techniques/the-rise-of-synthetic-dyes |archive-date=2017-04-21 |access-date=2021-06-13 |website=National Museums of Scotland |publisher=[[National Museums of Scotland]]}}</ref>

The invention in [[France]] of the [[Jacquard loom]], patented in 1804, enabled complicated patterned cloths to be woven, by using punched cards to determine which threads of coloured yarn should appear on the upper side of the cloth. The jacquard allowed individual control of each warp thread, row by row without repeating, so very complex patterns were suddenly feasible. Samples exist showing calligraphy, and woven copies of engravings. Jacquards could be attached to handlooms or powerlooms.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 June 2019 |title=A revolutionary invention in Programming patterns: the story of the Jacquard loom |url=https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/jacquard-loom |url-status=live |archive-url=https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20200410101455/https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/jacquard-loom |archive-date=2020-04-10 |access-date=2021-06-13 |website=Science and Industry Museum |publisher=[[Science and Industry Museum]]}}</ref>

A distinction can be made between the role and lifestyle and status of a handloom weaver, and that of the power loom weaver and craft weaver. The perceived threat of the power loom led to disquiet and industrial unrest. Well known protests movements such as the [[Luddite]]s and the [[Chartism|Chartists]] had handloom weavers amongst their leaders. In the early 19th-century power weaving became viable. Richard Guest in 1823 made a comparison of the productivity of power and handloom weavers:

<blockquote>A very good Hand Weaver, a man twenty-five or thirty years of age, will weave two pieces of nine-eighths shirting per week, each twenty-four yards long, and containing one hundred and five shoots of weft in an inch, the reed of the cloth being a forty-four, Bolton count, and the warp and weft forty hanks to the pound, A Steam Loom Weaver, fifteen years of age, will in the same time weave seven similar pieces.{{sfn|Guest|1823|p=47}}</blockquote>

He then speculates about the wider economics of using power loom weavers:
[[File:Powerloom weaving in 1835.jpg|thumb|Women featured weaving at power looms in 1835.]]
<blockquote>...it may very safely be said, that the work is done in a Steam Factory containing two hundred Looms, would, if done by hand Weavers, find employment and support for a population of more than two thousand persons.{{sfn|Guest|1823|p=48}}</blockquote>With the Industrial Revolution came a growth in opportunity for women to work within textile factories. However, in spite of their gender, their work was perceived to have a lower social and economic value than work done by their male counterparts.<ref name=":1" />