Congleton, Macclesfield, Bollington and Stockport, England, were traditionally silk-weaving towns. Silk was woven in Cheshire from the late 1600s. The handloom weavers worked in the attic workshops in their own homes. Macclesfield was famous for silk buttons manufacture. The supply of silk from Italy was precarious and some hand throwing was done, giving way after 1732 to water-driven mills, which were established in Stockport and Macclesfield.
Location Cheshire is a county in North West England. To the east of the county the landscape changes dramatically from the alluvial plain of Central Cheshire to the hill country of the Peak District. Fast flowing streams forming the River Dane, River Bollin, River Dean and River Goyt provided a moist environment and potential power to drive waterwheels in mills. The coach road from Derby to Manchester passes through, or near to each of the prominent silk towns, and later in 1831 Macclesfield Canal joined Congleton, Macclesfield and Bollington to the Trent and Mersey Canal and the Midlands and the seaports.
Silk
Silk is a naturally produced fibre obtained from many species of the silk moth. In 1700 the favoured silk was produced by a moth (Bombyx mori), that used it to spin a closed cocoon to protect her larvae. These fed on the mulberry leaf which was grown in Italy. Silk fibres from the Bombyx mori silkworm have a triangular cross section with rounded corners, 5–10 μm wide. The silk is a protein called fibroin, and it was cemented in place by the use of a gum, another protein called sericin. The cocoons were harvested and placed in troughs of hot water that dissolved the gum and allowed the single thread to be wound into a skein.
The silk-throwing process
The skeins were placed into bales and taken to the mill for processing. Three sorts of yarn were commonly produced: no-twist which was suitable for weft, tram that had received a slight twist making it easier to handle, and organzine which had a greater twist and was suitable for use as warp. Reeling is the process where the silk that has been wound into skeins, is cleaned, receives a twist and is wound onto bobbins. Silk throwing is the process where the filament from the bobbins is given its full twist. The process where filaments or threads from three or more bobbins are wound together is called doubling. The last two processes can occur more than once and in any order. Tram was wound, thrown and doubled, organzine was wound, doubled then thrown and doubled again. Sewing silk could receive further doubling and throwing. No-twist was often three single filaments doubled together. Many other combinations were possible. Colloquially silk throwing can be used to refer to the whole process: reeling, throwing and doubling, and silk throwsters would speak of throwing as twisting or spinning.
Silk throwing was originally a hand process relying on turning a wheel (the gate) that twisted four threads while a helper, who would be a child, ran the length of a shade, hooked the threads on stationary pins (the cross) and ran back to start the process again. The shade would be between 23 and 32 m long. The process was described in detail to Lord Shaftesbury's Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Employment of Children in 1841:
For twisting it is necessary to have what are designated shades which are buildings of at least 30 or 35 yards in length, of two or more rooms, rented separately by one, two or four men having one gate and a boy called a helper... the upper storey is generally occupied by children, young persons or grown women as 'piecers', 'winders' and 'doublers' attending to their reels and bobbins, driven by the exertions of one man... He (the boy) takes first a rod containing four bobbins of silk from the twister who stands at his gate or wheel, and having fastened the ends, runs to the 'cross' at the extreme end of the room, round which he passes the threads of each bobbin and returns to the 'gate'. He is despatched on a second expedition of the same kind, and returns as before, he then runs up to the cross and detaches the threads and comes to the roller. Supposing the master to make twelve rolls a day, the boy necessarily runs fourteen miles, and this is barefooted.
In 1700, the Italians were the most technologically advanced throwsters in Europe and had developed two machines capable of winding the silk onto bobbins while putting a twist in the thread. They called the throwing machine a filatoio and the doubler a torcitoio. There is an illustration of a circular hand-powered throwing machine drawn in 1487 with 32 spindles. The first evidence of an externally powered filatoio comes from the thirteenth century, and the earliest illustration from around 1500. Filatorios and torcitoios contained parallel circular frames that revolved round each other on a central axis. The speed of the relative rotation determined the twist. Silk would only cooperate in the process if the temperature and humidity were high; in Italy the temperature was elevated by sunlight but in Derby the mill had to be heated, and the heat evenly distributed. In East Cheshire only two mills are known with certainty to have been built to house Italian-style circular throwing machines, the Old Mill at Congleton and the Button Mill, Macclesfield. By 1820, throwing was done using rectangular frames, manufactured from cast iron, and powered by belts from line shafts.
Silk spinning Thrown silk is twisted single filament. There is a lot of waste from processing and damaged cocoons. Silk is expensive and ways were found to recover the waste. The waste was cut into fibres 25–50 mm long, and then these were spun like worsted or cotton using a throstle. This was 'short silk'. Such a short thread produced a silk with an inferior lustre. In 1836 Gibson and Campbell patented a 'long silk' machine for spinning staples up to 250 mm. Carding and combing (known as dressing) remained a problem until Lister invented the self-acting dressing machine in 1877. Spun silk is softer than thrown silk and easily blended with other fibres. Silk spinning became an important industry in Congleton: taking place in Stonehouse Green and Brooks Mill, Forge Mill and Bath Vale. Brocklehursts continued long silk spinning in Macclesfield until the 1950s.
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