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Made in Kidderminster: the History of the Carpet Industry

1850 - 1880 (c.)

Image: Brinton’s Carpet factory, 1870

Brinton’s Carpet Factory, Vicar Street, Kidderminster, 1870. Print taken from a watercolour. By the mid-19th century Kidderminster developed into a factory town and one of the most important centres for carpet making in Britain. The Brinton family first began to manufacture carpets in the town in the late 18th century.

Image from: Bewdley Museum

Text: Gay Hill

Image Captions and Sections 16 and 17: Malcolm Dick

Summary

Kidderminster was a small Worcestershire town in the 18th and 19th centuries. It produced woollen cloth in the 17th century and developed as a location for carpet manufacturing in the 18th century. Gay Hill charts the early history of carpet making in the 18th and early 19th centuries and explores the working conditions and industrial unrest which accompanied Kidderminster’s transition from a small market town into an important centre for factory production.


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4429-0Made in Kidderminster: the History of the Carpet Industry 618-0The Origins of Carpet Making in Kidderminster 4427-0The Origins of Carpet Making in Kidderminster 4431-0The Origins of Carpet Making in Kidderminster 1230-0Handloom Weaving 4428-0The Factory System 4426-0Washing and Winding 4423-0Washing and Winding 2531-0Technological Changes: the Scotch Loom 2535-0Technological Changes: the Brussels Loom 4430-0Technological Changes: the Jacquard Loom 1830-0The Kidderminster Carpet Industry and the Wider World 1803-0The Kidderminster Carpet Industry and the Wider World 4422-0Working Conditions in Kidderminster Carpet Factories 4425-0The Great Strike of 1828 4424-0The Aftermath of the Great Strike of 1828 1837-0Kidderminster in the mid 19th Century 1832-0Kidderminster: the Factory Town
Sources and Further Reading

Gilbert, C.D, Kidderminster’s Early Carpet Industry (Transactions Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 1990)
Gilbert, N, Ridiculous Refinement (Kidderminster, Hencroft, 2001)
Marsh, A, The Carpet Weavers (Oxford, Malthouse Press, 1995)
Palmer, R.E, The funny rigs and tender-hearted masters in the happy town of Kidderminster. Anno 1828 (Transactions Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 1970-72)
Smith, L.D, Carpet Weavers and Carpet Masters (Kidderminster, Tomkinson, 1986)
The Carpet Weavers Lament. Introduction by Len Smith (Kidderminster, Tomkinson, 1979)
Thompson, M, Woven in Kidderminster (Kidderminster, David Voyce Associates, 2002)