Made in Kidderminster: the History of the Carpet Industry

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.