A Handloom era gave way to the factory system of producing so many linen goods that marketing arose as a means for selling surplus production.

Production seen as a spectrum:

hand made _______________________ manufactured _______________________ automated

Hand Craft was the basis of "cottage industies."

Change of production:

From fustians to cotton cloth

Geography and Geology

Wool was made into fabric in Manchester

The cotton industry centered around Lancashire

The first cotton based cloths to be produced in Lancashire were Britain fustians, which were cloths with a linen warp and a cotton weft. These were being produced from the early 17th century.

Handloom weavers

Handloom Weavers' Cottages

Flax is the crop from which linen is refined. The Handloom Weavers had been drying flax to produce linen in Liverpool since at the cotton industry's insistence, in 1540, on an order made in that year forbidding the drying of flax inside houses because of the risk of fire. By the late 16th century linen production centred on Manchester and the change in production spread to Blackburn, Burnley, Preston and Oldham.

The growing import of raw materials led to a demand for linen warp for the expanding cotton industry and boosted the value of cotton production.

Production

Although production of fustians was soon more important than linen, linen was still being woven in the 1720s in Warrington.

Fustians enjoyed a period of great demand until imported cotton goods from the Indian subcontinent began to be popular with the more affluent and those who sought to emulate them. Fustians had a resurgence when acts were passed banning cotton imports which were damaging the woollen and silk industries.

Also fustians' linen warp was stronger than cotton warp.

Handloom weavers replaced by machinery

The invention of Arkwright's water frame made the spinning of strong cotton warps possible and that plus the superior quality and versatility of cotton meant that by the beginning of the 19th century fustian production was in decline.

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