Woollen Weavers Book 1854-1855 [Manuscript]

A Yorkshire woollen weaver’s day-book, a small octavo bound in brown leather over board, grazing to panels with rubbing to edges and top of spine; binding sound. Front endpapers comprise a printed ‘Almanack for 1854’ and ‘Commercial Stamps, Taxes &c, Sold by John Baildon, Bookseller, Bull Green, Halifax’. Overleaf a contemporary hand-written ink inscription: ‘Woollen Weavers Book June 1854, William Simpson, Brow Bridge, Greetland’. Simpson’s manuscript is lightly soiled with marks through daily usage near fore-edges. One page torn, part missing (May 1855).

Simpson’s entries date from June 1854 to August 1855 with this commercially printed Account Book used as a Notebook to record transactions of fabrics received or delivered: 48 leaves + 1 preliminary; each page sub-divided by hand into 5 or 4 sections, containing approximately 220 separate hand-written entries. Each entry is typically of three or four lines, dated, giving: Name of Weaver/Description of Cloth with weight/ Technical details of width and/or number of strings, and length. Many later entries crossed through presumably upon fulfilment of order. Final page lists ‘Mule Spinners Names & Numbers’. This manuscript dates from somewhere near the high point of Yorkshire textile production. Brow Bridge Mill, Greetland, still stands approximately 2.5 miles south of Halifax, West Yorkshire. Inscription at rear mentions Townsend & Phythian Ltd, a mill also at Greetland. Entries refer to weaving of fabrics such as California Kersey, Carolina Plain, Blue Gray Kersey, Speculation Plain, Rural Mixter Kersey, White Army, Blue Flushing etc.