Wool Marks

by

Lauren Roberts

It’s a woolly world, it is. Wool, the textile fiber obtained from sheep—and its relations cashmere and mohair (from goats), giviut from (muskoxen), vicuña, alpaca, and camel (from animals in the camel family), and angora (from rabbits) —is something familiar to most of us whether for its warming, cooling or even its scratchy qualities.

Wool has an interesting history. Its use first is believed to have begun in Asia Minor about 10,000 years ago during the Stone Age when sheep were first domesticated and used for three basic human needs: food, clothing, and shelter. To spin people took the wool in one hand and drew it out, twisting it into a thread with the fingers of the other hand. The result was a thick uneven yarn, but it worked well enough for their basic needs.

By 4000 B.C. , Babylonians were wearing clothing of crudely woven fabric. Between 3000 and 1000 BC, the Persians, Greeks and Romans distributed both sheep and wool throughout Europe and beyond. They even established a wool plant in what is now Winchester, England as early as 50 AD. Roman emperors cherished British woolen cloth “so fine it was comparable with a spider’s web.” Wool exports continued and expanded with the Saracens, nomadic peoples of the Syrian-Arabian deserts.

By the eighth century Britain was exporting woolen fabrics to the Continent and after the arrival of the Norman conquerors in 1066 the industry expanded to such a degree that during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, wool trade became England’s greatest national asset. The English had become proficient in the raising of sheep, while the Flemish had developed the skills for processing. As a result, the British began to sell their wool to the Flemish, who processed the raw material and then sold it back to the English.

In 1377 England’s King Edward III, also known as “the royal wool merchant,” stopped woven-goods imports and the domestic weaving of foreign wools and invited Flemish weavers fleeing the Spanish invasion to settle in England where the industry thrived. Wool production peaked in the thirteenth century, then began a long decline because of political strife. However, it did recover and by the first half of the fourteenth century, English wool farmers were prospering despite the country’s long war with France and the repeated outbreaks of bubonic plague.

English wool had by this time gained an international reputation for its wool cloth and thus did it move from being a primarily raw wool exporter to a manufacturer and exporter of cloth for the next two centuries.

By 1660 wool textile exports were two-thirds of England’s foreign commerce. But the marriage of England and wool began much earlier. Although pelts may have been worn in Britain as early as the late Bronze Age (3000 BC) England’s “empire of wool” peaked during the 1509-47 reign of King Henry VIII. He seized the flocks of the monasteries and redistributed them to court favorites. This caused unemployed shepherds to be sent to prison for non-payment of debts and was one of the unfair treatments which incited immigration to America.

During the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850), the new inventions that mechanized and speeded up the processes of spinning and weaving were transforming the industry. Every step of the process, except shearing the sheep and sorting the wool into different grades, was mechanized between 1790 and 1890. Only the organic aspects of shearing live animals and the value judgments required of human sorters resisted mechanical replication until the twentieth century. The old methods, unchanged for centuries, were opposed by organized bands of workers who feared they would lose employment. Despite the Luddite riots of 1812 and others, certain areas such as Yorkshire where the new machinery was more readily accepted surpassed hand loom that eventually died out around the end of the nineteenth century.

In North America, a few smuggled sheep arrived with the immigrants, and by 1665 they had multiplied to about 100,000. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson maintained flocks of sheep; both were inaugurated while wearing woolen suits. England was not happy about this, and the king made wool trading with the colonies a punishable offense; any colonist caught trying to improve the blood line of American sheep would have his right hand cut off. Nevertheless, American wool wasn’t up to English standards. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the quality was satisfactory for the homespun cloth but it couldn’t compete with the wool produced by English Southdowns and Spanish Merinos sheep until in 1810 an American diplomat arranged for the importation of 20,000 purebred Merinos and the country’s reputation for fine wool exploded.

Today, wool production is a global industry—the annual output is estimated at 5.5 billion pounds—with Australia, Argentina, the United States, and New Zealand serving as the major suppliers of raw wool. While the United States is the largest consumer of wool fabric, Australia is the leading supplier, accounting for approximately one-fourth of the world’s production.

Wool manufacture begins with shearing the sheep once a year, usually in springtime. (Veteran shearers can shear up to two hundred sheep per day.) The fleece recovered from a sheep can weigh between six and eighteen pounds; as much as possible, the fleece is kept in one piece. Because of the different purposes to which it is put, the raw wool must be graded and sorted—long wools for the worsted trade, short wools mainly for the woolen trade, tough springy wools for carpets. The best quality of wool comes from the shoulders and sides of the sheep and is used for clothing; the lesser quality comes from the lower legs and is used to make rugs.

The second step is to clean it in a soap solution to remove the sand, dirt, grease, and dried sweat from the fleece (called suint); the weight of contaminants accounts for about 30 to 70 percent of the fleece’s total weight. Next comes the spinning. In How Products Are Made: Wool, the detailed process is explained:

After being carded, the wool fibers are spun into yarn. Spinning for woolen yarns is typically done on a mule spinning machine, while worsted yarns can be spun on any number of spinning machines. After the yarn is spun, it is wrapped around bobbins, cones, or commercial drums. To remove these contaminants, the wool is scoured in a series of alkaline baths containing water, soap, and soda ash or a similar alkali. The byproducts from this process (such as lanolin) are saved and used in a variety of household products. Rollers in the scouring machines squeeze excess water from the fleece, but the fleece is not allowed to dry completely. Following this process, the wool is often treated with oil to give it increased manageability.

Next, the fibers are passed through a series of metal teeth that straighten and blend them into slivers. Carding also removes residual dirt and other matter left in the fibers. Carded wool intended for worsted yarn is put through gilling and combing, two procedures that remove short fibers and place the longer fibers parallel to each other. From there, the sleeker slivers are compacted and thinned through a process called drawing. Carded wool to be used for woolen yarn is sent directly for spinning.

Thread is formed by spinning the fibers together to form one strand of yarn; the strand is spun with two, three, or four other strands. Since the fibers cling and stick to one another, it is fairly easy to join, extend, and spin wool into yarn. Spinning for woolen yarns is typically done on a mule spinning machine, while worsted yarns can be spun on any number of spinning machines. After the yarn is spun, it is wrapped around bobbins, cones, or commercial drums.

Next, the wool yarn is woven into fabric. Wool manufacturers use two basic weaves: the plain weave and the twill. Woolen yarns are made into fabric using a plain weave (rarely a twill), which produces a fabric of a somewhat looser weave and a soft surface (due to napping) with little or no luster. The napping often conceals flaws in construction. Worsted yarns can create fine fabrics with exquisite patterns using a twill weave. The result is a more tightly woven, smooth fabric. Better constructed, worsteds are more durable than woolens and therefore more costly.

After weaving, both worsteds and woolens undergo a series of finishing procedures including: fulling (immersing the fabric in water to make the fibers interlock); crabbing (permanently setting the interlock); decating (shrink-proofing); and, occasionally, dyeing. Although wool fibers can be dyed before the carding process, dyeing can also be done after the wool has been woven into fabric.

Most of the quality control in the production of wool fabrics is done by sight, feel, and measurement. Loose threads are removed with tweezer-like instruments called burling irons; knots are pushed to the back of the cloth; and other specks and minor flaws are taken care of before fabrics go through any of the finishing procedures.

The company using this bookmark, Scarborough Bros. of Halifax, noted that they specialized in fingering, knitting & embroidery wools.” The company was founded by Thomas Smith Scarborough with his brothers Joseph, John, George and Stephen (the younger) in 1874. They were the sons of Stephen and Hannah Scarborough. Stephen worked first as a warehouseman and later as a manager at a woolen mill. The family lived at Lister Lane, Halifax.

Thomas (1837-1909) was a master worsted manufacturer who established the new factory at the bottom of Wade Street. When the brothers later expanded it, it was moved to the newly-built Brunswick Mills, then to Trafalgar Mills or Scarborough Mills. But the partnership didn’t last for long. In the London Gazette of April 20, 1875, this notice appeared:

NOTICE is hereby given, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, John Scarborough, George Scarborough, Thomas Smith Scarborough, Joseph Scarborough, and Stephen Scarborough the younger, all of Halifax, in the county of York, Worsted Spinners and Manufacturers, trading under the firm of Scarborough Brothers, was dissolved en the 1st day of March last, so far as regards the said Stephen Scarborough the younger only, and that the business will in future be carried on under the said firm of Scarborough Brothers, by the said John Scarborough, George Scarborough, Thomas Smith Scarborough, and Joseph Scarborough.—Dated this 5th day of April, 1875.

John Scarborough.
Geo. Scarborough.
Thomas Smith Scarborough.
Joseph Scarborough.
Stephen Scarborough, jun.

It makes me wonder what happened to Stephen. Was he forced out? Did he find working the other brothers too difficult and choose to leave? We’ll never know. He didn’t leave the field, though. Records show he did go on to become a wool agent, a “fancy” dealer, and later an art/needlework dealer.

The other brothers continued, meeting with success—at least for a while. One mention was in an illustrated weekly journal, the Furniture Gazette (“Treating of All Branches of Cabinet Work, Upholstery, and Interior Decoration”), in which it noted that “Messers. Scarborough Bros., Halifax, exhibit the only loom at work. It is a box loom, for weaving fancy dress goods, for which the firm are noted.”

Another, interestingly, is in the weekly journal Supplement to the Medical Press and Circular (dated June 21, 1882):

Improved Underclothing for Ladies

We are glad to notice the tendency now existing among manufacturers to produce goods which shall not only answer the requirements of utility and taste, but those of a hygienic nature likewise. This is more particularly seen in the case of woollen goods, which the bold initiative of the Countess of Bective some two or three years ago evoked. Unfortunately, the “shoddy” manufacturers have, by the grinding up of old rags and the consequent sale of bad, and in some known instances of infections material, brought home produce into disrepute, so that medical men should be among the first to appreciate and welcome attempts to provide better and healthier clothing for the million. We are lead to these remarks by having had shown us some knitted wool underskirts for ladies and children by a well-known firm of Yorkshire manufacturers (Scarborough Bros., Halifax)(, which are exceedingly light, soft, and warm, the open fretwork allowing thorough ventilation and evaporation from the body. There is, of course, no novelty in woollen under-garments  for ladies, as many knit their own; but to the mass these cheaply manufactured articles from pure wool will be an immense boon, as they are much healthier, and necessarily more comfortable for wear, and should in time supersede those heavy cloth materials, which, besides being ofttimes more expensive, are always the most unwholesome for use.

The company also exhibited at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878; The Society of Arts Artisan Reports issued by the Royal Society of Arts (Great Britain) shows that they brought “various classes of worsted yarns for warp and weft, knitting and fingering yarns, serges, mantle-cloths, reps, and all kinds of plain and fancy cloths for ladies’ clothing; Orleans and Panama cloths; alpacas, serge cloths, worsted coatings, very good in blacks, alpacas in fast dyes, serges in cross dyes.”

Alas, even when this lovely bookmark was issued, probably in the latter quarter of 1882 the company was in trouble for a mere two years later, in December 1884, it declared bankruptcy with debts totaling £25,484. The brothers then went their separate ways, Thomas becoming head of the British Millerain Company Ltd. He also preached at the Zion Congregational Church, but after a disagreement between the Temperance section and the church authorities he left to hold his services elsewhere. He and his brothers later financed the building of Stannary Congregational Church in Halifax.

Why didn’t the Scarborough Bros. did not think of using wool instead of paper to make their bookmark? Value and tradition, probably. By the time this was issued as an advertising vehicle in the late nineteenth century, bookmarks were considered prime marketing tools for companies wishing to create inexpensive but useful doodads. There was no reason to use a valuable product in something that might get thrown away at some point. Yet, wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have an example of the actual yarn produced by the company? I think they missed a superb opportunity, but the truth is that there is no way to know if it would have saved the company from its sad demise after so short a time. Fortunately for all of us, however, wool lives on.

Bookmark specifications: Scarborough Bros.
Dimensions: 8 1/2 x 2" 
Material: Paper
Date: 1882-3
Acquired: eBay

Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately the same number of books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.