Trade and Industry Articles

Fish Street once contained a number of fine half-timbered house's, the finest being the Fishmongers Hall, dating back to the 13th century. It stood until 1905, but it had been allowed to decay into a dismal ruin, and finally collapsed. It had been divided up into nine slum tenements but still had a number of carved oak barge boards. Under the layers of whitewash four finely carved panels were discovered which were sold to Haughton's, the ecclesiastic sculptors nearby. The barge boards bore the emblematical device -the carving of a fish.

The fishermen of Worcester were restricted to Fish Street in their trading operations, like the butchers to the Shamble.....

About 1840, a silk factory was established by a Mr. Grovernor in Fish Street, making shawls, mostly black 2 yards square. The principal production of the factory was  however, furniture covering, and it won a prize ,edal at the ...  

Power looms saw an increase of female labour in the textile industry. Dixons brought in women to the looms in 1884, and this was believed to have been an attempt to cheapen labour. However, a standard of 35s. 0d a week was maintained, even though similar work was being done in Yorkshire by women for 15s a week. By 1901....

In 1854, George Price Simcox, (formerly Lea & Simcox) obtained a patent for printing twill fabric, which was woven plain, then printed with blocks, and called Beaver Carpets. Works were set up in Worcester Road, but the ....

The destruction of Messrs Watson's Pike Carpet Mills in Green Street, Kidderminster, on July 1, 1886, was one of the most disastrous fires ever seen in the town. The damage was estimated at the time as £80,000 and 500 workpeople were effected. One of the largest mills in Kidderminster was burnt to ruins, and the machinery reduced to a mass of twisted iron... 

Following a dispute in the carpet industry concerning 'the number of apprentices the masters shall allowed to be employ and the age at which apprentices shall be placed on the loom', the workers, led by Ben Adams, established an emigration society to aid 'those who are desirous of leaving the country'. He planned ....

In 1863, and association of power loom carpet weavers was to be formed in Kidderminster, but it was the manufacturers, in fact, who were the first to form a permanent association. The Power Loom Carpet Manufacturers Association was founded in 1864....

Typical of the development of a carpet manufactory is this account from 1919 of the firm of Tompkins & Adams:

Adams was an employee for 15 years, and for 35 years a partner. Tompkins was with Lea & Simcox as a boy of 13 on a handloom in a warehouse now occupied by Messrs. Hyles in Mill Street. Tompkins & Adams started with less than ...

An attempt in the 1880s to combine all factories under a 'syndicate' fell through, though it led to combinations and limited companies and limited companies. In 1890 the industry had expanded greatly, and the value of the Kidderminster carpet factories was established at .... 

The power looms were much larger than the old hand looms, being 17ft tall, and the old premises in Mill Street and Church Street were insufficient. In 1852, Messrs Humphries adopted power looms at their premises in New Road, but gradually, there was no capital for new factories... 

In the early 19th century the domestic system began to break down and the industry moved to the premises of manufacturers. By 1838, there were 24 employers and 4,016 weavers. The manufacturers were not very enterprising. They refused Whylock's patent for a new fabric called Tapestry, or printed Brussels..... 

In France, in 1801, Joseph Jacquard perfected a device which when adapted to the carpet loom revolutionized the weaving industry. It was a pattern-selecting series of punched cards, which when laced together and fed into the loom, produced the .... 

The Clothier's Company of Worcester was in existence in the 13th century, and was subsequently incorporated by Henry V111 and Queen Elizabeth. The later charter was dated 23rd September, 1590. The...

Trade and commerce greatly developed in the 12th century. Town communities saw the need to control quality and prices, and craftsmen needed an organization to assist and protect their interests....

The tanning of hides is a very ancient trade, certainly pre-Roman. Leather was made by drying and salting hides. After the Norman Conquest oak bark was used on cattle skins, alum and oil on the skins of horses, deer and sheep. The Severn had many tanneries on its banks; Bewdley for instance had everything needed for tanning, droves of cattle from the Welsh borderline, oak...

At an early date Curriers were ordered to work indoors and not to carry on their trade in the street, and there were penalties for creating nuisances when preparing skins. A local law clearly states that skins were previously dressed on the banks of the river was carried on .....

Leather dressing for centuries was carried on in the Blockhouse Meadows at the Three Springs where there was ample water supply from the streams which there unite to form the Frogging Mill brook. It was run by the Bevington family, prominent in local affairs....

John Dent was born in 1751, and served his apprenticeship with James Perkins, glover, and was given his Freedom to trade in Worcester in 1772. Shortly after this he married and had four children, John, Thomas, William and Benjamin. In 1792 he was living at 26 Sidbury, with his son Thomas until his death in 1811, and the business was continued by Thomas until his death in 1824.                                                                                                John Dent junior was born in 1777, and after serving his apprenticeship with his father, was granted his freedom to trade in 1798. He did not remain with John Dent senior, but started as a glove manufacturer on his own account.......

In 1835 there were 82 glove manufacturers; 6 of whom were leather dressers, also 6 curriers, 9 leather dressers, 2 tanners, 4 dyers, and 11 stainers, a total of 39 preparing leather sellers.....

Barbourne Leather Works originated in the late 1780s in St John's, and was a family concern of the Badgery's which went into the 6th, 7th, 8th, generations, but went into voluntary liquidation in 1956. The managing director and a nucleus of workers ...

Joseph Firkins succeeded to a glove business that had been started at the end of the 18th century, and while trading under the name of Joseph Firkins & Co did exclusive trade all over the country. An interesting reference in Berrows Worcester Journal of June 17, 1952, describes that in that ..., 

St Martin's was the Glover's district. The present New Street and Friar Street, were originally one street, and until 1557 was Glovers Street, but in that year was renamed New Street. Considerable trade (gloving) was carried in the area including in Nash's House by John Redgrave, the Hawkes family in Lich Street, which later passed to the Sanders family by marriage, in Lowesmmor, Fownes occupied a warehouse before the erection of their factory in the Blockhouse..... 

In 1825, two leather dressers were imprisoned for supporting apprentices when a strike was on (Guildhall, Feb 9 1825)                                                                                                                                                             Charles Smith and Thomas Badgery, in the employ of Mr. Whitehouse of this City, were this day committed to solitary confinement for 3 months for disobedience to their masters orders. Berrows Worcester Journal corrected the impression that imprisonment formed part of....

In 1810, Worcester tailors struck for a rise in wages, and 'An Impartial Observer' issued a handbill protesting against 'this daring combination' saying that men could earn £1 per week besides the enjoyment of 'Saint Monday', but they were ....

The Glovers Trade Union (for skilled workers) was founded in 1884, but was dissolved in 1904. Another Union Society continued to 1925, but the trade  situation had become worse ..

The ancient Guilds in the City were very strong. Their restrictions had driven the Cloth Trade out of the City; the carpe trade to Kidderminster, the needlers to Redditch, and was resisting combination moves in the gloving trade. In June 1807, the Master Glovers met to resist a combination of Grounders, Stoners, and White Leather Parers to obtain an advance in wages. 56 firms, including John Dent, signed a declaration of resistance.          An earlier ....

The Glover's Guild in existence in 1497 ...

No commentary on old Worcester can ignore the glove trade which here was very ancient. The first mention of a Glover's Guild dates back to 1497, but the trade existed in Worcester before that. Two Worcester glovers, Francis Fincher and Alexander Beardsley, were prominent Quakers who after much persecution sold all their possessions and emigrated in 1683 with several other local Quakers, and their... 

The only Factory School in Worcester was at the Horse-hair Carpet Mill. Children were used to supply hair to the weaver's hand, and they like others working in mills elsewhere, worked long hours for little reward. Yet, Edward Webb had a particular concern for the children, and he provided an evening school and library for some 40 poor female children. After  10 or more......

There was in Copenhagen Street until 1935 the last of the City Carpet Mills, all that remained of a trade which, in George lll's reign had a royal inspection and was considered likely to be the most important in the City's future.

In 1835, Edward Webb, then aged 27, bought a horse-hair weaving factory at 8 Copenhagen Street. The plant had 14 seating looms and 2 looms for cider cloth...............

High Street was for many centuries the street of printers. The first of that craft to practice in Worcester began in 1548. He was John Oswen of Ipswich, which at that time, he had three printers, Worcester being the 9th place in the British Isles to take up the 'art'. Other places ranking in time before Worcester were Tavistock 1525, Cambridge 1521, York 1509, Edinburgh 1507, London and St Albans 1480 and Oxford between 1478 and 1486.  

'Uncle' Ben Embling's Sweet Stall in Angel Street at the Worcester Cheese and Hop Fair 19th September 1909

Stalls in Angel Street for the annual Cheese and Hop Fair, 19th September 1909

The most famous of Worcester's drapery and millinery establishments in the 19th century was Victoria House. Its premises was part of the old Hop Pole Hotel, one of the most famous posting establishments in the Midlands.

The Worcester Foundary was in the Blockhouse, on the canal-side. It closed in 1967 after 153 years of business

1. By the middle of the 18th century 'china' was the fashionable rage throughout Europe. Several attempts were made to emulate the imported porcelain from the Far East, but the approach in England was different to that in France and Germany,