Hand loom weavers dominated the Preston textile trade until the 1830s. However, by the 1840s, when power looms had largely taken over, hand loom weaving had become synonymous with the ‘iron teeth of poverty’.

A poll book of 1830 registered over 1,500 weavers working in Preston. With family members, the number was closer to 5,000. Consequently, over 1,000 houses were used for weaving, more than a quarter of the dwellings in the town. The boom time was in the 1790s.

New Preston: ‘Fighting, vice and profanity’

In the 1790s wages were good and hand loom weavers only needed to work two or three days a week. The workers were a notoriously rough lot, with time on their hands and money to spend. One ‘colony’ of hand loom weavers grew up around Horrockses works at the Stanley Street end of  New Hall Lane.

In fact loom shops had been built between the houses. This presaged the introduction of power looms on the same site.

The New Preston Weavers could:

“Earn good wages after playing 2 or 3 days a week. In their leisure time, or in the time in which they did not care to work, they used to swagger about in top boots, and extract, what to their minds was enjoyment, from badger baiting, dog worrying… poaching and drinking”. Also, the whole family was involved in the home weaving trade.

The working children of hand loom weavers

Unfortunately, the good times did not last. The factory system was not the first employer of children. In fact, working in cold, damp and dark cellars, with poor or no ventilation, could often be worse than working in the new factories. A number of reports in the 1840s highlighted the plight of working children.

One stated: “The children who are employed in this branch of manufacture, at their own homes are more to be commiserated with than most operatives in the large manufactories”.

Whereas in the 18^th century they could work as they pleased, now they were forced to work from five in the morning till twelve at night. Even with these hours prices were so depressed they only made enough for a subsistence standard of living.

In Preston, cellar weaving shops are known at the bottom end of Friargate and around the Spittals Moss factory, off Kirkham Street.

The last of the hand loom weavers

Cheap labour actually slowed the introduction of power looms in Preston. A report from 1834 found  13,000 hand loom weavers were still working, for very low wages, of about five or six shillings a week. That was for 12 hour days. The rent for a cellar dwelling was around two shillings. 

By the 1860s most hand loom weaving had gone, however the production of ‘fancies’ or fine cloth that could not be produced by machine continued for a time.

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