hand-loom weavers

A hand loom as used in Britain from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The simple loom was probably invented in Egypt in 4400 BC, with the more complicated multishaft loom being used in China for silk weaving by AD 1090.

Textile workers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who used manually operated machines often as ‘out-workers’. They were in great demand and relatively highly paid until the advent of mechanised methods of weaving made hand-weaving expensive and slow. There were as many as 200,000 in the late 1820s so the loss of work or cut in wages caused great hardship, particularly in the northwest of England where the trade had been the mainstay of many outlying villages. The problem caused great concern and a royal commission was established 1842, which recommended measures to find alternative employment.