Norwich Woollens or Stuffs

My recent acquisition of six Dutch skirts and a bodice made from rare eighteenth century Norwich woven woollens or stuffs (see glossary below) has prompted this short essay to address a number of questions about the destination and use of this significant class of textiles. (1)

It is known that during the eighteenth century weavers in Norwich, and across the east of England, produced wool damasks and other stuffs in considerable quantities for furnishing and dress which were exported via London to Europe and the Baltic. Pattern books and a few garments made from Norwich’s staple woollen textiles can be found in the U.K and as far afield as Sweden, Norway, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Holland and the USA.

During the 18th century rich merchant’s wives in northern Holland wore woven wool damask or damast made into skirts and bodices (2). Their husbands had Norwich damasks made into dressing gowns and waistcoats (3). The areas where the Norwich stuffs were traded and most worn appears to be Friesland, the northernmost Dutch province, and North Holland, the province stretching from Amsterdam northwards.

Skirts or bovenrok made from woven wool damask, patterned with stripes or diamonds , were particularly popular in the areas of Zaanstreek, Waterland and West Friesland, all in the north of Holland (4)(5). A voluminous skirt made from expensive fabric showed the wealth of the owner and a Dutch expression might be paraphrased as ‘the wider your skirts the more you spend’.

Worsted woollen stuffs were woven on looms in and around Norwich with a cloth width of 15 to 18 ½ inches (39 to 47 cm) and a pattern repeat of 19 to 39 inches (49 to100 cm). The lengths mentioned are between 26 and 32 yards (23 to 29 metres). The fabric was woven with a mirror image on the reverse of the fabric. Large motifs can be seen on fabrics from the late seventeenth century in Italy, Spain, France and England and used into the eighteenth century on furnishings, clothing and ecclesiastical apparel. There was no great difference between furnishing and dress fabrics at this time; they appear to have been used interchangeably. The only known length of Norwich wool damask used for furnishing purposes is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam¹. During medieval times Norwich was the second city of the kingdom, deriving its wealth from the textile industry. During the first half of the eighteenth century Norwich paid more in taxes than any other city, apart from London. Several waves of immigrant weavers called 'aliens' or 'strangers' were brought from the Low Countries, from Flanders (the Dutch and Walloons) during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to enhance production and design in Norwich.

Some skirts contained as many as 10 widths of fabric. The length of the skirts at the front was much shorter than the sides and back due to the panniers or side hoops, worn under the skirt, taking up the fabric. Side splits at the top of the skirt allowed access to pockets, tied round the waist beneath the skirt. Many of the skirts were glazed or calendered. Skirts could be lined with striped linen or were left unlined and had a deep hem. Many of these skirts are mentioned in inventories and wills of the time. The damask fabric was known as mirror damask or spiegeldamast. Thick worsted woollen was warm and hard wearing.

By the nineteenth century skirts made from Norwich fabrics had moved down the social scale and were sold to the wealthy farming middle classes and the lower middle classes, who appreciated their warmth and quality, as well as their beautiful patterns. By the middle of the century, when the crinoline was fashionable, ladies wore the more practical layering of skirts, known as pel rather than the hooped steel crinoline frame. The hard-wearing damask skirt was now altered and being worn beneath as the top petticoat (6). The fabric was also adapted at this stage for men’s short jackets or hemdrok² (7).

The Fries Museum’s small sample book, produced by the company STZ Sybouts te Leeuwarden, established in 1742, shows samples of woollen textiles, damasks, glossy calamancoes and camlets, all from Norwich (8). They are offered in yard lengths. It shows calendered wool fabrics including plains, stripes, floral and diamond patterns. When the pattern book photo (8) is enlarged you will clearly see that one of the damasks is in the pineapple design of (3) and (10) and the acanthus leaf design of (2) and (7). Similiar textiles are shown in sample books in Winterthur Museum in the USA and the Moccasimanuscript (Bibliotheque Forney, Paris).

In 1763 a J H Knoop wrote that woman in small towns and rural areas in Holland wore jackets of chintz and skirts of lustrous woollen damask (supported by four or five petticoats)³. An eighteenth century whalebone corset covered with a Norwich woollen damask is illustrated in the Mode in Friesland catalogue⁴ (9). There is a similar corset in the Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall, Manchester.

In the collection of the Six family in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam there is a morning gown or sjamberlouk of glazed woollen damask patterned with pineapples (3)(10).

Many of the skirts which have survived in Dutch museums were given by folk dance groups who had preserved these traditional examples of costume and probably wore them for performance.

The Nordiska Museum in Stockholm has a sample book of Norwich woven woollen cloth and 150 garments woven from Norwich woven stuffs. These include women’s bodices, fine men’s waistcoats, shirts, one apron and a cape. Many of these belonged to farmer’s wives. They demonstrate a wide variety of quality: wool damask, striped and flowered calimancoes and taborets or diamonds from the last decades of the eighteenth century. Some were worn as wedding clothes. Berit Eldvik, curator of costume, Nordiska Museum says that imports of worsteds were forbidden by Sweden during the eighteenth century and she understands the fabric was smuggled in from Norway, Denmark and perhaps Holland.

In Margaret Swain’s 1972 article Nightgown into Dressing Gown for Costume Journal there is a nightgown illustrated from The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Described as a man’s blue woollen damask nightgown, lined with fine hard tartan, 18th century. Could this also be made from Norwich wool?

Very few examples of Norwich worsted wool skirts or garments exist in museums in the United Kingdom, so one can only assume that this production was primarily for the export trade. Norwich Museum has pattern books, a single damask and six striped calimanco skirts, recently purchased. The V & A has two sample books of the Norwich manufacturer John Kelly, one of dress fabrics, the other of furnishing wools, detailing the costs of production of the various worsteds (11). Although the furnishing book was for the Portuguese market, yellow stripe calamancoes in the book bear a striking resemblance to the weave above. (4)(12)

I rather hope that this essay will spark some discussion about the use and distribution of this significant group of English woven textiles. Were Norwich stuffs widely used in the UK but have simply not survived? Were they intended primarily for export? Are there unrecognised examples in British museums? What made them so attractive to both northern European and Portuguese markets? How substantial was the trade to North America? Was all the trade via London or direct to the Continent from Norfolk ports? I would be pleased to hear from museums who know or think they may have examples of Norwich woven woollens.

For the information gathered so far my thanks to: Frank Gardiner; Juliette Van Seters; Berit Eldvik, curator of costume, Nordisk Museum; Gieneke Arnolli, Fries Museum; my neighbours Romee Day and Carien Van Der Hoop, for helping with translation; Edwina Ehrman, Claire Browne and Susan North at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

¹ The Woollen Industry of South-West England by Kenneth G Ponting (1971 Adam & Dart)
² Aangekleed Gaat Uit. Streekkleding en cultuur in Noord-Holland 1750-1900 by Havermans-Dikstaal, M; (All Dressed Up. Regional Dress and culture in North Holland 1750-1900 by Havermans-Dikstaal, M). 1998, only published in Dutch.
³ Ibid
⁴ Mode in Friesland 1750-1950 (Fashion in Friesland 1750-1950)

Glossary

Calamanco or Kalamink is a Spanish word meaning a worsted material, with a fine gloss ie calendered or glazed. There were many types of calamanco and they could be brocaded, clouded, figured, flowered, mock striped, shaded, sprigged, striped white and white flowered or plain. These fabrics were produced in vast quantities for the export market. An account of 1802 describes the brilliance of calimancoes, satins and brilliants:
This manufacture was peculiar to Norwich, and the colours employed were said to surpass any others dyed in Europe.

Calendering - the glaze or shine on the cloth was achieved by putting the completed fabric through heated cylinders or boards. This process makes the fabric dirt resistant and therefore stronger. The instrument for calendaring is composed of two thick cylinders or rollers of very hard and polished wood, round which the stuffs to be calendered are wound: these rollers are placed crosswise, between two very thick boards, the lower serving a fixed base, and the upper moveable, by means of a thick screw, with a rope fastened to a spindle, which makes it’s axis: the uppermost board is loaded with large stones cemented together, weighing twenty thousand pounds or more. It is this weight that gives the polished and glazed finish.

Damask – a thick reversible fabric, woven from silk, flax or wool. The ground and pattern are formed by different bindings of the same warp and weft. Wool damask was used for upholstery. The name is derived from Damascus, Syria where the most beautiful damask was woven from the twelfth century onwards.

Strangers – or 'aliens' from Wallonia, southern part of Belgium. Walloons were German speaking, due to invasion, and the word Walha means stranger.

Stuff – a general term for worsted cloths. Twill or plain weave and made of common wool.

Taborets – shaded and striped worsteds found in late eighteenth century Norwich merchants’ sample books.

Worsted – lightweight cloth made of long-staple combed wool yarn. The name is derived from the village of Worsted near Norwich, a centre for worsted weaving. The word is synonymous with crewel wools. The expansion of the Norwich trade immediately after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 is particularly noticeable writes Kenneth G Ponting in The Woollen Industry of South-West England Adams & Dart 1971

Bibliography:

Arnolli, Gieneke
Fashion in Friesland or Mode in Friesland 1750-1950 (2000)

Clabburn, Pamela
The National Trust Book of Furnishing Textiles. (Viking 1988)

Du Mortier, Bianca M
Aristocratic Attire. The donation of the Six family. Rijksmuseum Dossiers

Havermans-Dikstaal, M
Aangekleed Gaat Uit. Streekkleding en cultuur in Noord-Holland 1750-1900 (All Dressed Up. Regional Dress and culture in North Holland 1750-1900). 1998, only published in Dutch

James, John
History of the Worsted Manufacture in England: With Introductory Notices of the Manufacture among the Ancient Nations, and during the Middle Ages. An account of 1802 ( London: Bradford 1857. Reprinted. London Frank Cass 1968. p 364-65)

Montgomery, Florence M
Textiles in America 1650-1870. A dictionary of textile terms.(Norton) p 185

Morris, Thelma
Made in Norwich. 700 Years of Textile Heritage. (2008. Nick Williams. ISBN 9780955932007)

Swain, Margaret
Nightgown into Dressing Gown. A study of Mens’ Nightgowns Eighteenth century. Costume Journal, UK 1972 no 6

Van Seters, Juliette
Woleen Damast. Van Seters curated an exhibition in 1997 at Het Sterkenhaus Museum, Nr Nijmegen, north Holland.

© 2009 Meg Andrews.