"Homespun linen"

[Annie65115]

I'm looking at the advert for a sale of the contents of a house, 1797. The household furniture includes "Homespun Linen and other Hangings".

Would this be made of cloth that had truly been spun at home? Or was it just a saying much as we're nowadays sold "home-made" stuff which is clearly never been near a private dwelling?(!)

And what would the "other hangings" be? Curtains? Drapes for the 4-Post (presumably a 4 poster bed) that was also mentioned?

[MollyC]

My family owns a tablecloth which was "homespun".  It was given to my grandfather on his marriage by his older unmarried cousin, said to have been spun by their maternal grandmother's family who lived at a watermill c1790-1820.  It passed through my hands when I gave it to related 2nd cousins in 2002, but first I took it to the local museum for their opinion.  There is a card with it listing the owners, to which we added another generation.

I was told by the museum that it was usual for the women of a household to spin in their spare time until they had sufficent yarn to make an article, then it was sent away to be woven into cloth and returned for household use.  Also that they may have had quite a number of each item because they did not do much washing of household items during the winter, but stored it and had a grand washing session as part of spring cleaning!

[Rena]

I researched the same thing with my family in the Kingdom of Hanover on the European mainland.  This industry took many lives due to voluminous  clothing styles of the generation  being caught in the wheels inside the windmill/watermill and as the power came from sails blown around by the wind or water from a waterfall  there was not much anyone could do to stop accidents.

The steam industrialisation of the cloth industry hadn't advanced much during the 1700s and the cotton and wool trade were mainly families working in what is known as cottage industries.  .

Linen was made from the stalks of flax.  The flax heads contained oil and after being crushed in a windmill or a mill powered by water the oil was used to light churches,  homes and factories, etc.

The stalks needed to be softened so were immersed in water, after which the woody outer stem was separated from the internal fibres which were then processed into yarn and woven into linen fabric.

I still have a plentiful supply of fine Irish linen handkerchiefs given to me as presents over the years, plus a stalwart M&S linen summer  dress and jacket bought by me in the 1970s.

The only other weaving materials at that time in the UK were wool from the sheep and cotton which came into the UK via ships sailing to and from other continents via the trade wind routes.

[Elwyn Soutter]

Until around 1830 most cloth, linen, calico etc was spun at home. From that time onwards factory based mechanisation increasingly replaced the home weaver. This article is for Ireland but I am pretty sure practice there largely mirrored England:

https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/flax-plant.html

[MollyC]

My watermill was incidental, it was a corn mill, simply that the miller's womenfolk were hand spinning, which no doubt happened in many farms and cottages.

On the other side of my family I have three generations of flax dressers in northern England who were the ones who soaked the stems of linseed plants ("linen seed") to soften them, known as retting, and extracted the fibres.  While commercial spinning and weaving migrated from cottages to mills this process was difficult to mechanise, so it became a well-paid skill.  However the mill owners needed the dressers' wives and children to work in the mills because they were not prepared to pay a man's wages for most of the work.

ADDED: Flax/linseed crops are still grown occasionally, for the linseed oil which is extracted from the seeds.  In high summer they appear as a field of pale blue flowers, then the stems turn a russet brown before being harvested.

[Gillg]

A bit off topic, but we used to use linseed oil to treat sports equipment, such as hockey sticks and cricket bats. 

[Rena]

A bit off topic, but we used to use linseed oil to treat sports equipment, such as hockey sticks and cricket bats.

 Snap, I was also thinking about the times my brothers and I treated our cricket bats and hockey stick with linseed oil.  My stick looked like new when I handed it down to one of my nieces and I was idly wondering recently if she had looked after it so that she too could hand it down.

         

[Annie65115]

Linseed oil was used on horses' hooves too!

I love how a simple query here on RC can sometimes throw up such a wealth of esoteric knowledge!

The will in question came from Leicestershire, which was of course a major centre for textile production - but that was through knitting with frames, rather than spinning/weaving etc. And the deceased was a farmer, not a FWK.

 Framework knitting was a cottage industry rather than a factory- based one so all such items would have been "home made" (albeit in the knitter's home, not necessarily the home of the items wearer!)

[Wiggy]

What an interesting thread!

I totally agree with Annie and her comment about where a topic will lead.

Wiggy.