Calico....

I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about Calico... It all began when my Family History Research took me to a place called Cummersdale in Cumberland England and to my 4th Great Grandparent's John Lancaster and Bridget Moffitt's descendents they were born in the 1770's.

They had a daughter Bridget who married a Joseph Jordan, their son John and his wife Ann had seven children. Their sixth son of eight children, Thomas Jordan married Fanny Henderson. This family moved to live in Cummersdale and they all worked in a large Calico Mill there. Thomas was a Calico Printer and his children were either Bobbin Winders or Weavers. The 1841 through 1901 Census Records list them as being there.

My Study of this Mill and this Place was a lengthy one. I could really relate to their lives and their occupations because at the age of sixteen I became a Cotton Weaver myself in Preston, Lancashire, England. I spent about 7 years of my life working in the Mill. Some of the Textiles I wove were Poplin Shirt Fabric, Dish Towels, Calico, Yacht Sails and the last and most difficult was Bridal Satin. Not wanting to spend too much time time talking about the demise of the Cotton Industry in the British Isles I will only say that in the late 1960's after I came to the United States it pretty much ended. When I worked in the Mill it was hard work but I found it interesting and it paid well.


In my study of the Mill my ancestors worked in that was not so. In the 1850's it paid very poorly, they worked long day's for as little as 8 pennies a day. These were the day's before Unions existed I am sure. The dark day's in Victorian England when the poor worked hard to make a living and the Owners of Factories and Coal Mines became rich and powerful people.


I became a Weaver just as the Weaving Loom changed quite a lot. I was trained on the older type of Loom where a Weaver had about six Looms to take care of and you would go from one to the other watching for the Bobbin to run out of thread in the Shuttle, as it did you would stop the Loom and manually change the Bobbin and set it going again. Of course their was a lot of other things you did also. Then along came the Automatic very fast Looms. They had a sort of Wheel or Battery loaded with Bobbins that when the Bobbin in the Shuttle ran out of thread (called Weft) it got punched out and another Bobbin punched in Automatically. The Loom just kept on going, so the responsibility of the Weaver changed from having six or eight Looms to having twenty to take care of.

(Talk about multi-tasking!) The Weaver would also have a person who worked with them called a Battery Filler, their job to was to make sure the Batteries did not run out of Bobbins. The more the Looms kept going the more Fabric was produced the more Money you earned. Sounds simple right? Well not so simple, lots of things could and did go wrong and that was what weaving was all about, fixing the wrong things. The worst thing was if a Shuttle Split and crashed. Called a Smash. The Loom would stop but before it did it would rip out many Warp Threads. The Weavers job was to fix the damage and set it going again whilst at the same time watching the other nineteen Looms. Sometimes a Warp thread would break but the Loom would not stop and it would go on weaving very bad holes and faults in the Fabric. You had to stop that and with a metal comb cut and comb all the bad part of the Weft out and set it back to to weave again. If you repair was not as good as the Warehouse liked when they looked at your Cloth over Lights, pretty soon you would see a runner from the warehouse come in to the Weaving Shed and you would get a little note telling you you were wanted in the Warehouse. You had to go and look at the bad job they thought you did and promise you would do better. Fortunately I did not have that happen very often.

Another hard part was when their was a mechanical problem with the Loom and you had to get your Overseer or Tackler to come and fix it. They had a chalk board on the wall by their work bench, you would go up and write down the number of the Loom with the problem on it. It was smart to wait until they were off busy somewhere else before you put your number up. If they were at the bench you would not get a happy response from them.

The Weaving Sheds are very noisy places, you could not hear yourself or any one else speak. So a language of speaking sort of like "lip reading" was used it was called
"Meemawing" a sort of exaggerated movement of the mouth. to this day I can still read what the Coaches are saying to their Sports Teams if the Camera catches them on TV. Not always good!!

Well enough about Weaving, this little Post brought back many memories good and bad. Next Post some examples of Weaving and Calico. I even found a Barbie dressed in Calico. We know many of our Pioneer Ladies wore it on their way across the Plains. My friend Jill gave me a lovely Quilted Star for Christmas that I have great appreciation for. She made it herself. So I took a picture of that. Anyway next time you are in the Fabric Store Looking at all the lovely Calico Prints maybe you will see them in a little different light. Many steps and many people got them there. Thank you Lancaster and Jordan Ancestors.