The Woollen Trade in Kilkenny – Machinery for Spinning and Weaving
Machinery
Tuck mills
The use of water power to operate textile machinery started with fulling mills
or tuck mills. In these the cloth was pounded by wooden hammers powered by
a mill wheel. The civil survey lists a tuck mill in Kilkenny in 1654.
The 18th century saw the textile industry changed completely by a series of
inventions.
The Flying Shuttle
In 1733 John Kay invented the flying shuttle. Up to his time the shuttle had to
be thrown by hand from one side of the loom to the other. He arranged the
shuttle so that pulling a lever could do the same job, and this speeded up the
work of weaving.
The Spinning Jenny
James Hargreaves arranged several spindles in a row, with the spindles facing
upwards, so that one spinner could do the work of several spinning wheels. He
took out a patent for his new machine in 1770 but had been using it in his
factory for several years beforehand.
The Spinning Mule
Samuel Crompton combined the spinning jenny
with the Water Frame, invented by Richard
Arkwright, and produced his first Spinning Mule
in 1778. This applied water power to spinning,
and meant that yarn for cloth making could be
produced quite fast and in large quantities. The
yarn could be produced cheaply.
The Power Loom
By 1785 the only part of the
production of cloth that couldn’t be
done by machine was the weaving.
That ended in that year when the
Reverend
Edmund
Cartwright
patented the power loom. It was
improved over the years and by the
1820s was in common use.
Tighe’s Statistical Survey of the County Kilkenny
Kilkenny had a considerable blanket manufacture at the end of the 18th century. This
involved Spinning, Weaving, Milling and Dressing. Writing at the beginning of the
19th century William Tighe wrote: “Spinning Jennies have lately been introduced,
which curtail the manual labour at least two thirds; those worked by water are found
most effectual; one of them is near Black-Mill Bridge; each water jenny employs
eleven hands and does the work of thirty-six; two only have been introduced in town
within these two years.”
He gives details of the industry in Kilkenny: There were fifty looms with two
journeyman weavers employed at each loom, making a total of one hundred
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The Woollen Trade in Kilkenny – Machinery for Spinning and Weaving
journeyman weavers. There were in addition thirty master weavers and six hundred
men and women employed in other parts of the manufacture of woollen blankets. The
spinning of each piece of cloth cost £1..2s..9p and the journeyman weaver was paid
twenty shillings, or one pound.
Over the next few years, spinning was mechanized. Fulling had been done in tuck
mills for a long time, and in the 19th century, spinning was mechanised as well.
In 1841 the weavers were complaining of unemployment. They said that from 1800 to
1829 the trade had been protected by a duty on English cloth, but that since then
English cloth was coming in and replacing the Irish manufactured cloth. They didn’t
mention the invention of the power loom in England in the 1830’s but already English
cloth was much cheaper than the old hand-woven cloth.
The weaving was done on hand looms until 1846. In the beginning of that year power
looms worked by water power were introduced in Ormonde Mills. It was a very
anxious time in Ireland. The potato crop had failed the previous year and famine
threatened the whole country. Hundreds of weavers lost their jobs, and the new looms
were worked by women, who were employed in weaving for the first time, and were
paid much less than the men.
Ormonde Woollen Mills survived until 1868,
closed for some years and re-opened in 1880.
In this old photograph you can see the mills
and the weir which diverted the water into the
mill race. Kilkenny Castle is in the distance.
The building was destroyed by fire in 1969.
The ruins may be seen on the Canal Walk
about a quarter of a mile below John’s Bridge.
1. What work was done in a tuck mill?
2. Who invented the flying shuttle and what did it do?
3. What was a spinning jenny?
4. What power source did the first power looms use?
5. What did William Tighe say about the number of men needed to work the
spinning jennies, compared with the older way of spinning thread?
6. What was the main product made in Kilkenny’s woollen mills around the year
1,800?
7. How was employment affected by the change to power looms in Ormonde
Mills?
8. When did Ormonde Mills finally close?
9. Where was Ormonde Mills located?
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