In the present limited and daily declining condition of the woollen
manufacture in Ireland, so few individuals in the country can be
acquainted with the mode of preparing the clothing of the sheep, and
altering its form so as to make it suitable and fit for the clothing of
man, that we deem a short account of the various processes through which
it passes may be acceptable to many of our readers.
When the sheep-shearer has taken off the fleece, he ties it up in a
peculiar knot, which is not opened again until the wool-sorter takes it
in hands. It is his business to open it, and having spread the fleece
upon a table, and cast his eye over it, he separates it into the number
of sorts required, the wool being of different degrees of fineness upon
different parts of the animal. The coarse qualities of fleeces, from
which low descriptions of cloths, kerseys, blankets, and friezes are
made, are seldom divided into more than three sorts, the finer into
four or five, and the finest Saxony into seven, eight, and sometimes
nine. With the latter we have little to do in this country, there being
but _one_ factory (that of Messrs Willans) where it is worked; and we
shall therefore merely follow the progress of a piece of ordinary coarse
cloth, there being but little difference between it and the finest in the
general detail: indeed very little at all, except in the additional care
and expense.
The sorted wool having been carefully examined by women, and freed from
straws and motes, is taken to the scouring department attached to the
dye-house, where it is immersed in a hot ley with soap, and well scoured,
after which it is washed in clean water and left to drain.
It is then coloured, and either allowed to drain, or the colouring matter
is wrung out, and it is again washed in water until the water runs from
it unsullied. The apparatus in which it undergoes this process is called
“the washing-box:” one side and the bottom being of metal perforated with
innumerable small holes, the water has free ingress and egress, whilst
the wool is securely retained. Having been thoroughly cleansed, it is
taken to the drying-loft, if the weather be fine, or to the stove if it
be unfavourable, and there perfectly dried. From thence it is carried
to the factory, and placed in the first machine called “the willow,” or
more generally “the devil”--a machine formed of five or six cylinders
of different sizes, armed with steel spikes three or four inches long:
the motion of the cylinders being contrary, the spikes pass between
each other, tearing the wool open if it should have clotted or got into
lumps. Cheviot and Scotch wools, and wools damaged by shipwreck, must be
_willowed_ before they can be even scoured, in consequence of their being
always matted.
The willow, and all the machines which shall be subsequently mentioned
in this paper, are driven by the water-wheel or steam-engine--in this
country almost uniformly by the former. Having been thoroughly opened by
the willow, the wool is spread upon a floor and oiled, about a quart of
fine olive oil being the proportion to every stone weight of wool. The
effect of the oil is to cause the fibres of the wool to separate more
easily upon the carding-machines, and prevent the too rapid wearing of
the cards.
The next machine that takes up the work is called “the teazer:” it has
a greater number of cylinders than the willow, with shorter teeth,
about an inch in length, and hooked, and some of the cylinders have
coarse wire cards. Having passed twice or thrice through the teazer,
the wool is transferred to that part of the mill called, by way of
pre-eminence, “the machine-room,” where the great scribbling machines,
or, as they are styled, “scribblers,” are placed. These machines have a
great number of cylinders of different sizes covered with wire cards of
various degrees of fineness, so arranged that they take the wool from
one another, separating the fibres, and transferring it until it has
passed quite over every cylinder, and is carded out at the farther end
of the machine (sixteen or eighteen feet from where it was put in) in a
thin flake like gauze. Having been run through two or three scribblers
of various fineness, it is passed to the carding machine, or “carder,”
which resembles the “scribbler,” but is smaller, and instead of the wool
falling out at the end in a flake, it is caught by a fluted cylinder of
wood, which, revolving in a semi-cylindrical box, divides and converts
it into separate soft rolls, about the thickness of ordinary sash rope;
and these are thrown out upon a sheet of canvass stretched horizontally
upon rollers, which from its slowly moving, so as to prevent one roll
from falling upon another, is called “the creeper.” The rolls are taken
to “the billy,” a sort of preliminary spinning-machine, sometimes worked
by the water-wheel, but (as yet, especially in Ireland) more generally
by a man called a “slubber,” who is enabled by it to form from fifty to
one hundred threads at a time, children being employed to stick the ends
of the rolls together, which is done by lapping a small portion of the
tip of one on the other which lies on the “billy-sheet,” and then giving
them a slight rub. The soft thick thread which the slubber forms is made
up in conical rolls or “cops,” and is taken to the spinning-machine, “the
mule,” which has now quite superseded the spinning-jenny, which in its
day superseded the spinning-wheel. The wheel could spin only one thread
at a time: the jenny was first made to spin thirty, then forty, then
fifty, sixty, seventy, and eighty threads at once, by a man’s hand. By
the “mule,” worked by water, a man can now spin from five hundred to one
thousand threads of woollen yarn, and of cotton two or three thousand, at
once.
The thread for the warp is taken from the mule to the “warping-mill,”
where it is prepared according to the number of threads for the breadth
of the cloth, the length arranged, and being tied up in a peculiar kind
of ball, it is called a “warp,” and is taken to the sizing shop, where it
is dipped in melted size; and having been opened, perfectly saturated,
and wrung out gently, it is carried to the field, or stove, to be dried.
The weaver then fixes it in the loom, and procures the “weft” thread,
which is spun differently from the warp, and is wound upon wooden
bobbins; having wetted these in water, he fixes one in his shuttle, and
the threads of the warp being lifted alternately, and the shuttle shot
between them, the beam of the loom strikes each thread home, and in due
time the piece is woven. A good weaver with a sound warp can weave in
a hand-loom from six to nine yards of cloth in a day, but with the new
power-loom he can weave twenty.
The cloth when taken out of the loom is examined by the overseer, and
having been passed and dried, is taken to the “scouring-machine,” where
it is submitted to the action of a strong ley, with fullers’-earth, &c.,
and worked by the rollers of the machine until both the oil and size have
been extracted; it is then washed clean with water, taken out, and dried.
It is next transferred to the tuck-mill, where it is spread out, a large
quantity of melted soap poured upon it, and being rolled up in a peculiar
manner, it is placed in “the stock,” where two huge hammers made of oak,
weighing from two to three cwt. each, called “stock-feet,” being raised
by a wheel and then let go, fall upon it alternately, until the soap has
been forced through every part of it, and the cloth has narrowed, or,
to speak technically, “milled in,” a half yard or three quarters, and
shortened a fourth or fifth of its length, when it is pronounced to be
“milled.” It is then again placed in the “washing-machine,” washed clean,
and transferred to the “gig-mill.” The “gig” is a machine having a large
cylinder in which teasles, a vegetable production somewhat resembling
thistle tops or burs, are set, and the wet cloth being dragged by a set
of rollers against the hooked spikes of the teasles, whilst the cylinder
in which they are set goes rapidly round in a contrary direction, a
portion of the short fibres of the wool have one of their ends disengaged
and exhibited upon the surface of the cloth, forming what is called the
pile or face: this process is called “raising.” When the piece has been
sufficiently raised, it is taken to the “tenter field,” and stretched
on frames called “tenters,” by means of hooks, to the proper length and
breadth, and it remains thus until thoroughly dried, when it is carried
to the “shearing loft,” where immense shears or machines called “knives”
are passed over the surface, cutting all the wool on the face to an
equal length. One of the improved knives can do as much work as twenty
hand-shearers did formerly. Having received what is technically called
a “cut” or two, it is returned to the gig mill to be “struck,” that is,
“raised,” or submitted to the action of the gig in a dry state, and it
then goes back again to the shear loft, and receives three or four more
cuts on the face. It is then passed to the “burlers,” women who pick
out all motes that have accidentally clung to or become embodied in the
cloth, with steel pincers having very sharp points called “burling irons.”
If it is to be finished by being napped, that is, to have the surface
covered with little knots, as petershams and women’s cloaking, it is
taken to the “napping engines,” where it is submitted to the action of a
board curiously covered with sand, so firmly attached as not to wear off
for a considerable time; this is wedged down upon the cloth, and then set
in motion, describing small circles whilst the cloth is forcibly drawn
from under it by a strong roller, and thus the whole surface is covered
over with little knots; having been passed through the napping engine
three or four times, it is returned to the shear loft to get one or two
cuts on the back, thence again to the napping engine, where it receives a
final run or two, and is passed to the wareroom to be measured and made
up.
But if it is to be finished as a cloth, instead of the napping-engine
it is sent to the steam-brushing mill, where it is passed against a
revolving cylinder covered with brushes and teasles alternately, and
working within a case, into which a stream of steam rushes constantly;
thence it passes to another machine nearly similar, but having brushes
only. Having undergone this process for several hours, it is dried, taken
again to the shear loft and properly cut, then carefully “burled” and
brushed, again to the “knife,” where it is “backed,” that is, cut or
shorn on the back, and then brushed again, preparatory to being placed in
the press, in which it is arranged in neat folds, with thin pasteboard
called “presspaper” between the folds, and hot metal plates at intervals.
The press is then screwed down, and after a proper lapse of time the
cloth is taken out, the folds altered in order that every part may be
properly pressed, and again screwed down. It then goes to the brush-mill
for the last time, from whence the measurer at length gets it to make up.
Fine cloth sometimes undergoes another process called “singeing,” in
which it is passed over hot cylinders; but as our object is merely to
give a general idea of the complicated processes of the manufacture to
our readers, and not to make them at once masters of the business, we do
not think it necessary to go into very minute detail. The entire length
of time occupied may be estimated at from one to nearly two months.
The machinery in the woollen factories of Ireland is certainly inferior
to that of our English neighbours, and the decline of the trade renders
improvement difficult, if not altogether hopeless. Power-looms for the
weaving of woollen cloth, so generally at work at the other side of the
Channel, have been only this year introduced for the first time to this
country by Mr Moore, proprietor of the Milltown factory near Dublin; and
that Irish mechanists are not inferior to any others, is evidenced by
the fact that the power-looms erected at Milltown are vastly superior to
those imported, and which were on the most improved construction. Whether
the experiment will have any effect in reviving this sinking business,
remains to be seen; but it is much to be feared that as a great branch
of trade it has deserted our shores altogether; certain it is, that
the great factory at Celbridge (within ten miles of Dublin), which was
dismantled about five years since, employed so lately as the year 1829
more looms than are now (1840) at work in the whole county of Dublin,
probably in the entire province of Leinster, and yet the introduction of
machinery could be effected much more easily in Ireland than almost any
where else, in consequence of the absence of a manufacturing population,
whose interests might be so compromised as to make them adverse to such
change, and water power, so much cheaper than steam, is both abundant and
unemployed.