March
Our March talk by Jonathan Smith was about the Witney blanket industry, and the Early & Smith factories in the town. Jonathan is a son of the last manager of Smiths and gave us a most interesting and informative presentation.
He explained the importance of Witney’s location on the edge of the Cotswold with an abundance of locally farmed sheep and the Windrush used to power the mills and clean the fleeces.
The Romans introduced into the area, the sheep from which the Cotswold Lion sheep is descended. In the Middle Ages Cotswold wool was highly-prize and sought-after across Europe bringing much wealth to the merchants and the ecclesiastical community in the area.
The industry originally started with home weavers making blankets at home, and many factories subsequently grew-up in the town. In later years the two main factories were owned by the Early and Smith families. Their factories started in the 1700s, the families were both Methodist who supported their working communities.
One of the reasons Witney blankets became famous across the world was the importance placed on producing a quality product, all blankets were weighed and measured to ensure they met exacting standards. Witney blankets were famously traded by the Hudson’s Bay Company with Native Americans, the Witney Point blanket being synonymous with quality.
The cloth industry dominated life in the town in the 17th century with many hundreds of people involved in the industry until the mid 20th century. In 2002 the final factory closed; our preference for Duvets made the UK based blanket industry obsolete.
Jonathan also showed a fascinating film from the 1920s, produced by Smith’s and recorded at their mills in Witney and Crawley. The film demonstrated the wool processing, spinning, weaving, cleaning, drying, and shrinking processes. The workers depicted obviously relished the opportunity to be filmed; dressed in their Sunday best with fresh ‘hair-dos’!
The talk was very well attended by our group members, together with many additional visitors.
February
Our February talk was a special date in all our diaries which we were looking forward to very much. We were not disappointed.
Our own history group member Ken Langford together with his prodigy Suzie Fletcher, regaled us with many stories of their time working together in Ken’s local saddlery business, and Suzie also talked about some of the favourite objects she has worked on.
Suzie is a master saddler and leather expert on the much loved BBC TV series ‘Repair Shop’. Growing up in Witney, she talked about her love of leatherwork & saddles which initially came from a childhood love of horses. She met Ken in the 1970s, as a 14 year old, when she visiting his workshop with an old broken saddle, he encouraged her to take it apart herself and try putting it back together again; and fostered her interest in working with and caring for leather. Firstly encouraging her to train in London, she then returned to become his apprentice. Suzie then spent 20 years in the USA honing her craft before returning to the UK and joining the Repair Shop team 10 years ago.
Ken & Suzie have had a lasting friendship for over 40 years and the affection and esteem they hold for each other’s craft and skills was very apparent to everyone in the hall. On display was a wide selection of tools used in leather working, beautiful objects in their own right.
The talk was very well attended by our group members, together with 17 additional visitors. Suzie very kindly did not want a speaker’s fee so a small donation was made to Sobell House on her behalf to thank her for finding time to come to talk to our group.
