BYGONE INDUSTRIES OF THE PEAK: TAPES AND NARROW FABRICS
This is one of a series of articles published in
The Peak Advertiser,
the Peak District's local free newspaper, on 22nd February 1999 (p9), and
reproduced by kind permission of its author, Julie Bunting.
The series is now available as a fully-illustrated paperback, published in 2006
by Wildtrack Publishing of Sheffield (ISBN 1-904098-01-0)
BYGONE INDUSTRIES OF THE PEAK: TAPES AND NARROW FABRICS
In the latter years of the 19th century, the weekly output of 230
people employed at Speedwell and Haarlem Mills in Wirksworth
equalled the circumference of the earth. Under the broad
description of tape makers these workers were producing a wide
range of narrow fabrics, from boot laces to ferrets (stout cotton
or silk tapes) and smallwares (haberdashery).
The medieval word 'taeppe' described any narrow cloth used for
any conceivable purpose and demand was well established long
before commercial tape manufacture was introduced to Derby in the
early 19th century. The Derby mills inspired expansion of the
industry to Ashbourne and Wirksworth and together these three
towns formed the nucleus of the largest tape producing centre in
the world.
Of the small number of outlying manufacturers, John Hackett was
listed as a tape maker in the Matlock area in 1821, possibly at
Tansley, the business apparently passing to Thomas Hackett. By
1829 there is mention of Tatlow and Fletcher's smallware factory
by the first dam in Middleton Dale, though by 1846 the building
stood unoccupied before being put to other uses.
The trade flourished best at Wirksworth. Haarlem Mill, a former
cotton spinning mill paralysed by the cotton depression, was
converted to tape weaving by 1815. Willow Bath tape mill, which
had a steam engine, dates from the same period and the
steam-powered Speedwell Mill, a former hat factory, was converted
for tape manufacture in 1844 by Joseph Wheatcroft. In 1879 the
Wheatcroft firm acquired Haarlem Mill, steam and water powered,
which had earlier been worked in conjunction with Arkwright's
mills at Cromford. The thriving family firm later established its
own bleachworks at Wash Green where it also had a dye yard, so
eliminating the expense of sending all its material to Matlock
for bleaching.
John Bowmer and Sons began tape making in 1883 at Providence Mill
in Wirksworth, later known as Gorsey Bank Mill. The firm was
later to make the proud boast that it had manufactured the
fuse-binding tape of every Mills Bomb used in the First World
War. Bowmers built a new mill at Water Lane in 1961 and nine
years later merged with M. Bond and Company of Ashbourne to
become Bowmer-Bond Narrow Fabrics Limited of Hanging Bridge Mills
on the river Dove at Ashbourne. Bonds traced their tape making
origins to Alrewas in 1795 before moving to Ashbourne in 1866.
These old-established firms have been responsible for producing
immeasurable amounts of the notorious red tape beloved of
officialdom both at home and overseas.
AHEAD OF ITS TIME
Nineteenth-century fashion kept domestic demands high, whether
silk ribbons, laces and trimmings or strong bindings to meet the
huge market in corsets. By the end of the century, taking Messrs.
Lowe & Scholes of Tansley as an example, typical output included
stay (corset) binding, India tape, carpet binding, skirt beltings
and venetian blind webbing. Lowe & Scholes operated two large
four-storey mills powered by five mill dams, the machinery
attended to a small army of workers, all experienced skilled
hands, smart, intelligent and industrious'. (The Matlocks and
Bakewell 1893, reprinted by the Arkwright Society 1994.) Some
of these employees had evidently started young; when tape weaver
Joseph Ball retired in the summer of 1897 it was reported that he
had worked at Tansley tape mills for seventy years, having
commenced at only seven years of age.
Exactly a hundred years ago a revolutionary invention called the
Poyser Tape Loom made the news. The ingenious Mr. John Poyser of
Bolehill, Wirksworth, was in the process of setting up his
invention at the old Malt House on Steeple Grange. His tape or
ribbon loom was the subject of a lecture at the Yorkshire College
by Professor Beaumont, who declared that the inventor had
achieved what ninety-nine out of a hundred persons would say was
the 'Utopia of a dreamer' but had succeeded so remarkably that he
was entitled to be ranked amongst the foremost textile inventors.
The Professor expected the loom to be 'an epoch-making one in
the textile world' but his optimism was misplaced. The equipment
was actually ahead of its time since the existing yarn technology
could not match the speed of the shuttles. The only firm which
entirely installed the Poyser Loom went into liquidation. Yet its
revolutionary speed foreshadowed technical advances of more
recent times, until finally shuttles were made obsolete by the
introduction of needle looms.
The Bowmer-Bond factory at Ashbourne is now sole survivor of the
old tape manufacturers of the Peak District. The traditional
mainstay of cotton is still used here but on a vastly smaller
scale than modern day materials such as PVC and polypropylene
webbings, made for specialist needs in the transport industry and
in such diverse items as camera straps and equestrian and
mountaineering equipment.
© Julie Bunting
From "The Peak Advertiser", 22nd February 1999.
© Copyright Julie Bunting, GENUKI and Contributors 1995-2008, &c.
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[Created 8 May 2003. Last updated 15 Nov 2009 - 13:06 by Rosemary Lockie]
