January 5, 2013

  • A Stitch In Time

    The book I read to research this post was A Stitch In Time by Betty Park which is a very good book which I bought from Bewdley Museum in Worcestershire, England. I think this book would be difficult for most people to obtain. It's about the clothing industries In Bewdley in the days of the canals when it was the 2nd biggest inland port in England. Gloucester was the biggest. Bewdley is a small market town on the River Severn & many things were sent to and from Bristol and then abroad. Bewdley had a thriving clothing industry. In the schools in those days dress making was considered a more important skill than reading and writing. If a lady was married she could make some much needed cash by being a self employed tailor. Most clothes were specially made by a tailor or dress maker or you made them yourself. This was the case until the mid 20th century. It was considered a huge shame if you had to go in the workhouse. Also if you died you had to have insurance to meet the cost of your funeral & most people paid a penny a week for cover. It was a humiliation if the parish church had to pay for it. If a funeral or wedding was coming up the tailor or dressmaker would be particularly busy making the outfits & they would need drapes for the coffin and hearse. The drapes were often rented out. With a funeral they would only have a few days to get everything ready & it would be particularly stressful for the clothesmaker. Many of these businesses were essentially one person affairs with maybe an apprentice to do the simpler jobs. They would typically work longer hours than the employees at larger businesses. In fact the only limiting factor would appear to be daylight as gas was very expensive. Also the gas lighting wasn't very bright and you had to pay a lot of money per light so this was limited. The lowliest trade was shirtmaker as these often had there prices undercut by the workhouses and schools. There weren't many of these in Bewdley.

oldscratbag

Categories