Fit For A King: A Short History of Yorkshire’s Wool Industry and Trade

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There is evidence of weaving in Yorkshire dating back to the Bronze Age but there was weaving everywhere where there were sheep, and there were sheep everywhere in England. There was nothing special about Yorkshire wool, but when a missionary preacher came back from Australia to report on the colony to King George III, he brought a barrel full of wool from his own flock and had it woven and tailored near his home, half-way between Bradford and Leeds. The King (not so mad as reported) admired both the wool and the weave and was promised a coat in the same texture. It was the start of the Australian wool industry and the supremacy of Yorkshire as the place to weave it and then to tailor it and to market it. Bradford would become the world’s centre for wool-buying and the weaving industry and Leeds, ten miles away for the marketing and tailoring. Everything in the West Riding, from the size of the mills to their works canteens would become the biggest and best in the world.