More wool was made into cloth in the country.
Dyed and finished wool cloth and less raw wool and unfinished
broadcloth, was exported. Bleaching was done by protracted washing
and open-air drying in "bleach fields". There were great advances
in the technology of making cloth.
Thomas Lombe, the son of a weaver, became a mercer and merchant in
London. He went to Italy to discover their secret in manufacturing
silk so inexpensively. He not only found his way in to see their
silk machines, but made some drawings and sent them to England
hidden in pieces of silk. He got a patent in 1718 and he and his
brother set up a mill using water power to twist together the silk
fibers from the cocoons into thread [thrown silk] in 1719. His
factory was five hundred feet long and about five stories high.
One water wheel worked the vast number of parts on the machines.
The machines inside were very tall, cylindrical in shape, and
rotated on vertical axes. Several rows of bobbins, set on the
circumference, received the threads, and by a rapid rotary
movement gave them the necessary twist. At the top the thrown silk
was automatically wound on a winder, all ready to be made into
hanks for sale. The workman's chief task was to reknot the threads
whenever they broke. Each man was in charge of sixty threads.
There were three hundred workmen. Lombe made a fortune of 120,000
pounds and was knighted and made an alderman of London.
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