An important domestic and commercial product throughout much of Britain and, especially, in Ireland and Scotland since the 1600s, during the Industrial Revolution the manufacture and use of linen textiles entered a period of gradual decline. Mechanisation came to the industry from the 1700s, beginning with water-driven, later motorised machinery that progressively accelerated the harvesting and dressing of flax, the spinning of fibres and, eventually, in the early 1800s, the weaving of linen cloth on factory power looms. However, new technology revolutionised the production of other textiles too, some better suited than linen to mechanised manufacture. The rise of a new material, cotton (used for thousands of years in hotter climates) – cheaper to produce, lighter to wear and easier to launder than linen – heralded the end of linen’s pre-eminence in the west as the most widely used cloth deriving from a vegetable fibre.

The mechanisation of cotton spinning from the later 1700s onwards was a turning point in the fortunes of linen (more about cotton in forthcoming issues of DYAP). As interest in convenient, affordable cotton goods – especially clothing materials, ready-made garments and household items – soared, so demand lessened for many ordinary linen articles.

That said, some families and communities continued growing flax and producing linen cloth for domestic use and as a local cottage industry well into the 1800s. Despite becoming progressively outmoded, linen also experienced unexpected boom periods at times of cotton shortages, notably during the American Civil War (1861–65) and later during the First World War, when flax was grown again to make linen for the troops. Additionally, cotton could not substitute for certain stouter, tougher grades of linen such as sailcloth and sackcloth.

However, daily life was changing and with fewer 20th century households using linen as an everyday commodity, fine linens began to be considered niche, luxury goods and even collectors’ items. During the 1950s most remaining branches of linen manufacture declined further due to increasing use of easy-care synthetic fibres. Echoing broader textile manufacturing trends, some specialist linen manufacturers such as Ulster Weavers (founded 1880) continued in production and still thrive today, while our modern interest in natural materials and traditional crafts and skills is once more raising the profile of linen – a material known to, and made by, so many of our ancestors.