Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s Macclesfield was a major silk manufacturing centre, production encompassing silk throwing, traditional handloom weaving and, increasingly after 1850, mechanised power loom weaving. The local population soared during the 19th century and by 1840 there were 70 mills and dye houses, rising to 120 by 1940. Macclesfield silk firms’ impressive and diverse output was showcased at the Great Exhibition of 1851: furnishing fabrics; velvet, satin, serge and sarsenet materials for garments; shawls; bandanas; handkerchiefs; ribbons; and other trimmings. Macclesfield’s physical landscape was dominated by companies’ mills and workers’ houses with attic workshops: at its height there were some 600 hand weavers’ garrets, around 200 of which survive today. Preserving the town’s unique silk heritage became a priority and today visitors can explore the Silk Museum and Paradise Mill: macclesfieldmuseums.co.uk

Further silk manufacturing was carried out in the 1800s, chiefly on riverside sites for water power, for instance in Leek (Staffordshire), Coventry (West Midlands), Salford (Greater Manchester), London and Middlesex, Dartford and Crayford (Kent), Braintree (Essex) and parts of Suffolk. Some successful textile companies producing silk goods were well known and at their height employed thousands of workers, such as Courtaulds in Braintree and Carter Vavasour & Rix of Cheapside. Smaller mills or family-run businesses like Whitchurch Mill (Hampshire) employed fewer staff but provided work for generations of local people. Some silk companies found a niche in the market for certain products, their creations even fuelling consumer demand. For example, escalating needs for ever more complex black mourning apparel in Victorian Britain prompted the development of special fabrics like textured silk gauze ‘crape’, most notably new ‘Norwich crape’, devised by Joseph and George Grout and their partners and widely manufactured at factories from Yarmouth and Norwich to Manchester and Scotland, until c.1890.

As before, the fortunes of the industry again fluctuated in response to trade treaties, changing global economies and shifts in fashion, causing many manufacturers to adapt (like Thomas Stevens of Coventry, who switched from producing silk ribbons to silk bookmarks and, later, silk portraits and postcards), to amalgamate or cease production altogether. A continuing love of luxurious silk materials for shimmering evening wear and exquisite lingerie in the late 1800s could not prevent the industry’s decline in the face of competition from cheaper silk products from Asian countries. Demand for accessories like scarves and ties persisted and the 1920s/1930s vogue for silk stockings boosted production, but during WW2 all available silk was requisitioned for the war effort. Afterwards popular fashion increasingly favoured new artificial fibres and today only a very limited number of British companies manufacture niche items like club ties and high-end dress and furnishing fabrics. {