History of The Religious Society of Friends in Lurgan

CHAPTER SIX

THE LINEN INDUSTRY

A the beginning of the eighteenth century the position of Friends in Lurgan was secure. They were a respected group whose contribution to the economic well-being of the town was welcomed and who had valuable links with other Quakers in business in Dublin, England and America.

Although credit is popularly given to the Huguenots for establishing the linen industry in Ireland, when they arrived in 1698, good quality material was already in production in the Lurgan and Quakers were in the forefront of this enterprise. The HOOPE family was most influential in the growing linen trade. Robert, who had established the business, retired from active participation in these affairs about 1700 to devote himself more fully to religious matters, but his son John continued to pursue his business interests as a general merchant, postmaster and partner in a bleaching enterprise, as well as management of his considerable estate at Richmount.

PIONEERS OF THE LINEN TRADE

Dr. W. H. Crawford, of the Federation for Ulster Local Studies, has researched extensively the part played by Lurgan Quakers in the development of new techniques and the production of high quality cloth. THOMAS TURNER was regarded as an expert by those in the industry from the early years of the eighteenth century. He had prepared ground for sowing hemp, devised a scutch mill, reproduced foreign methods of weaving and initiated new bleaching techniques. In 1715 he published a pamphlet 'New Methods for improving Flax and Flax-seed and bleaching cloth1. Because of his knowledge he was sponsored by the newly-established Linen Board to instruct bleachers from Antrim to Cavan in the best techniques and processes to adopt.

JAMES BRADSHAW, whose family had leased half the townland of Drumnakelly in 1670, was licensed in 1712 as an inspector to examine local linen practices and instruct where necessary. He was sent by the Linen Board in 1721 and again in 1729 to study Dutch, Flemish and French methods of weaving. The Bradshaws later moved to Newtownards and were instrumental in building the Friends Meeting House at Milecross (now a beautifully restored building owned by Ards Borough Council). The family name is best known through the Bradshaw Railway Guide, published by descendants who moved to England.

Another Lurgan Friend, JOHN NICHOLSON, set up his business on the river Bann, near Gilford. He is credited with innovations in bleaching processes, probably the use of a 'washing mill' and a drying house, 92 feet long by 20 feet broad. Finance for these buildings was derived from grants from the Irish Linen Board and his bleaching works at Hall's Mill became one of the most advanced in the mid-eighteenth century.

The CHRISTY family, who came from Scotland to Moyallon in 1675, were prominent bleachers too. They perfected techniques in finishing the linen cloth and in the 1730s two brothers returned to Scotland and introduced these methods to the developing linen trade in that country. By 1786 James Christy had established a vitriol works in Moyallon to service the extensive linen interests which were based along the Bann and which were mostly operated by Friends.

The GREER family was another of the Quaker linen dynasties which originated in Lurgan and which became such a powerful force in the Ulster economy of the time. Thomas Greer of Dungannon was a notable merchant and active Friend and his life and interests are well documented in the 'Greer Papers' available in the Public Record Office for Northern Ireland. One member of the family, Rachel Greer, married a Malcolmson and their youngest son, David, moved to business in Clonmel. In 1826 he commenced cotton manufacture in Portlaw, Co. Waterford, and by 1837 was employing 1000 workers. His model village contained houses of good quality for the period and he promoted education, a Friendly Society and the temperance cause. It is likely that this enterprise provided a pattern for John Grubb Richardson in his plans for Bessbrook.

SPINNING AND WEAVING

Production of yarn and cloth were cottage industries and countless Friends, especially in the country, were occupied in this craft. Their houses were built of mud, roughcast with lime, and thatched with straw. An extra room, called the 'shop', housed the loom which because of its height had to be sited on an earthen floor often a couple of feet lower than the rest of the building. Flax was grown and processed on the farms and the womenfolk and children saw to the spinning and winding of the thread. Webs were woven by men and taken to the linen market in Lurgan for which Arthur Brownlow had received a royal patent. A weaver of fine linen made more money from the sale of cloth than from farming alone. A family could make a good living on ten acres, with income from weaving operations and food from oatmeal and potatoes and a cow or two. In 1764 an agent reported to his landlord on the healthy competition for smallholdings:

'The manufacturers of brown linen in the neighbourhood of Waringstown and Lurgan will give 20 shillings or a guinea per acre for a small farm with a convenient house thereon, and even at that price find it difficult to get proper accommodation.'

The material produced in the Lurgan area was of the highest quality, being mostly of lawns, cambrics and damask, and as such commanded high prices on export. Because of the extra income from weaving the area round Lurgan supported a very high population. In pre-Famine times Co. Armagh was the most densely populated county in Ireland with 511 persons to the square mile and in the area between Lurgan and Portadown the density of population was far in excess of that figure.

MARKETING

At the market in Lurgan linen merchants stood in the open street and made purchases, paying for and receiving the goods afterwards in the local inns. These webs were of brown linen in unbleached condition, as bleaching was a slow and tedious operation beyond the resources of the ordinary cottage weaver. The linen-draper required to have this brown linen bleached and prepared before it was ready to be sold. Many of these merchant drapers developed their own bleachworks, as described above, to facilitate the marketing process and to derive maximum profit from their enterprise. The Quaker network was of great value in trade. When in Dublin for the National Meeting a Lurgan linen-draper could also attend to his business affairs at the White Linen Hall. His personal contacts with merchants in that city such as Edward Webb, formerly of Lurgan, were of great value in having his goods marketed to all parts of Ireland, England and even beyond. This same Quaker network was useful in establishing contacts and credit with merchants in important commercial centres as far away as Manchester, Bristol, London and even North America.

Transport was facilitated through the canal system which provided access to Belfast and Carlingford Loughs. Thomas Turner's bleaching green at Kinnego on the shore of Lough Neagh, which was linked by a broad, straight road to the town, became the port for Lurgan. Through it passed much of the trade with the ports of Belfast and Newry. At a later stage the transport of heavy goods was operated through the quays of William John Green of Kinnego where lighters came to receive and discharge their cargoes.

INDUSTRIALISATION

The factory system was much slower in coming to the linen industry in this area than was the case with other textiles elsewhere. The prevailing low cost of production meant that it was uneconomic for factory methods to be used for quite some time. The introduction of wet spinning in 1825 changed the scene and within ten years there were ten large mills in operation in Ulster. In due course weaving factories were set up too and production of cloth on power-looms centred in towns. The bleacher-drapers had the necessary capital to finance these developments and Friends such as the Richardsons, who were descendants of the Christys, were prominent in these new enterprises with large spinning mills in Bessrook and weaving factories in the Lisburn area. A branch of the Bessbrook Spinning Co. was situated in Lurgan. One old-established Quaker family was represented in the firm of Thomas Bell & Co. of Belle Vue which produced handkerchiefs and other fine quality linens which were exported world-wide. Samuel A. Bell was also the Chairman of the Lurgan Weaving Co. Limited, which was set up in 1881. In its heyday it had almost five hundred power looms in operation. The latter part of the nineteenth century marked the peak of the linen industry which benefited greatly from the reduction of imports of cotton at the time of the American Civil War. The days of the country-based handloom weaver were limited and people flocked into the towns for work in the new factories. In these years most citizens of Lurgan, Friends among them, were in some way dependent on linen for their livelihood.