Workshop in Leeds
War of the Fibres
War of the fibres was a free public workshop which took place in the Brotherton Room, University of Leeds, in October 2015. This event was a collaboration between the Enterprise of Culture, Rethinking Textiles and Special Collections in the Brotherton Library (University of Leeds).
Open to anyone with an interest in textile history, the workshop examined local history contributions to the traditional story of the Industrial Revolution. The day included talks on wool and flax, as well as cotton, a small exhibition of textile documents and artefacts from Special Collections at the Brotherton Library, and a walking tour of the University of Leeds campus and its textile history: all making a half-day of fresh studies of industrialization and textile production in Leeds.
Prof Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Dr Barbara Hahn, researchers of textile history from the University of Leeds, took a close look at the rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire in the period of the Industrial Revolution in two talks over the course of the workshop.
A small War of the fibres exhibition in the Brotherton Room demonstrated how important and innovative Leeds textile manufacturers were. The papers of Benjamin Gott and John Marshall, kept in Special Collections at the Brotherton Library, show that Leeds industry pursued new machines and methods of production in their textile factories. They both experimented actively to make their fibres competitive even while cotton stole the glory at the time.
Image: Abraham Moon and Sons. Image by Mark Webster/University of Leeds.