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Design For Today   1   1933  Page: 20
 
 Survival and Revival. An Experiment in Wales.
Footnotes:
ILLUSTRATIONS ON OPPOSITE PAGE
1. Some of the patterns produced early in the experiment.
2. New light patterns designed for women's clothes which sold so well at the British Industries Fair for export.
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SURVIVAL AND REVIVAL

AN EXPERIMENT IN WALES

By J. R. I. Brooke

In 1925 the University of Wales, in conjunction with the Rural Industries Bureau, carried out a survey of the Welsh textile industry and found a remarkable survival of the domestic weaving industry of the early nineteenth century. There were then about 133 factories still working, of which 17 were domestic factories, using hand-looms and employing not more than four hands, 50 were small power-loom factories also employing not more than four hands, 40 were factories not employing more than twelve hands, and 26 were factories —large for Wales—employing more than twelve hands, a few of which were considerable factories with 50 to 250 looms.

The small factories produce ordinary plain fabrics, flannel, blankets, cloth and figured fabrics such as bed-covers and quilts. These are carried on in conjunction with farming; the churn sometimes being driven by a cord from the spinning machine shaft, cows milked in the basement and cheese presses stored in the finishing rooms. They stop, as a matter of course, for hay-time and harvest, the factory finding work for the farm hands in winter when farm work is slack, and the farm for the factory hands in summer when water is short for driving the water-wheel and other manufacturing operations.

The chief trade of the small factories is “undertaking” (or working up on commission) the wool of neighbouring farmers, as well as their own wool, and supplying the requirements of the immediate neighbourhood. While the larger producers go further afield, often combining “making-up” with manufacturing, few of them sell any of their products outside Wales. The domestic factories will not survive their present owners unless the new revolution in industry now turning us all upside down brings about a general revival of the small industry; yet many of the owners of the power-loom factories are facing the situation with confidence and vigour, saying that they have seen times almost as bad, and are taking advantage of them by buying good modern machinery second-hand out of Bradford.

In all, we are now discussing an industry with about 100 factories and 1,000 looms, living on what is left of a local market till lately their own preserve, now cut at and advertised for by every firm in England which is capable of offering, at competitive prices, softer and therefore more popular fabrics than the famous hard-wearing Welsh flannel, that once upon a time made the red petticoats whic scared away Boney’s soldiers, as well as shirts worn in the battles of Ypres and the Somme.

The Rural Industries Bureau, an agency set up by the State to help small industries in country districts and to prevent those engaged upon them drifting slowly to the towns, has been able, with the aid of a technical officer, whose salary is found partly from a fund in the possession of the University of Wales and partly by a grant from the Development Commission, to give considerable help to the Welsh textile industry. When the Welsh Textiles Association was formed, about two years ago, an effort was made to persuade the small manufacturers to make tweeds and furnishing fabrics instead of bleeding each other to death by throatcutting competition in the local market. Several months were spent in meetings and discussions, at the end of which it became obvious that the small factories were not prepared to carry out the experiments necessary to produce modern fabrics, and it was therefore decided to accept the offer of Mr. Thomas Waterhouse, the chairman of the Welsh Textiles Association and the managing director of the largest mill in Wales, to place a unit of preparing, spinning, weaving and finishing machinery at the disposal of the association for experimental purposes.

To find a designer capable of converting an old- established industry, long devoted to flannel, to new types of production, the aid of the Design and Industries Association was sought, and as a result the help of Miss Minnie McLeish was obtained. For the first six months of the experiment Miss McLeish paid regular visits to Wales to advise on the production of new tweeds and furnishing fabrics. In order to get uniform dyes, fast to milling and to light, it was decided to have all the dyeing done by contract, until output and sales justified setting up a Welsh dyeing and finishing factory for the association. When the first designs were made Miss McLeish and the Bureau fondly imagined there would be no difficulty in getting the colours required, yet only recently have the artists designing for the association been able to get reds, blues and greens that are not metallic horrors; without doubt the colours offered were technically perfect and to the technicians responsible for them it did not appear to matter that they were artistically bad. They were said to be pure colour —but artists and chemists each attach their own interpretation to the word “pure.” If the manufacturer in whose factory the experiments
Design For Today   1   1933  Page: 21
 
 Survival and Revival. An Experiment in Wales.
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By courtesy of the Rural Industries Bureau, & Bayley Street, W.C.2,
Design For Today   1   1933  Page: 22
 
 Survival and Revival. An Experiment in Wales.
Footnotes:
By courtesy of the University of Wales

AN ANGLESEY MILL
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were carried out had not given his personal support to the artists, and if the Bureau had not been convinced that success was possible in spite of months of failure, the experiment would almost certainly have broken down.

In the autumn of 1932 Miss McLeish was asked to go to India to advise native rural weavers. An English hand-loom weaver, Miss Margery Kendon, and a Norwegian hand-loom weaver, Miss Gerd Bergersen, then took over the work, and, with their aid, factory production was brought to the point of making it worth while to exhibit in the textile section of the British Industries Fair. The Association’s stand at the Fair was honoured by a visit from the Queen and the Prince of Wales. His Royal Highness was shown the heavy felted dull brown cloth which these factories had been making for generations, a cloth not only unfashionable but also too heavy and clumsy to be fitted for its modern purpose, and compared it with the light-weight well-designed tweeds exhibited on the stand. He congratulated the Association on the progress they had made, and said that good design was one of the essential factors in the revival of industry.
Experiments have not been confined to colour but have been extended to texture and handle, problems difficult to solve with yarns of a blend of Welsh and Shropshire wool; nor do we claim to have entirely succeeded. During the coming year effort will be made further to improve texture, handle and colour, for it has been determined to make permanent the co-operation of the artist hand-loom weaver with the power-loom producer, that some day fabrics may be produced by ci-devant flannel manufacturers worthy to be shown beside the creations (for creations they are) of the great French designers.

The difficulties and stumbling-blocks which surround the artist working for industry have come out strongly in these experiments, and manufacturers who desire to employ an artist to improve the colour and design of their products will only succeed if they make up their minds to forget what they imagine they know, and place their craftsmanship at the service of the artist they employ. Preconceived notions of what is good design founded on the past successes of an industry are almost invariably the greatest stumbling-blocks to the production of new fabrics designed to satisfy a new standard of taste, which the manufacturer and his present advisers may not have recognised.

The Welsh Textiles Association has found that, next to the provision of a designer, the most important service which the Bureau has been able to render it has been the obtaining of constructive criticism on experiments carried out. Every “swotch” of experimental patterns, as it is produced, is sent to London and is shown not only to the wholesale trade and to dressmakers, but also to persons of taste and discernment among the general public. The useful suggestions of these various critics are applied to the improvement of the patterns before the production of the piece is begun. The manufacturers have learnt to welcome criticism of this type and, in conjunction with the designers, to use it constructively. Those familiar with the Swedish organisation and the work of Svenska Slöjd Foreningen cannot help being struck by the way in which that organisation gives constructive criticism to manufacturers on the design and workmanship of samples submitted for inspection, and it seems to me to be an advantage that these criticisms should not only come from experts, who may sometimes be too steeped in their own expertness to see quality in new work, but also from members of an advisory group which, in the case of the Bureau, includes an artist, a dressmaker and an intelligent member of the general public.