Extract from The Changing Face Of Warminster by Wilfred Middlebrook, published in 1971:
The silk factory came on the heels of another cloth industry, for at one time woollen fabrics, kerseymeres and blankets formed the principal manufacture of Warminster and the neighbouring towns in Wiltshire and Somerset. From the reign of Elizabeth to the end of the eighteenth century the clothiers of Frome, Warminster, Chippenham, Bradford On Avon, Trowbridge, Westbury, Heytesbury and Wilton were men of great wealth and position.
This was all hand-woven material, with the weavers using handlooms in their own homes, getting their yarns from the warehouses and woolstores of the merchants and delivering the woven cloth to their masters; the silk trade of Macclesfield was run on similar lines and for a much longer period. The invention of the power-loom, first driven by water-wheels in cloth factories, followed by the introduction of steam power, helped to kill the local wool trade. Huge factories were set up in Lancashire and Yorkshire, at the source of the steam-producing coal, and there began the steady migration of country folk to the new industrial towns and cities of the north.
Another factor that caused the rapid decline of weaving in Wiltshire was the increasing consumption, throughout England and the Continent, of cotton and linen fabrics.
According to Daniell, there were thirty prosperous cloth factories in Warminster in 1790. They were clothing shops where the cloth was finished after the spinning, carding, warping and weaving had already been carried out in the workers’ cottages. The invention of the “spring loom’ dealt a heavy blow to the trade in 1801, with riots by the workpeople, who threatened to smash the new looms. These riots lasted until 1803. By this time there were twenty-two clothiers in Warminster.
On one occasion, after weavers had paraded the town with bludgeons day after day, the Riot Act was read by the High Constable of Warminster in an open space between the Obelisk and the National School, and the mob finally dispersed after being fired on by the Yeomanry Cavalry. This was early in January 1817, when twelve hundred weavers had assembled at Dilton Marsh and marched to Warminster, wrecking the houses of weavers who were at work on the new looms.
There were more riots in 1830, when men from Hindon, the Deverills and Crockerton, decided to sack the town of Warminster and destroy Longleat House by fire. A troop of Lancers was sent from Trowbridge to Hindon, to deal with the mob before it could join the men of the Deverills, with orders to take no prisoners as the gaols were already full. While the people of Warminster were hiding their valuables and preparing for the worst, the men of the Deverills and Crockerton lined the main road waiting for the mob from Hindon, but they waited in vain. The Lancers had attacked them and some were killed, while many were wounded – some had their hands severed as they tried to grasp the bridles of the soldiers’ horses.
Heytesbury labourers also rioted in 1830, when Colonel A’Court called for help and the Yeomanry, under Captain Long, went to the rescue. The rioters dammed the river at Codford and flooded the water meadows, the swollen river hindering the troops, but finally twenty-five prisoners were taken and sent to Devizes Gaol. The prisoners were being taken via Warminster but the Heytesbury men got there first and blocked the road at the turnpike. Armed only with stones they were soon put to flight but made another stand in Warminster, and were only dispersed the following day when further help came from Devizes.
In 1812 the only clothiers in Warminster were Mr. H. Wansey in Back Street and West Street; Messrs. P. and C. Warren in West Street; Mr. W. Hinton of West Street; Messrs. Bleeck and Strode of Bugley; and Mr. Rossiter at Pound Street. The last two looms ceased to work about 1824, in Church Street and Mifflin’s Yard, off Vicarage Street. The Church Street factory was probably the building known as Byne Cottages, and it still has the attics where the hand-looms were installed. Bleeck’s Buildings was also once a factory and is now a tenement block, while Aldridge’s factory at the Cock Yard was for a long time a ruinous tenement – now demolished to make way for part of the council housing estate of Westleigh.