Fred Dibnah TV - Mark Williams TV - Seven Sisters Sheep Centre online - Michael Wood: Shakespeare’s Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman TV - Clydebuilt: The Ships that Made the Commonwealth TV -
Cockerill’s design was a straight steal which took the rollers from the Arkwright Water Frame and the clasp and carriage from the Spinning Jenny. He was the first man to successfully make a spinning machine that spun short-fibred wool ... He called it The Mule. The Fred Dibnah Story: Beginnings, BBC 1978
By 1813 William Cockerill’s manufacturing empire employed fifty blacksmiths and fifteen hundred wool workers. ibid.
By 1830 Cockerill was the largest integrated company in the country. Maybe even the world. ibid.
This is woollen thread. And this is a frame-loom. It’s very basic. This is the warp, running up and down, and the weft crosses it. So to weave you pass the weft up and over each of the warps. It does the job. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s1e4: Pennine Passage, Discovery 2002
This is the hand-loom. And represents a significant improvement. ibid.
Canals: But it also became an important trade route for another cargo: woollen goods. ibid.
Man can never match it. No other material, natural or man-made, has all its qualities. But man can refine and improve wool. He has done so by selective breeding of sheep and by incorporating in wool fabrics such qualities as shrink resistance, durable creasing and pleating, mothproofing, shower-proofing and stain-proofing.
Science and technology have kept wool in the forefront of fabrics, adapting to modern needs without impairing its virtues. Wool is part of Britain’s history and heritage, more so than any other commodity ever produced in these islands. It was woven into cloth here in the Bronze Age which began about 1,900 B.C. But in historical terms this is comparatively recent. Elsewhere in the world, primitive man had domesticated the sheep in 10,000 B.C. Seven Sisters Sheep Centre online article
Wool was the mainstay of the economy. Michael Wood, Shakespeare’s Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman, BBC 2017
In her very first wool voyage in 1886 the clipper [Cutty Sark] sailed from Sydney to London in 84 days … By 1888 … reaching the British capital in 73 days. Clydebuilt: The Ships that Made the Commonwealth I: Cutty Sark, David Hayman, BBC 2019