Jane's Roots

Hannah Hollick, the wife of the tailor James Watkins, was born in Coventry and had started her working life in the silk industry. Her history and that of her friend Jane Judd/Timerick is tied up with the collapse of the Coventry silk industry, as is that of another ancestor of mine -- John Sanders. 

Brief histories of  Coventry give the reason for the collapse as resulting from the free trade legislation of 1860, which allowed competition from cheaper French imports. However, the full story is much more complicated.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Coventry weavers had been very poor. But in the first half of the century, changes in the way the industry was organized led to most of them achieving a high degree of independence and improved conditions. They worked from home with the whole family involved in the production of the cloth. This can be seen in the 1851 census return (above) for my Sanders family . The entry describes John Sanders as a weaver and then uses the abbreviation for ditto to describe his wife and children as weavers too, even Samuel, the youngest, aged only 6.

The Coventry weavers strongly, and successfully opposed being forced to give up their independence and work in factories. As a result, by the time the industry collapsed they were facing competition, not just from foreign imports, but also from other silk manufacturing towns in Britain, such as Derby, which were using more efficient methods of production. The collapse, when it came, was almost total and thousands of weavers had to leave the city to seek work elsewhere.

I am descended from members of a group of Coventry families who migrated to Nottingham, where they kept in contact with each other and continued to inter-marry.

All this history, as well as fascinating social history of Coventry, is related in the Victoria County History - Warwickshire Volume 8, which you can read online.