the dream machine: the hattersley domestic loom

From the Harris Tweed website.

I have a confession to make:  I love Harris Tweed. I love that somewhere in Scotland, people are hand-weaving great quantities of cloth. What I love even more is the increased demand for Harris Tweed on both the high street (as in the case of Topman) and the runways. Coco Chanel was a big fan of tweed. Like her jersey, it was a fabric borrowed from men's workwear, ready for rough-and-tumble. Harris Tweed is at home in lap blankets, on Nike shoes, and in Vivienne Westwood's designs. It's incredibly versatile. It's wool (always a plus). It's got character. And it's warm.

The history of Harris Tweed is quite interesting as well:

During the economic difficulties of the Highland potato famine of 1846-7, Catherine Murray, Countess of Dunmore, was instrumental in the promotion and development of Harris Tweed as a sustainable and local industry. Recognising its sales potential, she had the Murray family tartan copied in tweed by the local weavers and suits were made for the Dunmore estate gamekeepers and gillies. Proving a success, Lady Dunmore sought to widen the market by removing the irregularities caused by dyeing, spinning and weaving (all done by hand) in order to bring it in line with machine-made cloth. She achieved this by organising and financing training in Alloa for the Harris weavers and by the late 1840s a London market was established which led to an increase in sales of tweed. 

With the industrial revolution the Scottish mainland turned to mechanisation, but the Outer Hebrides retained their traditional processes of manufacturing cloth. Until the middle of the 19th century the cloth was only produced for personal use within the local market. It was not until between 1903 and 1906 that the tweed-making industry in Lewis ;significantly expanded. Production increased until the peak figure of 7.6 million yards was reached in 1966. However the Harris Tweed industry declined along with textile industries in the rest of Europe. Harris Tweed has survived because of its distinctive quality and the fact that it is protected by an act of Parliament limiting the use of the Sovereign's Orb trademark to tweeds made in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

The Hattersley Domestic itself.

But loving Harris Tweed isn't enough. In an ideal world, I would travel to the isles of Lewis and Harris and learn to weave. Maybe I will, someday. In the meantime, I'll sit and admire--maybe even purchase--the Hattersley Domestic Loom.

The Harris Tweed industry wouldn't exist without the Hattersley Domestic. Geo. Hattersley itself has a pretty unique history, and while it no longer produces the sheer array of looms it produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the company still exists. Many tweed weavers have replaced their Hattersleys with the new Bonas-Griffith loom--a newer rapier loom that's still pedal-powered, but produces a lighter, double-width fabric. But like all Hattersley weavers say, the Hattersley Domestic--each Hattersley Domestic--has its own unique character. I like that.

The Hattersley Domestic Loom is not a single entity, however; like most looms, it comes with an ensemble of  other machines dedicated to pirn-winding and warping. You can see those below.

Warping mill

Pirn winder

When the Domestic Loom was released, a dobby loom soon followed, but it was never as popular. The pedals were apparently difficult to treadle, but more importantly, the production of Harris Tweed did not require the extra functions that a dobby head provided.

The less popular Hattersley Domestic Dobby loom.

In all honestly, my "dream loom" would probably be a bit wider, and a dobby head wouldn't be so bad. But like my earlier post, the Hattersley Domestic Loom is a fascinating product representative of the intersection between home production and industrial output. The loom is also a testament to the tenacity of traditional skills. In short, I'm in love.

Bonus! Here's a video of a Hattersley Domestic in motion. I love the clackity-clack!