Wallbridge painting, detail, Museum in the Park, Stroud. Many people in Gloucestershire and Devon, as in much of Britain, were employed in the wool industry in all stages of manufacture and finishing of the cloth. The Stroud Valleys were famous for ‘Stroudwater scarlet’, attributed to the qualities of the local water.

Tahitan Bag

Tahltan bag from the Northwest Coast of North America (64/1974/ 115) in the Museum’s World Cultures collection. This bag illustrates how trade materials (wool cloth, silk, ribbon, wool yarn and glass beads) were used to make a traditional item.

Photomicrograph, Beads

Photomicrograph with beads (CS84/20). This detail of the leggings contrasts the fine woven, smooth-napped surface of the red wool ground with the coarser woven navy cloth of the border.

Introduction

This website is the partner to the exhibition held at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, which was inspired by tradecloth, European-made woollen cloth traded globally, used on objects in the Museum’s World Cultures collection.

The exhibition is now finished at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (it ran from May 8th to September 4th 2004). It continues at The Museum in the Park, Stroud, October 8th 2005 – April 16th 2006. It is the result of research undertaken by conservator Morwena Stephens, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB).

Since its introduction to the global market, communities around the world have used European made wool cloth in place of traditional materials in the making and decorating of clothing and other items.

The focus here is on cloths imported to North America by the Hudson’s Bay Company, which traded from the late 1600s with Native Americans in northern North America, and the British East India Company which traded widely in Asia from the 17th century.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Cory Willmott of the University of Manitoba, Susan Heald and Dominique Cocuzza of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Carolyn Corey textile dyer and historian, Ian Mackintosh of the Stroudwater Textile Trust, Susan Hayward of Museum in the Park, Stroud, Sherry Doyal, Conservator and Geoffrey Slater from Coldharbour Mill Museum for helping to develop and inform the research for this exhibition.

We are grateful to Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Tabitha Cadbury, Curatorial Assistant for Anthropology for the loan of the ‘Stroud’ strap dress.

Thank you to all the staff and volunteers in the partner organisations who have worked hard to make the project happen.

Generous support from the Heritage Lottery Fund made the exhibition and associated activities possible, with additional support from the AHRB Research Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies.