The company advertised as being in operation since 1650. Given that there is a book by Donovan Dawe's Skilbecks: drysalters, 1650-1950 held in the Printed Books Section of Guildhall Library, I deduce that Skilbecks went out of business in 1950. Wikipedia says "According to a report published by the Bank of Korea on May 14, 2008 investigating 41 countries, there were 5,586 companies older than 200 years. From these 3,146 are located in Japan, 837 in Germany, 222 in the Netherlands and 196 in France." Whilst not referring to the UK, the other statistic I could find on the subject of long running companies was from the BBC in 2012 "The average lifespan of a company listed in the S&P 500 index of leading US companies has decreased by more than 50 years in the last century, from 67 years in the 1920s to just 15 years today, according to Professor Richard Foster from Yale University."
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| Skilbeck Brothers catalogue 1924 Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum |
The dyeing that occurred on Kings Road was recorded by Beryl Pooley (The Changing Face of Shottermill, Acorn Press, 1987) as "Children in those days could earn pocket money by collecting plants in woven shoulder bags and taking them to the dyeing house (opposite the weaving house) to be used to dye the skeins of thread for weaving…" but it would appear from the dye recipes and the presence of the Skilbeck booklets that there was a definite bought element to the dyeing ingredients. Or perhaps the use of the Skilbeck booklets and the recipes that I have posted on here and here are remnants of a later time, in the 1920s when the Peasant Arts Society and the dyeing operations were potentially on a downward curve?
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| Skilbeck Brothers booklet Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum |
One of the booklets begins with "This booklet is not to be taken as a textbook on Vegetable Dyeing, but our object in issuing it is to give such useful and historical information on the old dyes that should prove interesting to anyone already using or about to use them.
"In these days of modern inventions and improvements it is noteworthy that many of these dyes have been employed in very much the same way since man found the beauty of decoration and colour.
"It is our hope, therefore, that with such information as we can put before you, you will find an interest that is historical as well as artistic in one of the oldest of the crafts"
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| Skilbeck Brothers booklet Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum |
shades
- Alum - yellow
- Iron - dark olive
- Copper - olive
- Tin - bright orange"
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| from a Skilbeck Brothers booklet Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum |
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| from a Skilbeck Brothers booklet Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum |
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| price list from a Skilbeck Brothers booklet Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum |
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| from a Skilbeck Brothers booklet Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum |
How interesting.
ReplyDeleteA random memory - in the North Yorkshire coastal village of Sandsend, just north of Whitby, the Victorian Allum Works required the villagers to collect all their urine to help in the allum making process.
I'm glad that's no longer required! I have to say I'm still not entirely sure what a lot of these ingredients are. Googling Sandsend's Alum Works it says:
ReplyDelete"Alum was principally used in the textile industry as a fixing agent for clothing dyes; it was also used by tanners to produce supple leather. It was produced from shale. After the shale had been quarried it was heaped into large mounds, fired and left to smoulder for up to nine months. The shale was then tipped into leaching tanks where it was left to soak in water. The solution, containing aluminium sulphate was drained off and ran along stone or wooden conduits known as liquor troughs to the alum house. Here the water was boiled away from the solution in evaporating pans. An alkali, derived from human urine or burnt kelp, was added to cause precipitation of the alum crystals. The crystals were then bagged and transported for sale. Alum production ceased between 1855 and 1860 when the nearby quarries closed"