Sunday 28 January 2018

Haslemere & the Spitalfields Weavers Part 3

The last link that I have found with the Spitalfield Weavers is this photograph below of the 'Spitalfields Silk Weaving Works, Haslemere' from Winter & Collyer's Around Haslemere and Hindhead in Old Photographs (Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1991, p.153).  The picture is described as showing "the business of Harry Hedges (left) and operated during the early 1900s from a small wooden building by the stream at the bottom of Wey Hill.  The works produced silk damasks of the highest class, brocades and also velvets both for dressmaking , and domestic and church furnishings...The Spitalfields Works is now used as the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses."

Locations of Spitalfields Silk Weaving, Wey Hill and Haslemere Peasant Industries,
Kings Road, Haslemere c.1900


I have been unable to find any other record of Harry Hedges in Haslemere or the Spitalfields Weaving Works in Haslemere,which makes me wonder if the report of them is entirely accurate.   This photograph also reminds me that Luther Hooper and Edmund Hunter briefly established the Haslemere Silk Weavers in 1901 (see my previous post here) this "produced silk and cotton damasks, brocades, velvets, woven embroideries, tapestries and carpets.  Their aim was to start and develop an industry, in which artistic design  was combined with better craftsmanship than could be obtained by the power-loom.  There was presumably a falling out with Hooper when Edmund declared that Luther was more interested in playing the piano than working on designs.  Dorothea (Edmund's wife) assumed the driving force behind Edmund and by borrowing £500 from her widowed sister, helped him set upon St Edmundsbury Weaving Works on College Hill in 1902."(Meg-Andrews.com)

Could this photograph be of the Haslemere Silk Weavers in 1901?

The Spitalfields Weaving Works, Wey Hill, Haslemere
from Winter & Collyer, Around Haslemere and Hindhead in Old Photographs,
Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1991, p.153

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