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Best in Show

Journeyman’s pattern book belonging to silk weaver, Samuel Wilson, 1811-c.1827 - Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk
Louisa Brower
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“This is an analytical notebook that shows Samuel Wilson working through different practices and experimenting with a variety of silk weaving techniques. 

It is a page by page, year on year technical diary that eventually leads up to the introduction of Jacquard loom technology, which revolutionised the weaving industry in the 19th century.

Alongside the wonderful colours of the material, Wilson has annotated the pages with detailed notes to himself. It gets technical at times and you need to be a textile historian to make sense of it all, but it’s clear that he was playing around with different types of silks, warp and weft, and the machinery itself.

There’s a page, for example, where he’s desperately trying to create a fancy version of his initials in a sample, but gets it wrong at least three times before finally figuring it out.

Wilson was an interesting character. Later in life, he was appointed Lord Mayor of London but he was from a weaving family in Cheapside. He became a key figure in the relocation of the silk industry from the capital to places such as Sudbury in Suffolk when developments such as the Spitalfields Act of 1773 made production too expensive in London.

Wages were lower in Suffolk where, due to the decline of wool production, there was also an established infrastructure of towns and workshops suitable for weaving, along with a knowledgeable workforce ready and able to go into production.

To this day, Sudbury remains the only place in East Anglia where silk is manufactured and it produces nearly 95% of the nation’s woven silk textiles from three working mills.

As well as documenting an important history, this book is a spectacular work of art. Every page is full of complex and colourful samples that show Wilson operating at the top of his game. It’s in wonderful condition too because it is the first time it has emerged from a private archive to be shown in public – it is displayed in our current exhibition Silk: From Spitalfields to Sudbury.

Silk is a fascinating material because it is light and lustrous, yet durable. It also makes a lovely sound; when the conservator was mounting a beautiful gown dating from c.1755 on a mannequin in the middle of the room, you could hear the crinkling sound of it moving wherever you were in the building.

We also have a pair of shoes on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London which are to die for. You wouldn’t believe how many women walk into the room and say, ‘My God, I’d love to try those on for a while’.”

Interview by John Holt. Silk: From Spitalfields to Sudbury runs until 8 October

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