Name Index

To

Sketch of Ashburton and the Woollen Trade

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. 8 (1876), pp. 323-350.

by

P.F.S. Amery

Prepared by Michael Steer

Ashburton, a major stannary and market town prospered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a centre of woollen cloth manufacturing and as 'a great thoroughfare' for traffic between Plymouth and London. The production of a coarse cloth known as long ells continued to be the town's 'staple trade', employing 'a great many hands', but this had reached its peak by the 1820s and depended heavily on access through the East India Company to the Chinese market. Mechanisation in the early 18th century and the dumping of serge onto the world markets by the East India Company brought the death knell to the industry. An Appendix provides a comprehensive record of statutes affecting the woollen trade from Magna Carta to George II. Google with the Archive Organization has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. The Internet Archive makes available, in its Community Texts Collection (originally known as Open Source Books), books that have been digitised by Google from a number of libraries. These are books on which copyright has expired, and are available free for educational and research use. This rare book was produced from a copy held by Princeton University Library, and is available from the Internet Archive.