Four Loom Weaver - A Four Loom Weaver

A Four Loom weaver is power loom weaver using 4 Lancashire Looms in a Lancashire weaving shed. They probably would be Horrocks, or Howard & Bullough. The rewrite of four loom weaver refers to the years of the Lancashire Cotton Famine, when the weaver was totally dependent on his income from the millowner- unlike the handloom weaver who would probably have a vegetable patch and a few chickens. The Cotton Famine was caused by the cotton trade being interrupted by the American Civil War. The Lancashire man- three generations in the mill could not comprehend how the cotton stopped, and still had the quaint belief that the great man (PM perhaps) only needed to tell the shipowners to bring in some more cotton.

Many Lancashire folk, can give personal testimony of relative having worked in such a role.

My maternal grandmother was a four loom cotton weaver until the mill, where she worked, in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, was closed and relocated to India in the 1920s approx. Mill workers worked their way up to four looms which were rented from the mill. Four was the maximum so my nan told me, so a four loom weaver was an indication of the level of attainment in the industry. So I think the title is probably correct and not a corruption of a poor loom weaver. Will Lever, Malpas, Cheshire