Wiltshire and Somerset Woollen Weavers

Kenneth Rogers (1930-2025), archivist and historian, pursued a lifelong interest in the West Country textile industry, in which his forebears had been engaged for many generations. A native of Trowbridge, he lived nearby for most of his professional life and was heavily involved in the area’s heritage and society. His Wiltshire and Somerset Woollen Mills, published in 1976, was rapidly acknowledged as the detailed, authoritative history of the subject. He had long harboured the wish to write a companion volume, describing the lives and work of the weavers engaged in the trade, and had gathered extensive notes about them over many years. With the help of his son Edward, his ambition has been realised, and the book was completed shortly before Ken died in January 2025. Wiltshire and Somerset Woollen Weavers describes the history of cottage handloom weaving, and the livelihood of those engaged in it, which was centred on Trowbridge and the neighbouring towns and villages along Wiltshire’s border with Somerset. It looks in detail at their homes and workshops, and then traces the shift towards shop and factory weaving with power looms. It describes the structure of the industry, its personnel and tensions, and probes into the attitudes of weavers towards their work, their employers and their station in life. His book will be a lasting testimony to his scholarship, a valuable addition to the literature of industrial and social history, and a source of abiding interest to everyone local to, or with connections to, the former clothmaking area of West Wiltshire and East Somerset.