Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire : The Memorandum Books of John Brearley, Cloth Frizzer at Wakefield, 1758-1762

Insight into the economic and social conditions of West Yorkshire, especially pertaining to the region's woollen and worsted industries, Brearley worked in Wakefield as a cloth frizzer, operating a mill which put a fine raised nap on woolen cloth by running it between two boards covered with sand. Many of the entries in his memorandum book reflect his familiarity with the region's woollen and worsted industries, covering the making of particular kinds of cloth, dyeing a particular colour, merchant's activities, and cloth markets, domestic and foreign. Many entries describe, and often show diagrams of, machines and inventions; others -- ranging from recipes for ketchup and bread, to get-rich-quick schemes, to observations on women, drinking, and the martial habits of merchants -- provide a flavour of life in the pre-industrial north at the beginning of George III's reign.