The Domestic Economy of the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Holmfirth Textile Industry

The Holmfirth area, known anciently as the Graveship of Holme, lay towards the south-western edge of the West Riding woollen cloth district. It shared the classic domestic economy of the textile region, whereby the manufacture of pieces of cloth was combined with small-scale farming. In this study, 101 probate inventories surviving from 1690 to 1762 are examined in detail to explain the workings of this system. In particular, the inventories provide rich evidence of every stage in the manufacture and marketing of woollen cloth. The Graveship of Holme never acquired the wealth associated with the clothiers of the Calder Valley, but its inhabitants were typical of those who lived in the moorland districts further south.