Woollen Mills in Paignton area?

[Geordie daughter]

A distant relation of my late husband was born and grew up in the area around Leeds but she and her husband pop up in the Paignton area in 1939, where he was apparently employed as Foreman loom tuner in the worsted trade at this time. Can anyone help with information about woollen mills that might have been located in Paignton district as I'd like to find out where he might have worked? (I have done an internet search this morning, but haven't yet been able to turn up anything useful.) 

[KGarrad]

Quoting from "The History of Devon":

Devon has long been celebrated for its woollen and lace manufactures; one or the other of which was formerly to be found in most parts of the county, but both have greatly declined here during the present century, owing to the amazing extension of machinery and the factory system, in the Midland and Northern Counties, which have nearly annihilated these branches of industry in their primitive seats, where the old domestic system was adhered to. There are still several large woollen mills and several thousand looms in different parts of the county, employed in making serges, blankets, and other coarse woollen cloths.

See: http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonHist1850.html

[Geordie daughter]

Thanks for that, KGarrad. As it happens I live in another part of Devon which was very involved in the wool trade and all its processes, but Paignton and surrounds is definitely not somewhere I associate with woollen mills, especially as late as the tail end of the 1930s, which is why I'm curious to find out more. There can't have been that many factories producing woollen goods there just before WWII, surely?

[KGarrad]

I reckon the mills (not factories?) would have been further up the rivers?
Chudleigh Mill for example - which had spinning-jenny's.

See: http://www.chudleighhistorygroup.com/parish-mills.html

[Mowsehowse]

Can you be specific about where they pop up in the Paignton area during 1939 ?

I will pop in the library and check out the directories.

[Geordie daughter]

Thank you for your kind offer, Mowsehowse. 95 Barton Avenue, Paignton [Unitary District], is the address I have for them. The husband is John Albert Wright although in the 1939 register his first names have been swapped around to Albert John. I don't know how helpful that will be. Strictly speaking, wherever he was working would probably have been referred to as a textile factory rather than as a mill by that time; perhaps there was a place producing something like blankets or maybe woollen cloth for men's suits or uniforms in the locality?

Frustratingly, the mills I can find reference to in the area are either corn grinding mills or fulling mills which don't actually make cloth as such, only finish it, and most are no longer operating by the 1900s in any case.

[[Ray]]

Kev

. . . . . and I can see Chudleigh Mill as I type . . . . .

Ray

[Geordie daughter]

I've found mention of Ashburton Mill (Messrs Berry and Sons) which was still producing serge in 1891-2 at their premises in Ashburton and at Buckfastleigh, but there's no indication whether it was still operating into the 1930s. It's quite a distance from Paignton though.

A transcription of the Torquay Trade Directory for 1911-12, on Genuki, lists "Clothiers (Manufacturing) - Richards and Co., Ltd., 61 Union Street." They're separate from the listings for tailors and dressmakers so were they producing cloth, rather than making items of clothing? Hopefully, someone with local connections might know.

[Mowsehowse]

I will get a photo of 95 Barton Ave for you next week if you would like?

I have just returned from the library (no problem, I planned to go there this afternoon). 

So I had a look at the 1939 Directory.  I did not look at residential, having no clues, though I did comb through the trades for Paignton specifically, did not find any mention of a wool mill, and I looked in the trades advertisers at the back but I don't think this gives what you want, though Totnes and Buckfastleigh are fairly close to Paignton.