Textile History, 32 (2),217-238,2001

Annie Garnett: the Arts and Crafts Movement andthe business of textile manufacture

JENNIE BRUNTON

The social bearing of the Arts and Crafts movement in our country has certainly been perceived,and it has been the focus of a great amount of effort and energy.... Yet in England, which hasbeen generally regarded as the cradle of this revival, it seems strange that there has been as yet noeffective disposition, as in other countries, to treat the Arts and Crafts of Design as matters ofNational concern; or to establish a permanent organization or institution upon a substantial basisfor their better care and fostering. At least, beyond the limited introduction as subjects of studyin technological institutes, municipal and county council schools, and the Royal College of Art,it has been left to private effort, and the enthusiasm of groups of individuals or societies, mainlyof hard-working artists and craftsmen, at their own risk and cost to endeavour to maintain a highstandard of these arts by means of such exhibitions as those of our society. 1

When Walter Crane penned these words in the foreword of the 1910 exhibitioncatalogue, the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society had been in existence for some 22

years. As he stated, the exhibitions provided a focus for members of the Society wherebytheir work, chosen by an esteemed selection and hanging committee, could becollectively displayed and sold. His concern, however, was for the future of suchexhibitions amidst what he saw as a general failure to recognize and invest in the designand manufacturing aspects of these highly crafted products.

Six years later, when the exhibition was held, this time at The Royal Academy inBurlington House the President, Henry Wilson, voiced further concern: 'Now that theWestern World is one vast wound'. He wroteDotted over the countryside in little workshops or groups of them, and even in the towns, ourcraftsmen and women have created new forms of beauty, revived decaying handicrafts, revitalizedold, invented new ... It cannot be stated too often that the commercial success of the centralEmpires was founded on a proper understanding of the necessity of skilled and trainedintelligence in every branch of every production ... Each of the small enterprises whose work isshown could, if rightly treated, supply the place of experimental laboratories for largerundertakings ... 2

Both Crane and Wilson, in acknowledging that the exhibitions provided a significantand central showcase for individual workers, were issuing what was to be an unheraldedwarning for the manufacturing future of good quality commercial design and craftsman-ship. Their attention to the practical entrepreneurial aspects of the Society, those thatendorsed skills, experimentation and application present in the workshops 'Dotted overthe countryside', serves as a reminder of the professional aesthetic working aspect of themovement which is sometimes subsumed by a more dominant social ideology. Such anotion would seem to persist despite the ground-breaking work of Harvey and Press inWilliam Moms: design and enterprise in Victorian Britain, which sought to analyse thebusiness and entrepreneurial components of Morris's work alongside other aspects ofhis, perhaps better known, life story. In recognizing the seemingly contradictory

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elements of high quality craft products and commercial viability, there are also thewider implications for the movement concerning cultural and stereotypical assumptionsabout those who participated; none more so than in the case of middle-class women.

In this article I propose to challenge what have been largely dismissive assumptions,portrayed in terms of philanthropy and textile work, by focusing on the production ofone such industry. In this I am following a similar mode, but in somewhat humblerfashion, the story of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. In positioning herself within'that great field of thought in which Ruskin and Morris delighted' the leading memberof this industry was, like Morris, to carry the idea of the Movement forward to becomea reputed manufacturer.3 Annie Garnett first exhibited at the Arts and Crafts ExhibitionSociety in 1903 and became one of the few women members of the Society in 1910,some 19 years after beginning production at The Spinnery in Bowness. As I aim toshow, closer research belies many of the inherent value judgements placed on suchwomen, in terms of both their creative contribution as well as the quality of goods thatwere manufactured under their supervision.

The role of women in the context of the Arts and Crafts Movement is viewed, mostfrequently, as somewhat duplicitous. The implication that women were able toparticipate in something 'socially and artistically radical' is tempered by the perceptionthat 'it in fact reproduced, perpetuated and thus reinforced dominant Victorianpatriarchal ideology'. 4 While not denying elements of this viewpoint I would argue, likeLynne Walker, 'that the extent to which the Arts and Crafts movement reinforcedpatriarchal ideology is less clear-cut and rigid than was previously thought and thatinstead of further alienating women, ... [it] provided opportunities for women's paidemployment, which often took place outside the home, in the public sphere'. As shegoes on to stress: 'In many cases women's Arts and Crafts design work led to financialand personal independence well beyond previous experience, enhancing women'sposition and status in society in a much more fundamental way than has beenconceded'.5 The key word here is 'led'. While Callen, herself, might have had doubts asto how enabling the Arts and Crafts Movement was, she has in her comprehensivestudy Angel in the Studio, shown 'how attractive work in the Arts and Crafts could be tosingle women of the middle class, who were prevented by the code of gentility fromsupporting themselves by work outside the home'. 6 For some their participation was anenabling and transitory part of a working career that continued beyond the time when:'In 1911, The Architectural Review, once closely associated with the Movement,referred to "the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society now dead" '.7

My research into the activities of one woman, Annie Garnett, (1864-1942) whosework has long been associated with the Movement yet denied significance provides aninteresting example.8 Given the opportunity by the somewhat philanthropic umbrellaof the Movement she was to progress into developing a highly sophisticated range oftextiles. It would appear, however, that by working within what was traditionallyperceived as an area of 'women's work' she has, like others, run the risk of being labelled'amateur,.9 Simply viewing samples of her work can quickly refute such a label. Withinthis paper I aim, therefore, to unpack the history of a textile enterprise beyond theinspiring ideology of the Movement to reveal its development and more specifically,through the archive at Abbot Hall in IZendal, to record how its founder, Annie Garnett,designed and manufactured her products for some 40 years.

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FIG. I. Studio studies of Annie Garnett with her sister Frances top left(Reproduced by courtesy of the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry) I<'endal) Cumbria)

It is worth noting from the onset that like the many small pieces of cloth it contains,this archive is fragmented. Unlike Morris's firm the account books, ledgers and minutebooks, which would have told a more precise story, are not present and cannot betraced. Instead it is through close attention to her personal writings, correspondence,sketch books, photographs and sample cards that this account is constructed. Mostimportant has been the diary she kept, sporadically, between the years 1899-19°9, notspecifically because of its references to her business, there are regrettably comparativelyfew, but because of the glimpses it provides into this creative mind. There is, however,a glorious exception when she takes time out, in a particular long entry, while onholiday, to recall the moment of inspiration. It clearly identifies her initial thinking with

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the aims of Arts and Crafts Movement as the reason for her foray into the world oftextile manufacture. On the II July 1899 she wrote:It was at the end of the 80'S that I went with Bun [her sister] to see the little spinning home atElterwater founded in 1883 by Mr Fleming on Ruskin's writings, chiefly. I was literally set downin the old world never to be again free from it and I found myself longing to be surrounded byancient Industry, were it spinning, or weaving, or carving, or any other art that went to make upthe home-life of long ago. All its beauty I would draw from it.

In this next section I begin the story of how this young woman, in her mid twenties,transferred ideas in to practice that would eventually realize her 'longing to besurrounded by ancient Industry' .

BEGINNINGS

Annie Garnett, was the second child and oldest daughter in a family of six children.They lived at Fairfield, the house built by the paternal grandfather, for her parents, inthe grounds of The Crown Hotel in Bowness. The hotel itself had been built in the earlypart of the nineteenth century, a forerunner to a pretentious growth of hostelriesassociated with the coming of the railway to nearby Windermere in 1847. Although ashrewd investment, the family was not involved directly with the running of the hotel.Annie's father was to spend the majority of his working life as a land agent, attending tothe large estates north of Lake Windermere while his sons, educated at a nearby privateboarding school were to follow professional careers. The three sisters, of whom onlyone was to marry, are believed to have been educated at home. Mr Garnett had anextensive library and a particular enthusiasm for illuminated manuscripts. He was alsointerested in architecture, owning many of the tools of the trade. These interests suggesta possible reason for his friendship with John Ruskin, an incomer to the Lake Districtwhen he made his home at Brantwood, on the shores of Lake Coniston in 1872. AnnieGarnett was to record in January 1900 that her father had consulted Ruskin, in hiscapacity of an art critic, about her own artistic skills:Father had been over at Brantwood; and Mr Ruskin after showing him his treasures criticizedsome of my paintings and was very pleased with a study of roses, not an arrangement, but singlestudies; and also with a little landscape I had sent to him to see. It was a great encouragement tome and how I longed to go on with my paintings: but it was not to be ... '

John Ruskin's prolific writings and more particularly, in terms of the Arts and CraftsMovement, his concern that man was being turned into a machine had put him at theforefront of a nineteenth century anti-industrial drive. His essay 'On the Nature ofGothic' (1853) in celebrating the individualism of the early craft-workers, is seen as asource of inspiration for many, including William Morris. It was Morris who led theway in turning these ideas into practice proclaiming 'Art is man's expression of his joyin labour'. Some years later Annie Garnett was to echo the same sentiments when shewrote 'Art is the expression of man's love in his work' in her published essayCraftmanship (1904). Both were seemingly empowered by Ruskin's attack on thetraditionally privileged and hierarchical art-world. In 1859 he had written: ' ... get ridof any ideas of decorative art being a degraded or separate kind of art. Its nature andessence is simply its being fitted for a definite place; and, in that place, forming part of agreat and harmonious whole, in companionship with other art ... ,.10

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In promoting handicraft and abhorring the working and living conditions of urbanfactory workers, Ruskin's ideas found favour with many keen to help those living inrural poverty as well as those championing a 'Back to the Land Movement'. Amongstsuch so-called disciples were those who also made their home in the Lake District in the1880s. One, Hardwicke Rawnsley together with his wife Edith, eager to bringemployment and training in traditional crafts, was to found the IZeswick School ofIndustrial Art. More relevant to this account, however, was the initiative of two otherincomers, Albert Fleming and Marion Twelves. It was to be their revival of the LangdaleLinen Industry centred on St Martin's, the cottage in Elterwater, which was to havesuch a fundamental effect on Annie Garnett.11

In 1888 Mr Garnett died at the comparatively early age of 56 leaving the hotel to hiswife. In the same year Annie travelled to Belgium, accompanying a friend and herfather, on the maiden journey of the steamship 'Ibis'. The events of the trip wererecorded in a diary, later to be bound in leather and embossed with gold letters 'DiaryJune 23rd to July 7th 1888'. This illustrated volume was clearly meant for public viewing,unlike the other diary referred to earlier. One of the venues visited was an arts and craftsexhibition and Annie was not impressed by the work of her compatriots recording 'TheEnglish section ... the poorest one, so plain'.

A year later the St Martin's Order book confirms a visit made by Annie Garnett, onthe 12July 1889, when she purchased three yards of linen at the cost of3s. 6d. and thata bill for lOS. 10td. (approx. 55P.) was settled on the 22 July. 12 If these items representher interest in embroidery, then the purchase of a Spinning Book on the 24 November,the following year, provides confirmation of a widening interest in the work carried outin the Langdales. As Annie Garnett was to recall in that long reflective diary entry, itwas during this winter that more ambitious plans began to take form:I became acquainted with the Brownsons, Mr Brownson was the Curate and his wife was muchinterested in art work; she too had a great desire to teach our villagers spinning and together westarted our industry. Mr Brownson as secretary of the Art School organised lessons in Spinningand Embroidery and engaged Mrs Pepper the manageress of the Langdale Spinning Home toteach - the class was much larger than we expected and I took the spinning pupils, that MrsPepper might give all her time to the Embroiderers. [II July 1899]

Annie Garnett's supervision of the student spinners infers a competence that she hadalready taken lessons from the Langdale Industry. This experience had broughtincreased confidence. She continued:In January 1891 we discussed ways and means. 'I was lifted into action' by a Postal Order fromErnest Goddard [a relation through marriage] who had been staying with us and heard ourdiscussion. Having this money in hand we must begin. We ordered two wheels, Winnie [hersister] and I guaranteeing payment. We had a grand anonymous gift; - a loom, 6 wheels,warping frame and expenses for six months. Mrs Brownson was to be secretary, I, treasurer-the management to be equally shared between us. Mr Fleming, founder of the Langdale Industrywas 'pleased to lend his name as President, Mr Brownson was Vice- President' .

One is tempted to speculate that John Ruskin might have made the grand anonymousgift himself. He had after all made a practical contribution at Langdale and towards themill at Laxey in the Isle of Man.13 In recording the occasion of his death, in 1900, AnnieGarnett confirms a personal acquaintance in recalling a conversation: 'How well Iremember him talking to me one day, years ago, about the beautiful country life at

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Coniston; and how much comfort was brought into life through good old-fashionedinns; he thought people ought to value them much more highly than they did'. [22 Jan.1900] This speculation is compounded by the presence of Albert Fleming, co-founderof the Langdale industry and a close friend of Ruskin's, who although he signed thevisitors' book on two occasions is not mentioned in the diary again. He apparentlyplayed no active part in the running of the enterprise in his capacity as President.

Meanwhile Annie Garnett continued to practise her craft. The St Martin's OrderBook recorded several purchases of flax during 1891 and in the same year she submittedher work for public scrutiny. Her reward from the I<'endal Arts, Crafts and LoanExhibition included a first prize for Handspun Flax Yarn, presented by Albert Fleming,and a first and two second prizes for artistic needlework as well as a second prize for herembroidered curtain. This particular year was recorded in the diary as 'definite workbegan in 1891 - April the eleventh to be exact' with the first commercial order which' ... we received from an American, Mrs Pierpont-Morgan, for 2 dozen fine linen towels... '. As the wife of the wealthy banker and art patron one might speculate that they hadbeen staying at The Crown Hotel.

At this stage it would seem that the work at Bowness would develop along the samelines as the Langdale Industry, naming itself Windermere Industries, presumably as amore recognizable title in association with the English Lakes. Women were taught howto spin and once accomplished were allowed to take home a spinning wheel. Flax wasgiven to out-workers and payment made on return of the spun linen thread. There was,however, some reluctance on the part of local women to regularly commit to this textileenterprise. Garnett recorded

We had some difficulty in getting spinsters as the people could not understand the idea ofbringing back the old wheels. But there was nothing to pay and so some would try. One family ofidle girls, I remember, would not learn to spin because they would have to come to the hotel tohave lessons; they were the daughters of a gardener and they played the piano; they had novelsto read and little to eat. Two of them, later, overcame their pride and became good spinsters.Whilst one is still one of my most constant workers. [II July 1899]

By 1896 she stated in Notes on Handspinning 'we have now twenty-one wheels lent outto the cottagers, and many women also own their own wheels'. 14

Reluctant workers may have been one initial issue but a more serious differencewithin the management team emerged in the first couple of years, which could haveended Garnett's participation and the partnership with the Brownsons. The issuesconcerned not simply a matter of poor communication but also a conflict regarding thecommercial nature of the industry. Annie Garnett reflected on this era in this July 1899diary entry.

We had not worked long before a very unhappy time started - Mrs Brownson arranged for thegift of an Altar Cloth to the Church unknown to me - the weaving department was under mycontrol, the embroidery under Mrs Brownsons. It was from the weavers I heard of this gift; Irefused at the time to allow it for we were unable to pay our way and I could not see it was rightthat we should give, even to the Church. I, too was finding money to carry on the work and, itmay be, indeed is most likely, I was hurt through not being consulted in the matter. From thistime, till the Brownsons left, a year or so later, there was no peace - by every effort they tried toprevent it; even to threatening the starting of a separate industry which I knew must be the one toprosper. I have all the letters from, and copies of letters to this remarkable pair. We formed alarge committee - 34 in number - to spread the interest. There was a great attempt on their

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side to propose only Church people - so long as they would be, or had been helpful to us I wasfor any; no matter what religious views they held; each side had to give way in several cases.

There are no records to name the members of this somewhat large committee but AnnieGarnett's resilience was rewarded when the Rev. Brownson was moved to the parish atCompton Greenfield, near Bristol. She was to take some solace later when she learntthat an industry they went on to set up there, lasted only a short time.

On their departure Miss Rawson had taken on the role of secretary, ' ... but owing toill-health and frequent absence from home she was, excepting for a short time, secretaryonly in name ... '. As for the large committee, they rarely met, few seemed interested orfamiliar with the running of the business and so the initial constitution of the industrywas formally dissolved as from 1November 1898. Garnett recorded: 'When the industrydissolved we had had no meeting for 3 full years - I had borne the whole work andfound all the capital. It could scarcely be said I was hampered or hindered by acommittee. It was however a useless affair and better dismissed.'

By these means Annie Garnett found herself in an autonomous position but anysuggestion that this was totally attributable to fate can be discounted. To the diary entryshe has appended her alternative solution: 'I threatened to start a separate industry'.Her resilience had brought her to the position of determining the economic and creativesuccess of the enterprise. As she wrote' ... I am anxious not to loose [sic] touch withany part of it and if it increases much more rapidly I am afraid this may occur - capital,or want of it seems the only brake'.

Annie Garnett, in her differences with the Brownsons, had one very important factorin her favour; the spinning and weaving equipment central to the enterprise had beenset up in some outbuildings within the grounds of her family home at Fairfield. TheCrown Hotel had been the venue for the first classes, more formal than a family homebut it was indeed fortunate that a separate space could be utilized in a more seriousattempt to establish the business. In an article published in Art Workers' Quarterly in1905, she described the premises that were later to require even further expansion.The Spinnery is a roomy building standing at the entrance to Fairfield. It was originally an office[used by her father] and loft, with stable and coach-house below; the latter made useful weavingsheds, whilst the room and the loft above made excellent workrooms. Soon, however, they weregrowing less; there was scarcely room to move amongst the stores of flax and wool and silk; spunyarns, stuffs, embroideries; looms and wheels; so a great weaving shed and extra rooms wereadded, rooms having the long low windows beloved of weavers ... In the warping-room may beseen at times a mill bearing a silken burden of 11,000 odd ends, each 56t yards long ...

This then was how the business began; not through the generosity of an indulgentparent or for that matter through strident forthright action but rather through thedetermination, negotiation and some good fortune empowered by an ideological belief.This belief was rooted in the traditional craft of spinning and weaving. When her own23 page booklet, entitled Notes on Handspinning, was published in 1896 it containedclear instructions in the craft of spinning and a history that reflected her belief that:'During the happy reign of the wheel it was the rule, and not the exception, to find thecottage home the centre of industry, the men-folk weaving and the women-folkspinning, the united efforts of the family producing good honest "homespun" .'15 Theromantic ideals of cottage life encapsulated in poems by William Wordsworth were,however, of another world. The question was how to replicate the ethos of this

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FIG. 2. The Designing Room at The Spinnery, Bowness(Reproduced by courtesy of the Museum of Lakeland Lzfe and Industry, I<'endal, Cumbria)

traditional craft within the social and economic context of the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth century.

PERCEPTIONS OF IDENTITY WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF BUILDING AND DEVELOPING A

TEXTILE BUSINESS

One of the consequences of industrialization had been a more explicit notion of separategendered spaces; men in the public and women in the private. While some, like JohnRuskin, may have sought seemingly to empower women with the moral responsibilityfor those in their care, capitalism provided a more visible and economic reward.Increasingly, this meant 'women's work in the home; the reproduction of the labourforce and the maintenance of the family, traditionally so central to the economy becameobscured and devalued within the new commercial concept of the market'. 16 Concomit-ant with an increasing disparity between the value of men's work and the contributionmade by women within the home, skills deemed inherently female, such as embroideryand needlework, were also devalued. As Rozsika Parker has observed; 'it is seen not asart, but entirely as the expression of femininity' .17

As early as 1815 Mary Lamb wrote an essay, 'On Needlework', which appeared inThe British Ladies Magazine, highlighting the problematic relationship between sewing

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and embroidery done at home by mothers and wives and that done by professionalneedle-women out of financial necessity. She argued that women of upper and middleclass backgrounds should pursue the intellectual opportunities open to them and nottake work from those who had few chances of finding remunerative employment otherthan as needle-women or governesses. Jane Aaron's observations on the concept of timein Mary Lamb's essay have some bearing on how the notions of amateur andprofessional labels are appropriated. 18 If a woman's time was not seen as her own thenit was more likely to be filled in service to others with tasks which were subject to adifferent notion of value than those of her male counterpart. In contrast, men's time,increasingly throughout the nineteenth century, was sold in work which was not onlyclock based but which also took them out of the home; so separating their time into anotion of work and leisure. Thus, needlework, within the concept of a burgeoningcapitalist century is most likely to be undervalued in two ways; firstly because theparticipant is largely female and secondly because it is a task based activity.

In the case of Windermere Industries, however, the use of women out-workers forspinning, and then the employment of both women and men within The Spinnery,allowed Annie Garnett, I would argue, to maintain a somewhat personally ambiguousposition in terms of this work. In her 1912 publication Spinnery Notes she wrote:

It gives employment to women and girls in their spare time on the understanding that it is sparetime work only, and is not to interfere with their allotted work in life. They may thus add to theirincomes by industriously filling their spare moments, but are not permitted to make a living byit.19

In this statement she complied with the dominant social ideology regarding thepriority given to domestic activities by women but later Garnett used the issue of a timecontract to assert a difference in validating her textile work within an industriallycompetitive time-orientated world. She wrote: 'In addition to these workers there is aband of permanent workers who are kept employed the year round at "The Spinnery"... The men work 50 hours weekly; the women 41t; and these latter have a fortnight'sholiday given in the year, the six "bank" holidays, and each Saturday afternoon'.

Annie Garnett's public persona within the context of this publication is, however,understated as her name does not appear as the author; simply the initial G in asomewhat art-nouveau style, with the address 'Fairfield' Windermere 1912 at the end ofthe piece. Whereas her first 1896 publication had, on its frontispiece, 'by ANNIEGARNETT Co-founder of the Windermere Industry, and Honorary Manageress of theSpinning and Weaving Department of the same'. Further evidence of an increasingreluctance to seek the public spotlight was made apparent when, following a visit to TheSpinnery, a reporter from the Co-operative News wrote in an article published on the 4September 1909 that 'Miss Garnett has an objection to have her name mentioned inconnection with the venture. It is the work and the purpose that should tell, that shouldbe praised and honoured and not persons'. The phrase 'quietly getting on with it' comesto mind, possibly as a direct result of the experience incurred during the Brownsons andcommittee years. Unfortunately, information as to how exactly the business developed,away from the scrutiny of a public gaze, is limited by the absence of any account, ledgersor minute books in the archive. Another newspaper account, under the euphemisticheadline 'A Factory in Fairyland' in The Sunday Chronicle dated the 12 September 1909,

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FIG. 3. Two of the male weavers employed at The Spinnery(Reproduced by courtesy of the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry) I<:endal)Cumbria)

possibly by the same reporter, does reveal the information that ' ... there are eightwooden looms at work, and there are three looms over two hundred years old, whilstaccording to the lady secretary, a warping mill now in use there was used by the oldSpitalfield weavers ... '

Before attempting to identify some of the permanent workers and the skills neededfor the production of her textiles I want to look more closely at the artistic and technicalabilities Annie Garnett developed and was utilizing. Skills that would enable her toenter an elite market when applied so successfully, in terms of their colour and designcomponents, to the textiles that were manufactured at The Spinnery.

ART AND DESIGN

When Annie Garnett completed the Census of Production Papers for the Board ofTrade in 1924 she stated that in her business she was 'Working from an Artists [sic]point of view ... '. This statement from someone who as her sister verified in 1952 ' ...had no oral training - either in design, weaving or colouring ... ' invites furtherinvestigation and brings us back to the significance of the Arts and Crafts Movementfor those not privileged to access the hierarchical world of fine art.

Although very little is known about the education of Annie Garnett and her twosisters, it is clear that she did not attend Art School. However, in the many sketches andsmall watercolours found in the archive, her ability to convey the ambience of a

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FIG. 4. The Lupin Screen, one offour produced at The Spinnery( Reproduced by courtesy of the Museum ofLakeland Life and Industry., I(endal.,Cumbria)

landscape through her choice of muted colours was an important factor which sheapplied to the textiles produced at The Spinnery. Another successful element was hereye for form, made most apparent through pencil sketches. Close attention to plant andflower shape, before these subjects became part of an embroidery or textile design,indicate her wish to replicate a somewhat more natural form than found in the textilework of the Glasgow School of Art. It is also apparent that Annie Garnett shared herfather's interest in architecture with a number of sketches of churches and otherbuildings with special attention made to some of their individual design features. MrGarnett's endorsement of his daughter's abilities was clear with the diary entry, whichrecorded his showing of her work to Ruskin.

The importance of magazines in bringing increased awareness of fashions andtechniques to the wider audience should not be underestimated. There is certainlyevidence that features, included in both The Studio and The English Illustrated Magazine,were acted upon by this particular reader. In the latter case, she was to replicate some ofRossetti's Pre-Raphaelite renditions of Jane Morris including 'The Early Italian Poets'and 'Found' which had appeared in 1883. Annie Garnett, then aged 19, worked onthese pieces, as she recorded, over a two-day period in the October.

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Most telling, however, in words which clearly associate her standpoint with that ofJohn Ruskin and William Morris, was a refusal to denigrate the artistic importance ofindividual craftwork. In an article first published in the Lyceum Club Magazine, andthen later in a 1904 pamphlet entitled Craftsmanship, she wrote:I cannot enter into the vast issues that surround us through the false steps taken when Art wasparted from Craftsmanship; ... art is not to be looked on as a separable thing divided up into thepainting of pictures, the writing of music, the weaving of brocades, or embroidering of garments;carving of panel, tooling of metal, or writing of books; the same laws and the same truths are foreach, it is only the manner of expression that is different.To have the most perfect craftsmanship it is necessary to cultivate every faculty; to know art inthe whole-minded way; to search out the truth in all things; and to keep the mind fixed high.20

Her own early education, may indeed have encapsulated elements of the advice she wasto offer to future workers:'to study nature; observe colour; note form; not in any hardand fast way, rather a seizing of an impression that at some future time they may be ableto express what has in a more or less unconscious way sunk in'. [10 Dec. 1903] It isperhaps not surprising to learn that the first throwan of a linen and silk weave shedesigned drew on her own observations from nature, 'the white bark of a birch against ablue sky'.

In a matter of a few years the Windermere Industries was to develop from itssomewhat philanthropic agenda producing 'homespun' to more sophisticated and finertextile manufacture. Its ability to do this could be put down to the expertise introducedby the employment of 'an experienced weaver' but it was also through the increasingexpertise of Annie Garnett.21

RESEARCH, MANUFACTURE AND END-PRODUCT

Information was gained from many sources and Annie Garnett was keen, like manyArts and Craft Movement participants, to have a thorough knowledge of the wholeprocess of production. For that reason she was critical of Joseph I<ing's work atHaslemere and the Peasant's Arts Industry when following his visit to The Spinnery in1899 she recorded in her diaryThey only use machine made yarns and keep 6 girls weaving. The whole affair seems too limited.He has spent over £200 in building a weaving shed he says. I am afraid he has started at thewrong end - the weaving before the spinning: and the building before the work. It is better, Ithink, to begin at the beginning and climb up.[24 July 1899]

In the same year Mrs Caine from the Utah Silk Commission also visited, 'leaving moreinformation than she took'. Her words encouraged Annie Garnett to consider thepurchase of mulberry bushes so that she could experiment with producing her own silkworms 'and from these I intend trying to spin silk direct instead of buying it carded bymachinery and in the silver state'. [21 July 1899] Garnett's silk spinning skills had beeninitiated, it appears, in the production of her sister's wedding dress when she noted, 'ittook me 17 hours to fill the first bobbin and five and a half to fill the last and I spun in alltwenty bobbins'. More significantly: 'It was the beginning of our silk industry'. [29 July1899] Windermere Industries appeared as a member of the esteemed Silk Associationin 1912.

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Following Mrs Caine's visit, suggestions regarding the saving of thread in the warpwere put into action. Although reference is made to Garnett's own silk weaving, 'theexperienced weaver', at this time a Mr White, is encouraged to experiment. Theexchange was recorded in her diary:

Saturday ... in the morning spent some time in the weaving shed making White do somethingMrs Caine had put me up to ... White said 'It's an impossibility, no man living can do it; if anyman could, I'm the man that could'; and he was. I stood by him, insisting on every additionalinch being woven, helping with the heddles, as he made them the more contrary to get the knotsthrough, feeling I know that the thing was going to be done; but determined to prove to me itcould not. Inch by inch was woven and a great mass of hand-spun yarn saved, all he said was'Well I knew if it could be done I was the man to do it', and so in future each web will, I hopeconvince him of the uselessness of beginning a task with the settled conviction that it is animpossibility to accomplish it. I have had many discussions with him on the subject of this waste;but was never able to show him before how it could be avoided.

The throwan was one of the textiles for which Garnett was to gain her reputation andwhich she described in 1905 as 'perhaps the most interesting of all the stuffs woven atThe Spinnery'.22 It was made from a linen warp and a silk weft. Through varying theweight of either the warp or the weft a coarse or fine finish was achieved. Samplesattached to brown paper strips give some indication of the range of colours available.On the green spectrum there are 16 variations ranging from 'peacock', which was agreen silk on a grey blue linen warp through to 'seawaves', a grey green silk on aturquoise linen warp, to 'kingfisher', to 'fir trees in shadow', to 'hedge sparrow egg'. Ofthe blue spectrum, there are 23 colour-way samples, again named after their source ofinspiration; ranging from 'Wild Hyacinth', 'Larkspur', 'Dull Distant Heather', and'Heather Shadows'. In colours worked through from orange to brown, there are 24samples with names like 'Heart of a Furnace', 'Flame' and 'Orange', 'BrownIZingfisher', 'Bronze', 'Oyster Shell' and 'Maize'. In red, 17 samples are named from'Autumn Tints', 'Dark Pink Lupin' and 'Rose Pink'. In combining two colours AnnieGarnett was able to develop a rich range of colour-ways which she increased further byvarying the weave to herringbone. Throwans ranged in price from 16/- to 27/6d. peryard.

Her talent for colour required a particular exactitude from dyers and it was perhapsnot surprising to learn that besides using local firms she also used the services ofThomas Wardle, famous for his natural dyes and his association with William Morris.Frances Garnett, her younger sister, recalled how they 'grew flowers of all kinds andbeautiful colourings - the materials were all taken from them, and also the design. Wesent the flowers up to the dyers for them to get the right shades; ... Sir Thomas Wardleof Leeds did a great deal of dyeing for us' .23

During the period 1891 to 1914, when the bulk of woven textiles was produced,Garnett relied on her skill to combine different threads and colours rather than inhaving a wide range of design motives. In November 1900 she had, however, followingan exhibition in Leeds, attended a course in pattern weaving under the guidance ofProfessor Beaumont at the Yorkshire College. Here she recorded she 'learned lots Iwanted to know; worked out a small design on point paper; cut some of the cards for it;and wove a piece of material - quite a fine brocade ... '. Her intention to buy aJacquard 100m at the cost of £30 was noted and is confirmed by later photographs taken

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Annie Garnett

FIG. 5. The Peacock Room at The Spinnery, with evidence of a number of pieces of work inprogress. These include the panels for the Hollyhock Screen

(Reproduced by courtesy of the Museum of Lakeland Lzfe and Industry, I<'endal, Cumbria)

of the workshops. Technical knowledge could also be obtained at exhibitions wheredemonstrations clarified correspondence courses. As Garnett was to note of one HomeArts Exhibition experience, this was not always given with good grace, contrary to howshe perceived the ethos of the association, which' ... was to bring workers together thatthey might instruct and help each other as one would have thought they should enjoydoing in the brotherhood ... '. [12 Dec. 1900]

Garnett's commitment to the enterprise, as her diary revealed, was tested severelyduring this year. She complained of 'a weary summer and now autumn is with us: ouraffairs have gone from bad to worse in one way; now surely the wheel will turn andthings will be brighter; it is all very well for folks to say money is not everything: myexperience is that money is a great deal and that the want of it can impose hardshipswell-nigh unbearable'. To this entry she has added 'The burden on my shoulders waslargely that my work, the Industry for the villagers, had only me to depend on for capitalwhich I made by designing'. [8 Sept. 1900] It was not made clear just how this generatedincome, but it might be explained in terms of the dual function of the industry. On oneside was the manufacture of sophisticated handloom textiles and on the other theproduction and embroidering of linen for domestic use. A review of her work from the

JENNIE BRUNTON

1905 Home Arts and Industries Exhibition, which appeared in the Art Workers'Quarterly conceded that the Windermere weavings were better known than theembroideries, but that 'the needlework, however, is quite as distinguished as theweaving for their exquisite colour and beauty of design'. 24

The needlework produced included the self-patterned white work, achieved by thepulling and drawing of threads as well as needle-weaving which resulted in a lace effectwithin the linen cloth. Many of these skills were practised by the Langdale LinenIndustry where Garnett doubtless learnt her art and her personal success as a needle-woman was reflected by the many awards that she won. Ruskin Lace, which has longbeen associated particularly with the Lake District, had originally been called GreekLace and Garnett's detailed instructions, which she intended to copyright, attest to herown exacting standards. The designs that she made were based on the natural forms ofplants and flowers, which were then stylized into repeat geometric patterns. Some, as areview in The House of February 1898 suggested, were influenced by 'some of theSouthern European embroideries, which are so popular now' .25

Following a Home Arts and Industries exhibition at the Albert Hall in May 1901,Garnett recorded 'The embroidery and design judges [comment] that we haveadvanced in design and work. As a rule they do not like my design which MrH. Rathbone next stallholder to me, thinks is a very healthy sign: they are certainly veryunlike Home Art Design and he prefers individuality ... ,.26

There is no doubt that Garnett was responsible for all the design work at TheSpinnery and her many sketchbooks show the close attention she paid to form and plantlife in developing her designs. Besides items she and her sister worked on, most of theembroidery work was given to out-workers, 'chiefly villagegirls; tradesmen's daughters,who work in their spare time; or College women and girls; I have tried poor ladies, aclass that needs help more than any other, but they are most disappointing; hemmed inby tradition, and so hopeless'. [24 Feb. 1904] Further evidence of Garnett's quest toproduce something other than the ordinary is borne out by an undated article, fixed ina scrapbook, entitled 'The Work of the Women's World'. It reads 'The woven stuff isgiven out to the tradesmen's daughters, who take it to their homes to embroider, andincidentally their taste undergoes the most extraordinary transformation in the trainingenforced by the execution of the beautiful designs Miss Garnett creates'. WhenLiberty's responded to the demand for designs for 'Home Needlework', by producingpamphlets containing paper patterns for transferring to fabric, they used some ofGarnett's designs. As she recalled 'I had a letter from their manager saying how muchhe admired some of the work he had just bought and wishing I would send him aselection up oftener'. [8 Sept. 1900] Like Liberty's, The Spinnery also supplied silks forembroideries with an exclusive selection of colours for their own designs.27

In 1903 Annie Garnett exhibited examples from both sides of the business, for thefirst time, at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. These included the hand-wovensilks and throwans together with a large embroidered screen, mounted in ebony andpriced at £31 lOS. ode This screen, the first of four she appears to have produced, wasbased on the ubiquitous peacock feather. It had three panels, the central one havingseven 'eye' feathers and the outer panels, five.The fine feathering of the quills formed adelicate texture as groundwork on the linen.28 In all, over a dozen pieces had been

Annie Garnett

chosen for the 1903 exhibition and were displayed with the names of individual spinnersand weavers including George Paterson and T. Erskine.

Her work was also sold through the prestigious Fordham Gallery from where EleanorDuse, the acclaimed actress, purchased an 'early Victorian throwan' which she used asa curtain in the 1903 production of La Dame aux Camellias together with, as Garnettrecorded, 'a great coverlet of our white silk with a border of the golden pheasant orfurnace throwan'. Also on stage in either a production of As You Like It or Twelfth Nightwas Ellen Terry wearing a dress made from pieces of 'distant heather throwan'. [28 Oct.19°3]

Further evidence of the expertise within The Spinnery workforce can be gleamed bythe presence of the weaver Max Schaffhausen. In 1903 a piece of brocaded damask silk,'executed' by him had been designed by Luther Hooper, a key figure in the revival oftwentieth century hand-100m weaving, who was at the time, based in Haslemere.29 Ayear later, it is however his terms of employment at The Spinnery that warrant areference in Garnett's diary. On 1 February 1904 she wrote:It is all very well having a musical weaver but as he very often played all night he never did, orvery rarely, a proper amount of weaving in the day; so he is going to give up weaving for musicwhich is much the best thing to do if he loves it best; and I will employ him as I need, to weave atso much per yard.

Her own love of music and participation in a local orchestra on the cello may well havemade her more sympathetic to his cause than other employers. In 1910, however, thelocal directory still recorded his profession as a weaver.30

Royal patronage, in the person of Queen Alexandra, was responsible for thecommissioning of one of the most lavish pieces of woven silk done on a handloom,recreating the richness of eighteenth century brocades. 'Fritillary' remains one of thelargest samples of Annie Garnett's work still known to be in existence with an orange,green and white colour-way in the V & A museum and a lilac, green and whitecombination in Abbot Hall in IZendal. Although no direct reference is made to thiswork in her diary, it was to be one of many royal orders. The first indication that theQueen was a regular customer was made in February and again in August of 1904; oncewhen it was suggested that Garnett made use of this connection for a trade referenceand then when she made note of a letter 'from Miss IZnollys saying the Queen is keeping20 yards of the silk and the account has this time to go in to H.M. Dresser and WardrobeWoman, Miss Adams'.

Arthur Astle also joined the workforce at The Spinnery in around 1904. He was to beGarnett's longest serving weaver and was known to have come from Macclesfield,renowned for its own silk industry. In 1906 he was attributed with executing a 'whitesamite' designed by Garnett. It was priced at £2 and shown at the Grafton Galleries,venue for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. The samite was based on a medievalfabric using gold, silver or aluminium threads woven into a silk warp. From one of themany stock and sample cards sent out from The Windermere Industries at TheSpinnery, a small sample of an aluminium samite, reveals its width as 24 inches and aprice of 42/- per yard, making it one of the most expensive in the range of textiles. Atthe 1910 exhibition, however, the blue samite also made by Astle was priced at £2 12S.6d. It is interesting to note that IZatherine Grasett, of the London School of Weaving,was also exhibiting a similar fabric described as a 'silk and aluminium tissue'. 31

JENNIE BRUNTON

Experimentation in producing these textiles was the result of research and there isevidence, that like William Morris, Garnett studied the structure of earlier textiles.Remaining sketchbooks document visits in 1905 to both the British and SouthKensington Museums when she detailed the structure of an early fourteenth-centurypattern woven with a thick gold thread into linen. An Italian seventeenth-centuryground satin pattern in a heavy weave is cross-referenced to a page in another notebookwhich, frustratingly, is not in the archive. Further research and the naming of thisparticular product was revealed through Garnett's correspondence with Davina

,Waterson who wrote: 'I enclose the allusion to Samite [sic] in Mallory's Morte d' Arthur,and in looking through the catalogue of [the] Dulwich Picture Gallery I came across[the] enclosed ... '. A later letter reports 'nothing has come of the Assyrian research ...[but] I enclose the result of the samite search as far as it has gone. Are we on the righttack?' Again writing from an address near the British Museum she added; 'Here is alittle bit more re Samite [sic], but with regard to the ancient representations of spinningI have not been so successful ... '. Confirmation that this information was provided ona professional basis was made by a request for payment: 'All that I have found comes to7/6 w[hic]h is not, I know, to you exorbitant as you understand how much time themere searching takes up. ,32

On an earlier occasion, May 1901, Garnett recorded another visit to SouthI<'ensington when she enlisted the help of an attendant in her research on 'Coptic andsome Italian weaving'. This secured an appointment 'to see a little 100m uncovered andalso some different weavings'. She concurred 'It is grand to think matters are soarranged that it is possible to learn all one wants to learn. Here in this great country'smuseum with its store of ancient art and knowledge; and authorities ready to give youof their knowledge ... '. [18 May 190 I] To accompany her on the return visit she invitedGodfrey Blount and his wife, of the Haslemere Peasant Industries. This despite the factthat she wrote of him in somewhat derogatory terms as 'a man I dislike ... [and who]declares it never occurred to him in any of his numerous visits to study textiles at themuseum to ask if there was anyone who could help him ... '. She went on tocongratulate herself on the magnanimity of her gesture declaring, 'knowledge belongsto no one individual I thought; it is God's gift for all; and no one has any right towithhold it'. A developing rapport with the Museum staff led her to respond to a requestand send them some of her fabrics. This, in turn, resulted in a rare disclosure when shewrote

I wonder what they will think of them: they cannot be compared with the old world things. OnlyI cannot help saying the colourings are lovely - colour I revel in - and can get dyes full of lightand bleed different shades and different spun yarns together there is a delight and interest withoutend in the things. [28 June 1901]

Her research into fine muslin, however, as she was to record, had been somewhatfrustrated by her inability to get near enough to a Mummy in the British Museum 'todiscover the weave of the linen they were wrapped in'. A year later as a result of theVictorian zeal for possessing Egyptian artefacts, a somewhat frightening spectacleunexpectedly provided the information. During a visit to the bleach works and spinningmills at Newton-Ie-Willows and the weavers at Lowton in the Leigh area of Lancashire,Annie Garnett was invited to take tea with the owner's wife. As she explained

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Annie GarnettAfter tea ... Mrs Clegg showed us a mummy's head, her husband had found it in one of theRock caves in Egypt: it is gruesome to a degree but fascinating; the hair, that curious reddishtinge all ancient hair seems to have ... now I held a piece of mummy cloth in my hand: a realpiece, some 4,000 years old; the warp is much finer than the weft, giving it a curious rippled look,like tiny sea waves, one trying to get to the other. I have made a piece of 'Mummy Cloth' at theSpin: and it looks very like the original. [14 Jan. 1901]

From the finest of weaves with the somewhat ethereal name of 'woven air' to theheavier tweeds, Annie Garnett's fabrics reflected her technical knowledge and herattention to design and colour which was informed by her close observation of both thesurrounding landscape and the wide spectrum of plants growing in her garden. On 22

February 1911, The Pall Mall Gazette published an article, which provided a compre-hensive picture of the business during its peak years.The weaving of samites has greatly developed, and there are now produced rich stuffs of gold,silver, and aluminium that make ideal fabrics for court trains, and for draperies and other uses ongreat occasions ...The woven-air scarves are still made in the same quantities; and to pass to sterner things, neverhave there been so many orders for hand-spun woollens as during the last few months; the colourschemes obtained from the scotch moors, a couple of years ago have gradually developed intointeresting homespuns, and many a sportsman shoulders his gun on what was originally drawnfrom the moors he tramps on ...Silk handkerchiefs, too, are made - dainty things that look too ethereal to use, but are said to beuseful; great square silk mufflers; ties of all sorts, for both men and women; silks for dust cloaks;satins for bridal gowns; brocades for stately gowns; and every kind of silk for day and eveningsgowns ...

Such a description indicated something of the nature of her customers, the breadth oftextile manufacture and the need for further space which Garnett responded to with abuilding application, which appeared in the Westmorland Gazette on 30 March 1912.

The New Spinnery, more central to Bowness, was situated at the bottom of the hill andserved as a more accessible display-area and shop as well as housing a museum forGarnett's considerable collection of artefacts relating to the history and traditions ofspinning and weaving. This was to be short-lived expansion. When the war came itclosed and commercial production at The Spinnery ceased. Instead The Spinnerybecame the headquarters for the Windermere War Supply Depot., producing bandagesand splints to be sent abroad. Not surprisingly Annie Garnett's name was absent fromthe list of those exhibiting at the 1916 Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society although hername was still listed as a member. Her struggle, however, to restart the business afterthe war informs the final section of this paper. In this respect it is interesting to observesomething of the bureaucratic and ideological aims of government policy in helpingrural industries to regain their former status.

POST-WAR

It seems possible that while Annie Garnett's position as the Honorary Censor andSecretary of the War Supply Depot., as well as work with the Red Cross, involved her ina considerable amount of war and early post-war organizational activity it was nottotally to the exclusion of textile production. While 'over 1000 articles' relating tosurgical dressings and splints were despatched to hospitals during a three and half year

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JENNIE BRUNTON

period a visitor observed, in a letter dated 7 September 1918, 'I hope again to have thepleasure of seeing you, your splint works, and also your wonderful silk weaving ... ,.33

In 1919 she was invited to a Royal Garden Party in acknowledgement of herphilanthropic work and received a post-war certificate 'In recognition of Admirablework done for our sailors and soldiers in all parts of the world'. Her position also meantshe was responsible for the post-war disposal of the surplus funds, materials and toolsof the depot, which involved protracted correspondence with the Charity Commission.Detailed plans also revealed the extent to which she utilized the three acre garden atFairfield in not only providing food for the war effort but in extending her entrepreneur-ial skills to include the selling of plants and seeds.

By 1920, however, there was some indication of a return to production but inresponse to a request for photographs of her work for inclusion in the' Modern EnglishDecorative Art', she wrote 'Unfortunately I have no photographs of anything doneduring the last few years ... During the war I have purposely kept much of my work inabeyance but we are getting into full work again' .

In the same year she corresponded with John Green, the Director of Rural Industriesto whom, in his previous position as Secretary of the Rural League with responsibilityfor the British Village Industries, Garnett had sent samples of her silk. She had donethis in response to their meeting at the Royal Show at Darlington, where the Ministry ofAgriculture had an exhibition of 'Village Made Goods', and Green had expressedadmiration for her textiles. In discovering that she intended to continue the work, heasked if one of his representatives might call at her premises. Following the visit a MrL. F. Sheppick wrote to thank her for a copy of Spinnery Notes adding' ... [I] greatlyadmire your aim and ideal, and hope it will meet with the success it fully deserves. Ishall make known your work, as [I believe] that it will be an inspiration to many others'.

A year later a copy of a letter dated 31 May 1921 revealed that Annie Garnett was nothappy. She had heard that money was on offer to Mrs Robinson of the Women'sInstitute to start up a similar enterprise to her own and felt this ignored her business,which she had made known to Mr Green and his Chief of Staff. Such an offer failed torecognize, as she went on to state that' ... most of my spinsters are idle now because ofthe times and for more than 6 months I have kept the looms going without a singleorder'. Garnett's angry tone draws a defensive explanation including Green's regretthat she was not present at the meeting and revealed that the Rural Industries branchhad now closed down. Her frustration with this situation is perhaps best interpretedthrough the torn postcard, in the archive, on which Green had written to her personallyfrom his home address recording his own loss of employment and expressing disgustwith the new situation because no one there now had any experience with ruralindustries.

Despite this Garnett's search for assistance continued, this time with the newlyformed Rural Industries Intelligence Bureau. In turn they informed her that they hadbeen

established under a trust Deed for the purpose of assisting rural workers who, in their isolationare often out of touch with recent trade and economic information ... In conjunction with theBureau a Trading Society, known as the Country Industries Co-operative Society Limited, hasbeen registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, its function will be to supply

235

Annie Garnettthe workerswith rawmaterialsat wholesaleprices,and, if necessary,market their products forthem.

They, in turn, requested information on both The Spinnery and her knowledge of anycompetent instructors.

Later that year, the RIIB wrote to inform Garnett that 'The Women's AdvisoryCommittee ... is considering the possibility of employing a few disabled nurses andunemployed women in making handspun yarn ... for Hand weavers'. To this end anew type of spinning wheel has been suggested to which Garnett responded by placingan order and including 125.6d. (£0.625) in payment.

Frustration seeps through Garnett's side of this ongoing correspondence whichremained patronizing and lacking in appreciation and understanding of The Spinnery'spre-war success. More telling of the changing times was the new utilitarian letterheading used in this correspondence. Gone was the art-nouveau style logo incorporatingAnnie Garnett's initials and in its place a straightforward capital A and G. Alongsidethe address, the hours were recorded as 10-6.30 in the summer, and 10-4 in the winter.The products appeared under 'Hand-made' as 'silk brocades, damask, samites of gold,etc throwans, linens, tweed etc. Household linen, embroideries. Commenced work[completing customer's own work]'. Departments remained as 'The WindermereSchool of Spinning and Weaving', and 'The Windermere School of Embroidery' withthe added one of 'Design, Wrought Silver' which Frances Garnett was known toproduce.

When the Census of Production Papers for the Board of Trade were completed forthe year ending 1924 they revealed stocks of silk, textiles made from silk and cottonmixes, silk and wool, silk and linen as well as pure wool to the net sellingvalue of £1984.Materials used were valued at £1058. Wage earners throughout the year averaged outas just two males and three females, with between one and four female out-workers.Machines in use were listed as one hand warping, many spinning wheels and eighthandlooms.34

Around this time Annie Garnett's health began to suffer as indicated in a letter froma Scottish customer who wrote 'sorry you have been so long and so seriously ill ... ' andit was recorded that Hugh MacI<ay, an actor with the Arts League of Service, sangweaving and spinning songs to her in her sick-bed, unaccompanied, from the garden.In a subsequent letter he was to refer to a weaver friend from the Orkneys, who waslooking for work, suggesting he might be suitable for The Spinnery. This referencebears some relation to the significant loss she must have felt when her head weaver,Arthur Astle, was killed by a car outside St John's Church in Windermere. WhetherGarnett, then in her sixties, took up the offer to employ another weaver is not known.

ENDINGS

In 1930 Mary Lois I<issellwrote glowingly in the American magazine Home Beautiful ofthe many features and plants in the garden at Fairfield of which she claimed, 'Wordsseem inadequate when interpreting so astute a handling of color ... '. Under theheading of 'An Artist's Garden, A Color Laboratory in the English Lake Region' shecontinued 'It is with the freedom of a painter laying on pigment that Miss Garnett

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JENNIE BRUNTON

manipulates her medium of polychromatic flora, often most ingeniously massing tintsand shades'. She observed how Garnett had used this palette:Not only was it a source of pleasure but the impressions caught in midday sunshine, glitteringmoonlight, morning mist, or heavy shower she transferred to weavings and embroideries in herworkshop, 'The Spinnery'. Ere the opening of the twentieth century these inspirations werefinding expression in both English and Scotch furnishings and clothing.35

However, Henry Wilson's words to The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1916,which warned that 'After the war it will be too late', seem to have a particular relevancein the case of Annie Garnett. Despite her efforts, within a changing world, the businesswas never to regain its pre-war levels of production. As both an observer of social andtextile history it is particularly saddening to note that her death in May 1942 warrantedbut two lines in the local paper's obituary column. There were no words to record herentrepreneurial and creative talents and there was no mention of a time when, as TheStudio recorded in 1902, The Spinnery produced' ... some of the most beautiful fabricsnow made in this country'.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to and thank the Pasold Fund for supporting my on-going research intothe work of Annie Garnett. May I also extend my personal thanks to Mary Rose, LindaParry, Alice Pearson and the staff at Abbot Hall in IZendal. Photographs accompanyingthis article are from the Garnett archive and appear courtesy of the Museum of LakelandLife and Industry in IZendal, Cumbria.

REFERENCES

Author's Note: All references to the 1899-1909 diary are dated within the text.

1 Walter Crane, The Catalogue of the 9th Exhibition of The Arts and Crafts Society (Chiswick Press,1910), p. 14.

2 Henry Wilson, The Catalogue for the Ilh Exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Society (Chiswick Press,1916), p. 19·

3 Annie Garnett, unpublished diary 1899-19°9, from an entry on 14 February 1904.4 Anthea Callen, 'Sexual Division of Labour in the Arts and Crafts Movement', in Attfield &

IZirkham (eds.) A View from the Interior) Women and Design (The Women's Press, 1995), p. 151.5 Lynne Wallzer, 'The Arts and Crafts Alternative', in ibid. p. 165.6 Alan Crawford (ed.), By Hammer and Hand (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1984), p. 17.7 Ibid., p. 23.8 See Janice Helland, The Studios of Frances and Margaret MacDonald (Manchester Univ. Press,

1996), p. 6, who she states have 'been written out of the discourse in a most effective way; they arementioned but denied significance'.

9 Jennifer Harris, 'The Role of the Amateur', William Morris Revisited) Questioning the Legacy(Whitworth Art Gallery, 1996), p. 54.

10 Ruskin, 'The Two Paths' (1859), in Cook & Wedderburn (eds.), Ruskin Collected Works, XVI

(George Allen, 1907), p. 320.11 For an account of this industry see Jennie Brunton, 'The late nineteenth-century revival of the

Langdale Linen Industry', in E. Roberts (ed.), A History of Linen in the North West (CNWRS, 1998),PP·93-118.

12 St Martin's Order Book dated 1884-1925 at the K.endal Record Office, Cumbria.13 Anthea Callen, Angel in the Studio (Astragal Books, 1979), pp. 2-3.14 A. Garnett, Notes on Handspinning (Dulau & Co., 1896).

237

Annie Garnett15 Ibid., p. I I.

16 A Callen, Angel in the Studio, p. 26; Jane Aaron, Double Singleness; Gender & the Writings of Charles&Mary Lamb (Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 51-69.

17 R. Parker, The Subversive Stitch (Women's Press, 1984), p. 5.18 See note 14.19 A. Garnett, Spinnery Notes (Chiswick Press, 1912), p. 6.20 A. Garnett, Craftmanship, reprinted from an article which appeared in the Lyceum Club Magazine

(19°4)·21 A. Garnett, Notes on Handspinning, p. 14.22 Art Workers' Quarterly, IV (1905), 189.23 Gillian Medland, unpublished dissertation 'Annie Garnett' submitted to Manchester Polytechnic.

Dept. of General Studies for B.A. (History of Design) May 1979, p. 31. This contains a wealth oftechnical information and is a key document in the archive.

24 Art Workers' Quarterly (1905), 143.25 In Scrapbook archive 75/69/6/43.26 Diary 15 May 1901: 'Harold Rathbone, a pupil of Ford Madox Brown, ran the della Robbia

Pottery in Birkenhead ... ', see A. Crawford (ed.), By Hammer and Hand (1984), p. 39.27 See collections of the Yule Tide Gift Catalogue in the National Art Library. Transfer Designs for

Application to Needlework supplied by Liberty & Co Ltd.28 Catalogue for Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society (Chiswick Press, 1903). Item 18B 'Screen Mounted

in Ebony by Annie Garnett & assistants. £31 lOS'. See also G. Medland, pp. 53-54.29 Linda Parry, Textiles of the Arts and Crafts Movement (Thames & Hudson, 1988), p. 128.30 I<'elly'sDirectory (Westmorland, 1910), p. 41.31 Catalogue of 9th Exhibition, Arts and Crafts Society, 1910. Items 407 & 419h.32 Archive 75/69/6/51.33 Letter in archive from H.G. Gandy, Drill Hall, Penrith.34 Archive 75/69/6215-217. Post-war (WWI) correspondence ref. 75/69/6.35 Lois Kissell in Home Beautiful, LXVII (1930).