Tour Scotland Paisley

Tour Scotland Paisley. Paisley was at one time famous for its weaving industry. For nearly a hundred years until the 1870s shawls of the Paisley pattern were in fashion. Until the Jacquard loom was introduced in the 1820s, weaving was a cottage industry. This innovation led to the industrialisation of the process. As a result, many weavers lost their livelihoods and left for Canada and Australia. One of these, a man named John Hart and a Paisley mill owner, settled at Perth, Ontario, where he had a Book Store and Mercantile shop.

Due to its damp, mild climate, Paisley was for many years a centre for the manufacture of cotton sewing thread. At the heyday of Paisley thread manufacture in the 1930s, there were 28,000 people employed in the huge Anchor and Ferguslie mills of J & P Coats Ltd said to be the largest of their kind in the world at that time. In the 1950s, the mills diversified into the production of synthetic threads but with cheap foreign imports and the establishment by Coats of mills in India and Brazil the writing was on the wall for Paisley and production began to diminish rapidly. By the end of the 1980s, there was no thread being produced in Paisley. However, both industries have left a permanent mark on the town in the form of the many places with textile related names, for example, Dyer's Wynd, Cotton Street, Thread Street, Shuttle Street, Lawn Street, Silk Street, Mill Street and Incle Street.