Design for a Paisley Shawl, ca.1839

Design for a Paisley Shawl, ca.1839

Textiles

This hand-painted design for a Paisley shawl is stamped ‘Board of Trustees for Manufactures in Scotland’. Painted on oiled paper and mounted on cartridge paper it is for a shawl quarter that combines Indian-style flower and pinecone patterns arranged in a colourful, central decorative medallion.

The design is thought to be one of those retained when the Board of Trustees gave a collection of 196 samples and designs to pattern designer and teacher of pattern drawing Thomas Barker Holdway in 1839.  Holdway won the Trustees' Academy's prizes for shawl designs 1831-33 and was sent to study French designs in Paris in 1834. He taught at the Trustees' Academy between 1835-1839, leaving to start classes in Glasgow following the decline of the shawl industry in Edinburgh.  A keen defender of the profession, Holdway gave evidence to the Select Committee on the Copyright of Designs in 1840 arguing for extended protection of one year on copyright-protected designs (Reports From Committees, vol.3. 148-160)

Shawl designers worked anonymously so we don’t know whether Holdway drew this particular pattern, but we know that collections of ‘good design’ were maintained throughout the nineteenth century to be used as teaching tools in the education of new designers.  The Board of Trustees for Fisheries, Manufacturers and Improvements in Scotland was established in 1727 to promote and support the development of Scotland’s industries. It established a Drawing Academy in Edinburgh in 1760. 

Paisley shawls were produced in both woven and printed form, and the designer was the first in a line of skilled artisans involved in their production. Painted designs were copied on to squared point-paper and this provided a set of visual instructions to the hand-loom weaver who translated the pattern into woven cloth using brilliantly-coloured yarns produced by skilled dyers. Before the introduction of chemical dyes in the 1850s, natural dyestuffs such as saffron and chrome were used to dye and print shawls. For printed shawl production, design drawings like this were given to specialist block-cutters to create a printing block for each colour of the design.

Paisley, near Glasgow, was not the only centre of Indian-style shawl production in Britain but the achievements of its highly skilled weavers made the town’s name synonymous with fashionable shawls.  In 1842 Queen Victoria purchased seventeen Paisley shawls, including the shawl she wore to the christening of the Prince of Wales the same year.  The British displays at The Great Exhibition of 1851 showcased Scottish shawls described as ‘long India coloured and square compartment cashmeres’. The Scottish industry struggled to recreate the cashmere softness of the Indian originals yet Paisley shawls commanded high prices amongst Britain’s fashionable elite for their artistry in design, colour and weaving. Indian-style patterns were not the only style of shawl produced in Paisley, manufacturers such as W and J Drysdale, and James and David Paton also copyright-registered designs for brilliantly coloured plaids and tartans.  

University of Edinburgh

Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh