Where have I been of late?

Hello!

I've been visiting two very different museums during the last couple of weeks and have also been a participant at a fabulous Roman Festival in Malton, East Yorkshire. More coming very soon on all of these really exciting visits, but first in chronological order:

The Verdant Works Museum, Dundee, Scotland. 

My main character, Margaret Law, in the Silver Sampler Series finds herself in the city of Dundee at the beginning of Book 2. The date is 1856 and I needed to find out more about the mill workings at that time in Dundee. This isn't because Margaret gets herself a job at one of the big 'newish' mill manufactories, but she does find work using her seamstress skills. I wanted to find out more about how seamstresses, or tailors, bought the materials they worked with. Were there any mills at that time in Dundee supplying any types of domestic-use cloth, as in woollen cloth; cotton; or even linen? 

Unfortunately, I didn't really get my answers in the excellently-run Verdant Works Museum but I did find out lots of other useful information.

I already knew that in the mid 1850s, Dundee became one of the most successful global areas in producing jute products. The Dundee mills which had tended towards linen production during the 1820s to 1850s found it lucrative to quickly switch to jute and hessian production during the Crimean War (1853-1856) when supplies of flax for linen dried up, there being a blockade on ships trading flax to Britain from the Baltic States.

Jute was a useful, sturdy cloth for producing multi-use sacks, canvas for awnings on carts, and for tent making among other many uses. The American Civil War (1861-1865) was another reason for the Dundee jute mills to be highly successful since they were a large supplier for the American military.

From the 1820s, shipping in general in Dundee had improved. Shipbuilding was thriving but also the docks had been extended, well designed to accommodate the off and on-loading necessary for a rapid turn-around of goods.

A lovely lady named Lily 

Though back to my Verdant Works Mill Museum visit:

The machinery on view at the Verdant Works is smaller scale than the originals (some scaled down x7) but the working machines make it great to see the different stages of jute production. The mills when fully operational must have been incredibly noisy, unhealthy places to work in. My new friend in the photo, an octogenarian called Lily, was once-upon-a-time a worker at the Verdant Works all her working-life. She volunteers on Sundays and is often the only person who is allowed/ authorised to demonstrate machines working. I had a wonderful solo tour with Lily, the museum not yet busy on the Sunday morning that I visited. Lily gave me a lovely gift of a book about Old Dundee since I told her of my reasons for being there.

Lily also told me that losing hearing was very common in the mills but, over time, the workers had developed their own sign-language to compensate. She demonstrated various amusing signals which would indicate if the 'big boss' was on the way, perhaps expected in two or three minutes time (signals for this) and signals for other practical communications between the workers. The dusty fibres shed in the production of jute cloth were a death-knell to many of the earliest mill workers and the Victorian life-span was shockingly short. 

I was very surprised at how soft and silky the jute strands are before they go through the teasing and winding processes before being spun onto bobbins. 

The Verdant Works Museum at Lochee in Dundee is definitely worth a visit, even if like me you get lost driving along the very short cobbled lanes between the many different mill buildings. Some of the buildings are now home to gyms, small commercial concerns etc. It's wonderful to know that although more than 150 years old the buildings can be repurposed rather than being knocked down. 

To get the answers I want, I'm now delving into various publications, including a new research book named 'Onwards from Osnaburgs' by Christopher A Whatley. (recommended to me by Chris Longmuir an author friend who lives in Angus and who also had a job at a local mill in Montrose)

 

Meanwhile, I need to catch up with some gardening and do more of the second part of Margaret Law's story. 

Slainte! 

p.s. Novice Threads is picking up some fantastic reviews and ratings on various internet sites. Last I looked on Amazon UK it has 49 ratings, 50% of which are 5*, so it's almost at a first milestone.