Parramatta cloth

Parramatta cloth was a cloth of the early 19th century from the town Parramatta in Australia. Initially, it was a coarse cloth produced by the inmates of Parramatta Female Factory, and used for convicts’ clothing. After 1815 the cloth was finished in a separate factory, producing a tweed of superior quality which was imitated by English producers.[1][2][3][4]

Slop cloth

Parramatta Female Factory was a prison for female transportees, and females who had committed a crime in the Colony; the convicts were made to do various jobs, including spinning and weaving.[5] Parramatta cloth was initially a coarse low-grade cloth, also known as “factory cloth”,[3] a type of slop cloth made of wool. The Parramatta Female Factory also produced linen cloth for convicts’ clothing.[6][7][8]

Later products

In 1815 Simeon Lord established a factory at Botany Bay where cloth from Parramatta was finished and dyed, producing a high quality, and expensive, tweed.[4][3] This cloth gained enough of a reputation to be imitated by English manufacturers in Bradford, who later marketed their own products as Parramatta Cloth.[4]

Variations

PIECE GOODS MANUAL refers Paramatta as a lightweight fabric woven with a specific twill pattern using cotton and Botany worsted yarns. It is commonly used for making waterproof items.[9]

See also

References
  1. Middleton, Angela (1 March 2009). Te Puna - A New Zealand Mission Station: Historical Archaeology in New Zealand. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-387-77622-4.
  2. Balint, Emery; Howells, Trevor; Smyth, Victoria (1982). Warehouses & Woolstores of Victorian Sydney. Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-19-554385-8.
  3. Maynard, Margaret (1994). Fashioned from Penury: Dress as Cultural Practice in Colonial Australia. Cambridge University Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-521-45310-3.
  4. Stephensen, P. R. (Percy Reginald) (1966). The history and description of Sydney Harbour. Adelaide : Rigby. p. 296.
  5. "Convict Female Factories". 31 January 2013. Archived from the original on 31 January 2013. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
  6. "'Slop' clothing". Sydney Living Museums. 13 July 2017. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  7. ''spin wool into yarn, and from the yarn weave the coarse "Parramatta cloth" from which convicts' winter clothes were made.'' Page 255 https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/The_Fatal_Shore_The_Epic_of_Australia_s/7E5wt_V5nw4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=frontcover
  8. Hughes, Joan (1989). Australian Words and Their Origins. Oxford University Press. p. 394. ISBN 978-0-19-553087-2.
  9. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Piece Goods Manual, by A. E. Blanco". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 13 August 2023.
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