Witney: A Quiet Town In Unquiet Times - Witney, a village near Oxford, England

Contemporary Review, Sept, 2001 by Jonathan W. Doering

Direct involvement in later conflicts could not be, arid was not, avoided. During the First World War, a house on the Green was provided to accommodate Belgian refugees, and there were other newcomers to the area: London school children evacuees; American and Canadian airmen based at the new Witney Airfield, much of which was built by Portuguese labourers, as well as German Prisoners of War. Some 157 Witney men died in the European trenches, and are remembered on the Memorial on the Green. The town of Carterton, six miles from Witney, sprang up to service the American air base of Brize Norton during the Second World War, and it is built along the distinctive American grid-system. Thirty-five service people from Witney lost their lives during the Second World War (six of them on the Normandy beaches).

This goes some way to showing how the town has survived over the years. The other part of the story is how it has thrived, and that was mainly through its canny trade in woollen goods. The origins of the industry are so old as to be indistinct, but a Witney weaver appears in a court record in 1170 as being fined six shillings and eight pence by the Crown. In 1221 Henry III spent the then huge sum of twenty pounds on new clothes whilst staying in the area. Early's of Witney, whose factory still stands on the Woodstock side of town, has been producing blankets since 1669, and has held Royal Warrants from twelve monarchs, beginning with Queen Anne in 1711. Over the years, Early's made a name for itself overseas with its range of 'points blankets', originally used for trading with North American hunters in return for animal pelts. The 'points' were sewn markings on the blankets, denoting the quality of the blankets, on a scale rising from one to six. The blanket trade has also spread Witney's name across India, Africa, and the Far East, with 'Witney' becoming a by-word for a certain type of excellent, soft blanket. (When preparing to move here a few years ago, I knew little about the town, save for its proximity to Oxford: several people instantly reacted to my mention of it by remarking on this industry.)

By 1711 there were sixty weavers in Witney, and by 1720 they were wealthy enough to fund jointly the building of a 'Blanket Hall' on the Green. The Napoleonic Wars in the early 1 800s increased demand for good quality woollen goods, and from this time manufacturers from other areas started to appropriate the name as a label for their own (no doubt high-equality) products. In 1908 Witney manufactures brought a lawsuit against Rylands and Sons of Manchester under the 1887 Merchandise Marks Act, arguing their use of the Witney label was a 'false trade description'. The courts found for Witney, and in the wake of this, several Yorkshire firms set up premises in the town for the finishing of goods made in the North, in order to use the name.

The other main industry here was brewing. Initially this was on a small scale, but the nineteenth century saw the growth of the 'tied-inn' system, which in turn led to greater centralization and professionalism in the brewing industry as a whole. Clinch and Company was the largest and oldest local brewery, founded by James Clinch, who in 1811 bought the Fleece Inn on the Green (still standing). By 1891, Clinch owned seventy-two tied inns. In 1962, Courage took Clinch over, winding down production in 1963. The wool trade held influence here as well: Clinch's main rival was the Blanket Hall Brewery, founded after 1844 by William Smith and Joseph Early.