Page 114 - History-of-flooringLR

Hand-woven Axminster, 1946

A not very brief history

of Wilton Carpets

The ancient bits
Wilton, the ancient capital of Wessex has had an important role in
the fortunes of this country. Since the Middle Ages the land
around it has supported the sheep that fed the lucrative wool
trade, upon which much of England’s wealth was based at the The first carpet
time. When the wool trade declined, cloth making took over and Jemaule’s dramatic story ends here, as he’s not referenced in records
Wilton became a weaving town, with the rivers Wylye and Nadder again, but we do know ‘The first carpet ever made in England was
providing the water essential to cloth manufacturing. manufactured by, and under the direction of one Anthony Dufosee,
who is lately dead.’ (Britton, Beauties of Wiltshire, 1801)
Significant shift in the town’s fortunes came in the form of Henry,
9th Earl of Pembroke, whose seat was Wilton house. During his What Dufosee created was the type of cut pile carpeting now
travels in Flanders and France during the 1730s, the Earl took universally known as Wilton Carpet. The first Wilton loom was
great interest in carpet manufacturing and how it was widely used patented in 1741, with scant benefit to Dufosee; we know little about
for flooring, so recruited two Frenchmen, Anthony Duffosy and him except that he married a local woman, Mary Tanner, and they had
Peter Jemaule, who are said to have been smuggled into this a number of children, most of whom died during infancy. When he
country in wine casks. The reason for Dufosee and Jemaule’s died in 1785, Dufosee was impoverished, his widow ending her days in
secretive flight out of France was presumably because the French the poor house. A deeply unfitting end for the man responsible for one
authorities didn’t want their skilled workmen leaving the country. of the best known styles of carpet in the world.

114 The History of Flooring