Dress fabric sample

This is a dress silk sold by Campbell, Harrison and Lloyd, which traded from Friday Street near St Paul's Cathedral in London. The firm's entry in the 1851 Exhibition catalogue lists their products as 'figured moirè antique damask, Scotch tartan satins and velvets, coloured moirè antique and brocade figure for vestings'. The design shows a varieties of roses, a number of new varieties of which were becoming popular.

By the mid-19th century East London, and Spitalfields in particular, continued to be a centre for the production and distribution of woven dress silks, but the areas influence soon declined due to competition from manufacturers in Lyon, France.

This example was exhibited in Class XIII of the Great Exhibition and would have been included in sub-group C which displayed 'Fancy silks, as Shot, Figured, Embroidered, &c;'. This is part of the collection of exhibits which were presented to HM Commissioners and then to the Museum as a lasting memorial of the Exhibition of 1851. It is a record of the state of industry in 1851 and provides 'a view both to technical instruction and to the ever-changing and increasing wants of trade in this great commercial country' (preface to the catalogue of 'Animal Products Collection' exhibited at the South Kensington Museum in 1857).