Dyehouse notes from the Crutchley Archive: ‘grain’ dyeing practices with alum and tin ‘spirits’ for red woollen cloth, 1716 to 1728

In early eighteenth-century London, the Crutchley family were amongst many dyers in the business of creating ‘beautiful cullers’ for fashionable textiles. The Crutchleys’ speciality was to dye woollen cloths in scarlet, crimson and other red shades at their dyehouses in Southwark near the River Thames. Nine of their dyers’ books with hundreds of colourful dyed textile ‘patterns’ and handwritten dyeing instructions have survived and are now part of the UNESCO-registered Crutchley Archive in Southwark Archives’ collection. [1] All the instructions in the Crutchley books are for ‘in grain’ and ‘out of grain’ dyeing involving cochineal, madder and occasionally stick lac with alum and tin mordants and permitted additions of brazilwood, logwood and other dyes to create tonal shades and tints. The three oldest books, dated 1716 to 1728, also hold detailed records of dyehouse operations: preand post-dyeing treatments of the cloths; preparing fresh and recycled baths of mordants and dyes; making tin ‘spirits’ (a nitrate solution) with aqua fortis (nitric acid); and selecting dyeing equipment, timings and water sources. The Crutchleys’ battle to prevent ‘white spot’ spoilage of scarlet cloths, a known risk from aqua fortis in tin spirits, highlights the advantages of their dyehouses being near river and well water sources and tenter-fields. In our presentation we share and discuss these Early Modern dyeing practices in the context of the colours produced, and the daily manual labour and sensory skills involved in physical acts that come alive in these masterly notes from experienced dyers. For dye history, these intimate accounts give a rare opportunity of actual dye work practices to compare with published information of the period and surviving material evidence from red wool dyeing contemporaries of the Crutchley family to inform modern perspectives of historical dyeing