By 1850 the British woollen industry was largely mechanised, its complex processes ranging from sorting and scouring, blending and carding/combing, to spinning, weaving and finishing, all becoming faster, more efficient. Ironically, its importance to the Victorian economy would decline as new industries emerged, yet the next 25 years witnessed unprecedented expansion.

Various categories of cloth were produced for home and overseas markets, including furnishing and garment fabrics, knitwear, blankets, carpets and felt. Many woollen and worsted textiles were manufactured in Yorkshire’s West Riding, centred on the industrial powerhouses of Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds. Although involved in the early cotton industry, Bradford became the main producer of plain white worsted cloth, the city being dubbed ‘Worstedopolis’. It also had a major alpaca and mohair wool producer, Sir Titus Salt, who built both a mill and a model village for his workers called Saltaire nearby.

Contrasting with Bradford’s humble worsteds, Huddersfield was known for fine worsted textiles that were admired globally for tailoring gentlemen’s bespoke suits. Pursuing fashion further, the region also manufactured fancy waistcoating in many designs incorporating wool, silk, cotton, and speciality yarns. Halifax, important for woollen manufacture since the 1700s, was the site of the vast Piece Hall built for selling cloth. Benjamin Gott’s Bean Ing mill in Leeds was among the earliest and largest mills in Europe; employing thousands of workers, he succeeded in bringing all the woollen manufacturing processes together in the one mill.

Other areas besides Yorkshire were traditionally significant, becoming associated with particular processes or products. The many streams of North Wales were ideal for locating fulling mills, the Welsh for fulling being pandai, its mills often termed ‘Pandy’ mills and many Welsh place names incorporating the word ‘pandy’. Making woollen flannel was historically a Welsh cottage industry, mainly in Welshpool and Llanidloes, until the mid-1800s when it became centred on Newtown. Manufacture was closely linked to other Welsh industries: mining and ironworks both involved tough dirty work requiring constant washing of clothes and stout flannel was ideal. When heavy industry declined, so did the demand for flannel; fortunately Wales also produced other woollens and tweeds for local use and export.

Parts of the Cotswolds made heavily fulled textiles like broadcloth, their noted scarlet cloths favoured for military uniforms, while other regional mills produced striped cloths for the East India Company. Banbury was known for shag or plush, popular for upholstery material; while horsecloths and girth webbing were made in Oxford. Manufacturers centred on Witney exploited new American and African markets, supplying blankets to cotton and sugar plantation owners and fur trappers: in time, Witney blankets were famed all over the world.