ABSTRACT
The throwing of raw silk and the weaving of silken fabrics have long been practised in Britain. In the nineteenth century, however, British economists, manufacturers and businessmen generally held Free Trade opinions, and the British silk industry was produced as a stock example of a protected infant industry which refused to grow up. Silk throwing is the equivalent of the spinning process in the other textile industries. London merchants imported the raw silk in skeins or hanks called slips from the Ottoman Empire, various parts of Italy, India and China. In Italy John Lombe's task was that of 'penetrating the secrets' of the water-driven silk throwing factories and their machines. The silk mill now became the sole property of Sir Thomas Lombe, who had to carry on without his half-brother's technical knowledge. In 1724, before Sir Thomas could get the mill into full production, the King of Sardinia prohibited the export of raw silk.
