Pamphleteers opposed their supposed penchant for calico which was assumed to have had a deleterious effect on certain branches of the textile industry, particularly the sale of woollens.
However, it is possible that the requirement of subsidiary employment per loom was greater in wool than in cotton, since woollen yarn was still largely handspun.
The only other occupations employing more than three married women in a thousand were laundry work, innkeeping, the grocery trade, dressmaking and the woollen textile industry.
In 1826 these included the trades of wheelwright, brush-maker, clothier, slopseller, pawnbroker, joiner, coal-merchant and woollen-draper.
Ulnage was an official measurement of inspection for quality of woollen cloth.
The decade, however, also witnessed a certain polarization within woollen manufactures.
Of the major wool-using sectors, neither carpets, nor shawls, nor the better quality blankets or woollen garments, could utilize the common wool of the plains.
The remaining woollen companies either disappeared or merged with others into larger modern joint-stock companies in the 1860s and 1870s.
