The History of wool begins long ago, when primitive man for the first time clothed himself in the woolly skins, of the sheep he killed for food. The sheep could be milked (and still is, in many parts of the world).However man soon understood that to kill the sheep for its meat alone was a waste of food and material. Man had realized when the sheep shed its fur the material could be spun and knitted into cloth. Then he became a shepherd with the help of his friend the dog- probably the only animal to be domesticated before the sheep- he soon developed a system for making clothing from the sheep. Man had found a heavy-duty fabric that would offer him protection from heat, cold, wind, and rain. A flexible cloth that could keep him cool in the heat of the day, also warm in the cold of the night. Man had realized that there is no other cloth that could match wool, there was no other material, natural or man-made, has all its potentials. But man learned he can improve wool by selective breeding of sheep and by combining the wool fabrics with such qualities as shrink resistance, mothproofing, shower-proofing and stain-proofing.
Science and technology have kept wool in the lead of fabrics, adjusting to modern-day needs without damaging its virtues. Wool is a very big part of Britain's history, more so than any other product ever manufactured in these islands. It was knitted into cloth here in the Bronze Age which began about 1900 BC. Elsewhere in the world, primitive man had domesticated the sheep in 10 000 BC. Even before 10,000 BC wool fabric was being spun and woven by the tribes of northern Europe.
The ancient tribes of northern Europe spun wool by hand that resulted in a thick uneven yarn. Soon man invented a crude spindle which is where things stayed for thousands of years. It was so efficient that a similar gadget is still used across the world today. The crude spindle was established by fitting a stone or clay ring to the end of a wooden stick. The ring performed as a flywheel and allowed the drawn-out yarn to be wound on to the spindle. This method of spinning was used for thousands of years and is still used by laborer neighborhoods in different parts of the world. Then came weaving, weaving was the criss-crossing of threads of wool to make cloth. The first loom consisted of a beam from which lengths of yarn were hung and weighted at the lower end by stones. The `weft' yarn was threaded to and fro across the suspended `warp' yarns in an over-and-under action, like darning a sock. As with spinning, this system was used for thousands of years. Later in time around AD 500 and 1000 the spinning-wheel was created which replaced the ring and stick. The wheel was attached by a pulley to the spindle, which was installed vertically on a frame. One turn of the big spinning-wheel gave about twenty turns of the spindle, so wool could now be spun more quickly. The loom remained largely unchanged until John Kay invented his `flying shuttle' in 1733, which was driven mechanically to and fro across the warp without having to be thrown 'by the weaver. Other machines were invented for preparing wool for weaving. They included the combing machine, used in the industry for combing the long wool fibers parallel and removing the short fibers; and the carding machine for opening out, blending and straightening the wool fibers after cleansing.By the beginning of the nineteenth century Watt's steam engine was in the Yorkshire mills. By the end of the century hand loom weaving had practically disappeared. The way now lay ahead for continuing development-added refinements, improved quality and increased speed of manufacture which have made wool today, as in the past, the most valued fabric in the world.