1700 The cotton industry in Britain is very small.

This drawing shows boys winding thread for a weaver in a house in Bengal in India. The artist Arthur William Devis (1762-1822) lived in India in the late eighteenth century.

In 1700, most of the cotton cloth sold in Britain came from India. The cloth was very fine and soft. It was very expensive and only the wealthy could afford it. In a small number of places in Britain, weavers were making a type of mixed cotton cloth, called fustians, using cotton weft and linen warp. This was a fairly cheap cloth, which was very rough and unfinished.