Cashmere Wool

Discovered by : Zayn-ul-Abidin

Discovered in year : 1500

Cashmere Wool, usually simply known as cashmere, is a fibre obtained from the Cashmere goat. The Cashmere goat produces what is called a double fleece. The top layer is straight, coarse fibre that needs to withstand the elements. The second layer is a soft undercoat of hair and it is this 'underdown' that produces the soft cashmere wool we know so well. It must be separated from the coarse outer layer before it can be dyed and spun into yarn for knitting wool fingerless gloves, sweaters, scarves, etc. Cashmere wool fibre for clothing and other textile articles is obtained from the Cashmere domestic goat. The goat is a mammal  belonging to the subfamily Caprinae of the family Bovidae. The word cashmere derives from an old spelling of Kashmir. Cashmere wool is fine in texture, and it is also strong, light, and soft. When it is made into garments, they are extremely warm to wear. Cashmere is collected during the spring moulting  season when the goats naturally shed their winter coat. In the Northern Hemisphere the goats moult over a period beginning as early as March and as late as May.

History

The fibre is also known as pashm (Persian word for Wool) or pashmina (Persian / Hindi word driven from Pashm) for its use in the handmade shawls of Kashmir, India. The woollen shawls find written mention in Indian texts between 3rd century BC and the 11th century AD. However, the founder of the cashmere wool industry is traditionally held to be the 15th century ruler of Kashmir, Zayn-ul-Abidin, who introduced weavers from Turkestan.

Development in the Discovery of Cashmere Wool

In the 18th and early 19th century Kashmir had a thriving industry producing shawls from goat down imported from Tibet and Tartary  through Ladakh. The down trade was controlled by treaties signed as a result of previous wars. The shawls were introduced into Western Europe when the General in Chief of the French campaign in Egypt (1799-1802) sent one to Paris. The shawl's arrival is said to have created an immediate sensation and plans were put in place to start manufacturing the product in France.

Trading in Commercial quantities of raw cashmere between Asia and Europe began with Valerie Audresset SA, Louviers, France claiming to be the first European company to commercially spin cashmere. The down was imported from Tibet through Kasan the capital of the Russian province Volga and was used in France to create imitation woven shawls. Unlike the Kashmir shawls, the French shawls had a different pattern on each side. The imported cashmere was spread out on large sieves and beaten with sticks to open the fibres and clear away the dirt. After opening the cashmere was washed and children removed the coarse hair. The down was then carded and combed using the same methods used for worsted spinning.

In 1819 several Tibetan and Tartary cross goats where imported into France by M. Jaubert under the auspices of the French government and at the expense of M. Ternaux. Mr Edward Riley (nephew of Alexander Riley) saw the herd in 1828 and described it as a mixture of colors from brown to white, covered with coarse hair, with an average of three ounces (84 grams) of down underneath the hair. Mr Riley also saw M. Polonceau's herd. Polonceau selected from the Ternaux herd and crossed his animals with a selected fine Angoras buck. In 1831 Mr Riley went back to France and purchased ten females in kid and two bucks from Mr Polonceau and sent them to Australia; at the time the average production of the Polonceau herd was 16 ounces (500 grams) of down.

By 1830 the weaving of cashmere shawls using yarn produced in France had become an important Scottish industry and the Scottish Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures offered a 300 Pound Sterling reward to the first person who could spin cashmere in Scotland based on the French system. Captain Charles Stuart Cochrane collected the required information while in Paris and received a Scottish patent for the process in 1831. In the autumn of 1831 the patent was sold to Henry Houldsworth and sons of Glasgow. In 1832 Henry Houldsworth and sons commenced the manufacture of yarn and in 1833 received the reward.

Dawson International claim to have invented the first commercial dehairing machine in 1890 and from 1906 they purchased cashmere from China, but were restricted to purchasing fibre from Beijing and Tianjing until 1978. In 1978 trade was liberalised and Dawson International began buying cashmere from many provinces

Importance of the Discovery of Cashmere Wool in the development of Human Life

• Cashmere Wool became an industry and provided employment especially to weavers living in rural areas.

• People had a better choice of wearing winter clothes as Cashmere Wool is known for it's warmth.