[Victorian garment manufacture.] Manuscript volume ('E. J. Walker | Notes Private | A. P. M.') covering all aspects of the Victorian garment industry, with costings, tables of sizings and prices, records of wages, patterns

Circa 220pp., 8vo, with the main text on rectos, and additions and subheadings (often in red ink), together with some simple pencil patterns, on versos. In ruled exercise book. In good condition, on aged paper, in worn original glazed black cloth binding. The volume has been compiled for his own use by a Victorian factory manager, and contains material relating to clothing for men, women and children. The seventeen entries on the first 41pp. are indexed on the front pastedown (with the red-ink subheadings facing the text given here in brackets): Winding (winders wages; waste; bad yarns, American machine; giving out of yarn); Testing Yarns; Making (marking the rolls); Giving out (Giving out of ribs); Yarns,

, dressing; wages & quantities of yarns (Wages of frame hands; checking of books); measurement of Ribs; Widths (machines different widths are made on; gauge); Mending (Washouse [sic]; Course rolls, dressing; fine rolls; Scouring Course rolls; Scouring Fine Rolls);

; Trap; Milling (Quantity of Soap; Overmilling; Milling without soap; Milling with soap; Round Mill; Clearing); Bleaching; Drying Damping Brushing; Stoving; Hydraulic; Cost of Making. There is a page listing 'Washouse [sic] Wages', with long note at end. Pages 45 to 56 carry an article titled 'Making up Department'. Facing the first page of the article is a 'sample of giving out ticket'. On facing pages to the article are a number of crude patterns. There follows a five-page article on 'Smocked Comb[ination]s'. The rest of the volume (from p.62 onwards) carries numerous tables of sizings, with some facing patterns, beginning with 'Mens Goods' (trousers, overshirts, night shirts, chest protectors, boys sleeping suits, pyjamas), and followed by 'Ladies English Goods' (drawers, 'Womens English Vests Old Shape', skirts, knickers, bodices, night dresses, chemises). There are also tables on: Costing of Fabrics; Shrinkage; Making Up Prices. The penultimate section consists of thirteen pages of 'German Goods', and the volume ends with eight pages relating to patent frames. There are few personal touches, but these include a note facing a page carrying a table with three columns (Quality; Scotch Mills; and Round Mills): 'In these quality you have to go more by feel than anything as they vary so.'; and another note a few pages on: 'They will Bleach equally well in cold water only take longer doing'.