Harris Tweed Has to Be Woven at Home, and That Is the Law

In 1846 the widowed Countess of Dunmore asked the weavers of Harris to make tweed in her family's tartan. Lady Catherine Herbert had inherited the North Harris estate in the Outer Hebrides after the death of her husband, the 6th Earl of Dunmore, in 1843. The tartan was that of the Murrays, her husband's clan, and she sold the finished cloth to her wealthy friends. By the late 1840s merchants from Edinburgh to London were selling hand-woven Harris tweed.

That is the founding story of a cloth that now has its own Act of Parliament. Under the Harris Tweed Act 1993, Harris tweed is cloth that has been "handwoven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides," finished there, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun there.

From estate cloth to a trademark

Tweed-making on the islands was in full swing by the early 1900s. Between 1903 and 1906, according to the Harris Tweed Authority's own history, carding and spinning mills were built on Lewis to meet growing orders. Kenneth Mackenzie Ltd began making Harris tweed in 1906 and is the oldest of the mills still working.

The trade soon wanted a way to prove its cloth was genuine. In 1906 a meeting in Stornoway discussed a system of inspection and a stamp to certify the cloth. In 1909 the Harris Tweed Association was formed to register a trademark, an orb topped with a Maltese cross, with the words Harris Tweed beneath it. The sources differ on what happened next. Wikipedia's history of the cloth says the Orb mark was granted in 1909. The Authority says the certification mark was registered in 1910 and that stamping began in 1911.

From fleece to Orb

In Gaelic the cloth is clò mòr, the big cloth. Before the countess, crofters wove it for their own use, as protection against a cold northern climate, and by the end of the 18th century spinning wool yarn from local materials had become a staple crofting industry.

The modern process, as Wikipedia describes it, runs through the mills and the weavers' homes in turn. Fleece from Cheviot and Scottish Blackface sheep is scoured and delivered to the mills. Most of it comes from the British mainland, though island communities still shear local sheep in early summer to add to the mix. At the mill the wool is dyed, and the coloured and white wools are weighed and blended by hand to set recipes. Carding machines with toothed rollers tease the fibres into a fragile, early yarn, and spinning gives it the strength to be woven. Thousands of warp threads are wound onto large beams.

Then the cloth leaves the factory. Each weaver ties in the warp and weaves on a treadle loom at home, fixing breakages as they happen. The tweed goes back to the mill in its greasy state, where darners correct flaws. It is washed and beaten in soda and soapy water, then dried, steamed, pressed and cropped, and only then inspected and stamped by hand with the Orb.

The 1934 compromise

In 1934 the trademark definition was changed to allow yarn spun in the islands' mills as well as by hand. The Authority says the yardage stamped with the Orb rose tenfold. The cloth was still woven by hand at home, but the industry could now grow.

It grew a long way. Production peaked in 1966 at 7.6 million yards.

The Act and the double-width loom

In the early 1990s the trade changed both its machinery and its law. The industry introduced a double-width loom, retrained weavers, adopted tougher standards and launched a wider, softer and lighter tweed. Then came the Harris Tweed Act 1993, which received Royal Assent in July of that year. It replaced the old Association with the statutory Harris Tweed Authority and turned the definition of the cloth into law.

The looms tell the story of that modernisation. Weavers working for the mills use double-width Bonas-Griffith rapier looms, while many independent weavers still work on older single-width Hattersley looms. The Authority stresses that the looms are treadle-powered, with no automation or electricity, and every 50 metres of finished cloth is inspected and stamped with the Orb. Inspectors visit the mills every week.

Here is the cloth's output at a few points in its history, taken from the sources above. Note that the 1966 figure is in yards and the later ones are in metres. The comparison is Quiet Menace's own.

The revival

The comeback began in the late 2000s. In November 2007 Harris Tweed Hebrides reopened a disused mill at Shawbost on Lewis. In 2008 more than 90,000 metres of Harris tweed went into the Blythswood Square Hotel in Glasgow, an amount equal to more than a fifth of the whole industry's output the following year. Production stood at 450,000 metres in 2009 and reached a million metres in 2012.

Not every mill has had an easy time. In January 2016 the owners of the Carloway mill announced that they were looking for a buyer. In 2019 Alexander Lockerby became the owner of Kenneth Mackenzie, the oldest of the mills. The Authority itself is based in Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis.

Buying it now

Look for the Orb label. It is the mark that shows the cloth was made as the Act requires. Harris tweed is made from pure new wool, the same cloth crofters once wove against the northern cold. A jacket in a herringbone or a muted check works with denim and flannel as easily as with a tie. The cloth has also travelled well beyond tailoring. Wikipedia lists Nike, Dr Martens, Clarks and Red Wing among the footwear brands that have used it, and Paul Smith and Brooks Brothers among the clothing labels.

It belongs with the British country cloths in a good wardrobe. The Barbour wax jacket is its natural partner outdoors, the trench coat covers it in the rain, and our visitor's guide to Savile Row is where to have a jacket cut from it. For more, see tailoring, heritage brands and the Quiet Menace style section.

Most heritage fabrics protect themselves with a story. Harris tweed protects itself with a statute, and the statute says the weaver has to be at home.