The Incorporation of Weavers, Fullers & Shearmen is the historic guild of Exeter's ancient cloth trade.
The Guilds and Incorporation have existed in Exeter for nearly 600 years and have occupied Tuckers Hall since 1471. Both the Incorporation and the Hall have a remarkable story with a glorious and continuous history.
The wealth of Exeter in the mid 17th and early 18th centuries was created as a direct result of the woollen cloth trade in the city, controlled by the members of the Incorporation. On the back of this prosperity, many became Merchant Venturers and later Bankers.
With mechanisation and loss of overseas trade, Exeter's affluence waned along with the Incorporation's membership, declining significantly almost to the point of extinction. However, by adapting to the changing climate the Incorporation survived and since the Second World War has prospered with membership once again increasing and playing its part in the Civic life of Exeter.
The Incorporation is recognised as one of the few surviving established provincial Guilds with strong links to associated City of London Guilds.
https://www.tuckershall.org.uk/
The Incorporation of Weavers Fullers & Shearmen Tuckers Hall, 140 Fore Street, Exeter EX4 3AN
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Photo by Derek Harper https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/213538
History of The Guild
The fortunes of the Guild closely followed those of Exeter’s woollen cloth industry. When the trade boomed in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Guild came of age, establishing itself as one of the most important organisations in the life of the city.
Progress to this position of power wasn’t always smooth – one episode nearly saw the Guild evicted from Tuckers Hall altogether! – but by 1600 the organisation was growing in confidence. At that point its membership numbered around 100.
However, one major problem remained for the Guild. Its members were proud, independent craftsmen, some of whom had become quite wealthy. All resented interference in their trade; however, the guild still remained under the close control of the city’s Mayor and his council known as the Chamber. Many members of the Chamber came from Exeter’s merchant class and represented their own interests rather than those of the guild.
For decades the guild struggled for greater independence from Exeter’s Chamber. Finally, in 1620 King James I granted a Royal Charter which established the Incorporation of Weavers, Fullers and Shearmen, the name by which the guild is still known today. Critically, the Royal Charter also gave the new Incorporation greater freedom, granting it more direct control over who could produce Exeter’s woollen cloth and the standards of production. At a time when the trade was expanding and prospering, this was a key victory.
By 1700 Exeter was responsible for a quarter of England’s woollen cloth trade. The Incorporation was booming and could boast a membership of 400 craftsmen. A few of its members even crossed a social divide to become merchants, exporting cloth to foreign markets and becoming wealthy men in the process. Little wonder that in this period members of the Incorporation were sometimes called Golden Tuckers.
But these days were not to last forever. For the Exeter cloth trade and the Incorporation of Weavers, Fullers and Shearmen, this period of prosperity was about to pass.
https://www.tuckershall.org.uk/incorporation/incorporation
Exeter's Cloth Trade
The secret of Exeter’s success was its woollen cloth trade. The story of how the industry expanded from humble beginnings to become the main driving force behind the city’s fortunes is a fascinating one, full of twists and turns, triumphs and setbacks.
For Exeter’s woollen cloth trade to flourish, a reliable source of its raw material was needed – wool. It was no coincidence, then, that the city sat surrounded by countryside which was intensely used for sheep farming.
Devon may have contained few very large farms, but it did have thousands of smallholdings, most of which kept modest-sized flocks. Together these farms supplied the wool which met the demands of the expanding local cloth trade. So successful were its farmers in ‘growing wool’ that in 1600 it was said that for every one person in Devon there existed three sheep. At this time, the size of Devon’s total flock exceeded those of every other English county.
