Philippe de Girard and the Introduction of Mechanical Flax Spinning in Austria

The Industrial Revolution had begun to affect the Austrian textile industry by the beginning of the nineteenth century. First to feel the effects were the woolen industry and the new cotton industry, which soon had copies of the new English spinning machines in operation. In England adaptation of these machines to flax had been made by John Marshall at Leeds as early as 1793, so that flax was spun dry in successful competition with hand-spun yarn, but only in the coarser yarns up to No. 16. However, similar attempts were not successful in Austria. The machines and processes were not so efficient as the English and could not compete with the cheap domestic hand-spun yarn. Because flax fibers are held together by a gum, they cannot be spun like cotton without excessive waste. Special treatment and machines had to be devised in order that flax might be spun in the range of numbers demanded by the market, and profitably. In the second decade of the new century efforts were being made in Austria, as elsewhere, to solve these special problems. Production of linen goods led all other industries in the monarchy. It provided a livelihood, wholly or in part, for thousands of families in town and country and constituted an important export. But the severe blows dealt by the Napoleonic Wars were followed by growing competition from more progressive linen industries in western Europe and especially from the rapidly growing and more easily mechanized cotton industry. The importance of the introduction of machinery in the Austrian linen industry as a means of meeting these threats to its very existence thus becomes apparent.