In the 19th century, the area's population began to grow as it became a major supplier of wool to the booming textile industry in Britain and shipping traffic increased ( the British, in return, began importing Morocco's now famous national drink, gunpowder tea ).

Of a population estimated at 94, 000 before the Black Death of 1348, about 25, 000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers ( ciompi ), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi.

" Michel De Coster, Professor at the Université de Liège wrote also: " The historians and the economists say that Belgium was the second industrial power of the world, in proportion to its population and its territory (...) But this rank is the one of Wallonia where the coal-mines, the blast furnaces, the iron and zinc factories, the wool industry, the glass industry, the weapons industry ... were concentrated "

Hand-spinning was a cottage industry in medieval Europe, where the wool spinners ( often women and children ) would provide enough yarn to service the needs of the men who operated the loom.

After the Second World War, Tilburg retained its place as wool capital of the Netherlands, but in the 1960s the industry collapsed and by the 1980s the number of woolmills could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Benetton has since agreed to buy nonmulesed wool and has further urged the wool industry to adopt the PETA and Australian Wool Growers Association agreement to end mulesing.

The wool industry was important in its early growth, and the town was a centre for the production of the very popular knitted and felted Monmouth caps, from the 15th century onwards.

A textile industry developed based on wool imported from England, for which the northern County of Flanders and Duchy of Brabant were constantly fierce but worthy competitors, and finding its market in the Champagne fairs.

Historically, wool processing industry was based on the wool from the sheep which were kept on the Campine heath.

In October 2004, PETA launched a boycott against the Australian wool industry, leading some clothing retailers to ban products using Australian wool from their stores.

In response, the Australian wool industry sued PETA, claiming among other things that mulesing prevents flystrike, a very painful disease that can affect sheep.

A settlement was reached, and PETA agreed to stop the boycott, while the wool industry agreed to seek alternatives to mulesing.

Fishing and aquaculture constitute Australia's fifth most valuable agricultural industry after wool, beef, wheat and dairy.

The local agriculture industry is involved in the production of wool and dairy products, as well as vegetable growing.

The craft of wool was in decline and becoming more important than the felt hat industry and connected.

The wool export trade began to decline in the fifteenth century as the industry shifted to the value-adding business of weaving, which was conducted in other parts of the country, the Hansa merchants quit the town, and Boston's wealth declined.

They introduced cloth-making which, together with the local wool trade, became a major industry in Shepton and other towns in Somerset and Wiltshire.

The cotton and wool industry declined at the expense of synthetic fibers.

The Woolsack in the House of Lords was originally stuffed with wool from the Sudbury area, a sign of both the importance of the wool industry and of the wealth of the donors.

Although the authorities originally sentenced him to be incarcerated in a fortress where he would have been able to pursue some semblance of his professional activities, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia found this sentence to be illegal since he was not sentenced to death and “ graciously ” commuted it to lifetime imprisonment in a reformatory where his head was shaved, and he had to wear prisoner's garb and spend his time spinning wool.

It was originally used for weighing wool.

The primary trade items shipped through Yokkaichi were originally seed oil, Banko ceramics, and Ise tea ; but now it has developed into a port that now handles cotton, wool, glass, and heavy equipment.

It is now made with wool, cotton, silk, rayon, or any mixture of these, though originally made from silk.

From AD 950 to 1650, Frome was larger than Bath and originally grew due to the wool and cloth industry.

The town's prosperity following the growth of the wool trade in the Late Middle Ages caused the erection of many magnificent structures, including the Minster Church of Saint Denys, in a yew grove sacred from pre-Christian times, and including an organ originally destined for the then under-construction Salisbury Cathedral.

Introduced in the fourteenth century, the seat was originally a wool bale, which was a symbol of the nation's prosperity due to the importance of the wool trade.

A tuque ( English:, also spelled toque but still pronounced tuque ), knit cap ( British English ), or beanie ( North American, UK, Australian, and New Zealand English ), also variously known as a knit hat, toboggan ( Southern US ), burglar beanie, cora cap ( Pacific Northwest ), or stocking cap among other names – is a knitted cap, originally of wool though now often of synthetic fibers, that is designed to provide warmth in winter.

The town originally grew as a centre for the wool trade.

At the end of the 16th century, Nicholas Longford sold Withington to the Mosleys ( originally ' Moseley '), an influential Anglo-Irish family of wool merchants who subsequently became wealthy landowners in Staffordshire: Nicholas Mosley later became Lord of the Manor of Manchester.

Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool, cotton, or synthetic fibre.

The term originally identified girls and women who spun wool.

Bombazine, or bombasine, is a fabric originally made of silk or silk and wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone.

A pea coat ( or pea jacket, pilot jacket ) is an outer coat, generally of a navy-colored heavy wool, originally worn by sailors of European and later American navies.

It was here that wool from the Retaruke valley's sheep farms was originally freighted to Wanganui for eventual export.

It was made from wool or a wool / linen combination and twill woven in a pattern of colored stripes which today has become known as tartan, though originally the word tartan referred to the type of cloth ( like linen, or cotton ) and not the pattern of colors as the word almost exclusively signifies today.

The word was originally used to refer to the down feathers of birds as well as the inner wool of the muskox.

Other industries included an ironworks, established in the 1720s, as well as wool spinning and a lint mill.

Daniel Day established a wool carding mill in the Blackstone Valley at Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1809, the third woollen mill established in the U. S. ( The first was in Hartford, Connecticut, and the second at Watertown, Massachusetts.

The wool industry of Arras, established in the 4th century, became of great importance during the Middle Ages.

In 1872, Henry H. Townsend established The Miltonia Mills, which manufactured fine wool blankets used by Admiral Robert E. Peary on his expedition to the North Pole, and Admiral Richard E. Byrd at the Antarctic.

Rees established a high country farm in the location of Queenstown's current town centre in 1860, but the discovery of gold in the Arrow River in 1862 encouraged Rees to converted his wool shed into a hotel named the Queen's Arms, now known as Eichardt's.

The town became a local centre for the wool and cloth trade, certainly by the time of Henry II a major market was established.

During his governorship the resources of the colony had increased with the opening of the copper mines in Little Namaqualand, the mohair wool industry had been established and Natal made a separate colony.

In February, it purchased Johns Manville which was established in 1858 and manufactures fiber glass wool insulation products for homes and commercial buildings, as well as pipe, duct and equipment insulation products.

It was the income and prosperity from this wool trade that established the town and the minster and attracted the envy of the Welsh and other regions.

In the Rum Rebellion of 1808, the Corps, working closely with the newly established wool trader John Macarthur, staged the only successful armed takeover of government in Australian history, deposing Governor William Bligh and instigating a brief period of military rule in the colony prior to the arrival from Britain of Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1810.

Whilst wool remained an important part of the town's economy into the 19th ( and even 20th ) centuries, other industries were established in the town.

By the 14th century Birmingham seems to have been established as a particular centre of the wool trade.

Now established at the helm, Giles embarked on his strategy of wool market share, which he realised was all about territory.

In particular, fellmongering ( where wool is removed from the sheepskin ) was well established in the town.

As the gold mines petered out in the latter half of the 19th century, Mudgee was sustained by the strength of its wool industry as well as the nascent wine industry established by a German immigrant, Adam Roth, in the 1850s.

The wool trade was established by 1249 and certainly continued until 1630 when the market for kerseys is mentioned in conjunction with a saying as fine as Kirton spinning.

Beddoes-a wool merchant-also gave his name to Presteigne's secondary school-John Beddoes School-which he established in 1565, and endowed with land.

New Alresford quickly became established as a prosperous market town, focussed on the wool, leather and the other products from sheep and cattle ; in the 14th century Alresford sheep markets produced one of five highest turnovers in England.

Founded by a wool merchant, they established communities scattered around Italy and France, organized on the principle of a simple way of life for the laity, who shared their goods while remaining in family units.

Industries were established: Félix Hamelin and Thomas Henry Ayers established a wool mill and Irishman James Crocket Wilson opened a paper mill.

Covilhã is traditionally a center of wool and textile industries-the university central building was the Royal Textile Factory, established by the Marquis of Pombal in the 18th century.

Inferior pashm and Kerman wool — a fine soft Persian sheep's wool — are used for shawl weaving at Amritsar and other places in the Punjab, where colonies of Kashmiri weavers are established.