Birtwistle & Oddie Designs and Weave Samples

A selection of jacquard designs and fabric samples produced by Birtwistle &
Oddie Ltd of Prospect Mill, Wharf Street, Blackburn.

The company was founded at Prospect Mill in 1907 by H. H. Birtwistle and A. M. Oddie. The company remained there until 1972 and was known for producing jacquard woven brocades, and later cotton and rayon mixture brocades, as well as sateens. Blackburn Museum & Art gallery holds a small archive of material from Birtwistle & Oddie Ltd (approx. 68 items) which is made up of a range of fabric samples, hand drawn designs and hand drawn jacquard patterns for a variety of the fabrics they produced which included furnishing fabrics and ecclesiastical fabrics.

Up to the mid 1920s Birtwistle & Oddie produced fabric for export all over the world, including India, West Africa and South America. The examples shown here are believed to have been produced for the West African market. It is not known exactly what the purpose of the finished fabrics would have been but they are likely for furnishings or domestic use as opposed to garments. The designs feature an interesting blend of motifs including African wildlife such as monkeys and elephants alongside colonial and heraldic motifs such as the British crown and lion.

• Category: Samples and Commercial Textiles
• Date: 1901-1950
• Material: Paper
• Material: Silk
• Place: Great Britain
• Technique: Weaving