Shirt-making in Londonderry

For over 150 years Londonderry has been synonymous with fine shirt-making. Glenaden is the last of the major shirt-makers remaining and still displays the skills, techniques, high quality culture and famous ‘craic’ on which the industry was founded.

Why Derry? Until the early 19th century the linen industry was a major source of income and employment in Northern Ireland with generations of farmers growing and bleaching flax. This was spun into yarn by their wives and daughters and sold to weavers for the production of linen cloth. Clothes were stitched by wives, servants and seamstresses for sale in drapers’ shops.

With the industrial revolution throughout the World in the early 19th century came the introduction of factories and mechanised spinning and weaving. This resulted in many women, particularly spinners, looking for work.

At this time shirts, for so long seen as an undergarment, had developed into a ‘must have’ accessory for the industrial centres worldwide and had to be accessible ‘off the shelf’. Hence the need for ready to wear garments!

William Scott, a farmer in County Derry, identified this need in the 1820’s and had his family start to sew orders of shirts for shops in Glasgow and Derry. As demand increased he soon opened his first factory, employing upwards of 250 weavers and 500 stitchers very quickly.

Joseph Welch and J S Margetson were London manufacturers of stocks and braces. They saw the potential in supplying shirts and came to Derry, (where else!) to establish their first factory in Spencer Road, before moving to Foyle Street in 1850.

From the mid 1800’s Derry soon saw many huge shirt factories built, rising to 44 in the 1920’s, many of which are still standing today. At the end of the 19th century more than half of all adults in the city worked in the industry, some 20,000 people or so. And that was excluding the notorious ‘black economy’ of home workers !

Welch Margetson was one of the largest employers throughout this period, only losing their name in the late 20th century when Coats Viyella plc took over the company. ‘Welches’ was well known for it’s Roccola , Van Heusen,  and Peter England brands which were still made in Derry until the 1990’s. Coats was also a major shirt manufacturer for Marks and Spencer, making 65000 shirts and ties in the Glenaden factory up until the late 1990’s. With the middle market business now being produced in the Far East the employees of Glenaden decided that they should ‘go upmarket’, upholding the tradition and recognising the fine heritage the Derry shirt-making industry had.
Today Glenaden pays tribute to this heritage with a Permanent Exhibition at the Factory to ‘150 years of shirt-making’ in Londonderry.