A History of British Rag Rugs by Karen E Griffiths

September 2011
There are two traditional methods recognised in Britain for making rugs from
waste fabric and hessian, hooky and proddy. Proddy has many different
names but produces a shaggy pile most suited to abstract designs while
hooky results in a smooth surface and is often used for pictorial designs.
The techniques are well-known but their origins in Britain are unclear and
there are few published accounts. The best known is that written by Emma
Tennant, a respected British rag rug maker and designer. Her book !ag !ugs
of England and "merica# published in $%%& contains the 'ersion that is used in
'irtually e'ery other book on the sub(ect since.
Part of the problem lies in the fact that only a tiny number of early rugs ha'e
sur'i'ed and these are 'ery hard to date. Emma Tennant traced the earliest
dated English e)ample back to $*+, although she did hear of another made
in $*$- from army uniforms worn at the Battle of .aterloo /Tennant $%%& -&0.
There are 'arious reasons for this poor sur'i'al rate. The first was the pattern
of use, with a new rug being made each year and the oldest ones then being
discarded. 1econdly, people associated them with po'erty and got rid of them
as soon as they could afford to. 2inally, unlike quilting and patchwork, the craft
was ne'er taken up by the leisured 3ictorian middle classes and so remained
hidden and unrecorded.
4n 5orth "merica we find a quite different history and one which is well-
documented because from the $%&6s, early rag rugs were collected by
wealthy "mericans wanting to furnish their homes with colonial "merican folk
art. 5orth "merican rag rugs can be dated to 'ery early in the $%
th
century with
a possible origin in $*
th
century looped embroidered bed rugs and the slightly
later yarn-sewn and chenille-shirred rugs. "ll le'els of society seem to ha'e
embraced rag rug making and 'ery sophisticated designs rubbed shoulders
with the charmingly primiti'e.
7ne of the earliest historians of "merican rag rugs was 5ew 8ork architect
.illiam .inthrop 9ent, who published se'eral books on the sub(ect in the
$%,6s and $%:6s. 4n his book The Hooked !ug# first published in $%,6 we
find two chapters de'oted to disco'ering the origins of 5orth "merican rugs in
Europe. 4t seems that ;r 9ent spent some time corresponding with te)tile
specialists and manufacturers all o'er Britain. " ;r 2rederic Eccles, a former
wea'er from 8orkshire told him about the accumulation of waste wool yarn
and loom ends in the houses of hand wea'ers in $%
th
century 8orkshire /9ent
$%,< $&0. The waste fabric was used to make what he calls brodded# or
pegged rugs using a technique apparently already de'eloped and described
by 9ent as follows= >a skewerlike instrument of metal or hard substance,
possibly horn or bone, with a pointed end was thrust down through a piece of
cloth or burlap and fairly close to the resulting hole another hole was made in
the same way. Then the end of a piece of cloth cut into a narrow strip was
pushed down through one hole and then through the second one?and the
two ends of each piece left standing up and inch or less@ /ibid $:0. He is
describing what we now know as prodded rather than brodded rag rugs.
4t seems that the lengths of waste wool yarn or thrums# were also used to
make rugs but this time using a hook to produce a looped pile. 9ent suggests
that the hook was de'eloped from those used in tambour frame embroidery.
He also refers to thrum mats# made anciently# by sailors out of can'as with
short strands of yarn or rope pulled through and used to pre'ent ships ropes
chafing /ibid $+0. 9ent#s correspondent ;r Eccles described making hooked
rugs for forty of more years earlier in 8orkshire /from about $*%60 but that they
were after brodded# rugs /ibid $*0.
"nother correspondent, ;r ! " ;ackenAie of Hope ;ills in Beeds describes
pegged# or prodded# rugs being made in Huddersfield and Beeds districts for
o'er $66 years >"t home they were made on flat frames in which the can'as
was firmly stretched and the clips /or cloth pieces0 were pegged through holes
made with a steel prodder@ /quoted in ibid &:0. 1o this takes us back to about
$*,6, near to the date of the earliest rugs that Emma Tennant describes being
told about.
Howe'er, ;r 9ent is not satisfied with a spontaneous origin for rag rug making
in the wea'ing households of industrial northern England. 4n an earlier chapter
he referred to the looped pile embroidered and wo'en te)tiles produced by
the Copts in Egypt from ,
rd
to <
th
century "D and found later on in $+
th
century
Bas "lpuharras, "ndalucia, 1pain, possibly brought in by 5orth "fricans /ibid
+0. " quick search of the internet re'eals that shaggy piled wo'en rugs are still
being produced in this area of 1pain. They are known as (arapas# rugs and
are described as being of $&
th
century ;oorish origin /www.casa(arapa.net0
and were made from waste silk, now cotton from the local te)tile industry.
Enable to make a sensible link to his "merican rugs from this tradition he then
hit upon a British te)tile specialist called "nn ;acbeth. "nn ;acbeth was
head of needlework at the Flasgow 1chool of "rt before the 2irst .orld .ar.
During the $%&6s she li'ed in Patterdale in the Bake District and became
interested in the history of the many colourful rag rugs she saw in the cottages
and farmhouses of her neighbours. 1he compared the scroll motifs commonly
found on the rugs with those car'ed on old wooden furniture in the Bakes. The
area was hea'ily settled by 1candina'ians during the *th and %th centuries
"D and she suggested that the designs used on this early furniture had their
origins with these settlers. 1he also knew about the ancient 1candina'ian
rya# rug making tradition where loops of wool were pulled through a wo'en
backing. 1he writes that the word comes from the "nglo-1a)on !he G torn
cloth. 2ragments of cloth made in the same way ha'e been found in BronAe
"ge gra'es in Denmark /Horgensen &66, p+60. ;acbeth concluded that
1candina'ian settlers brought the rug making technique and motifs into
1cotland and the north-west of England perhaps 'ia the 7rkneys and
1hetland 4slands which belonged to 5orway until $,
th
and $-
th
centuries
respecti'ely.
.illiam .inthrop 9ent accepted this e)planation for the origins of hooked rag
rugs in Britain completely and it was a short step to belie'ing that this
technique was then e)ported to the maritime pro'inces of 5orth "merica with
English and 1cottish settlers. The popular use of scroll motifs in the borders of
many of the "merican-Canadian rugs that he collected ser'ed only to
underline his belief /ibid :60. 9ent#s research is now generally dismissed by
"merican e)perts such as Hoel I 9ate 9opp /9opp I 9opp $%%- ,%0 who
posit a purely 5orth "merican de'elopment of the hooking technique and look
to its origin in the embroidered bed rugs already mentioned abo'e and in the
marlin-spike hooked thrum mats made by sailors in the coastal pro'inces
wehere these hooked rugs are firat found. 4n Britain howe'er, "nn ;acbeth#s
theory still holds sway /eg Bawden $%%+J Da'ies $%%&0.
4n $%&,, around the same time that "nn ;acbeth was writing to .. 9ent, the
artists Ben and .inifred 5icholson mo'ed to east Cumbria. Bike her they
were enchanted by the rag rugs they saw in local farmhouses. Their
neighbour, farmer#s wife ;argaret .arwick ga'e the 5icholsons their first
hookie# to put in front of the kitchen hearth. "ccording to Emma Tennant this
showed two black cats sitting on either side of a glowing fire. The traditional
black border had $& magenta and green rosettes in it /Tennant $%%& +60. 4t
was e'entually replaced by another hooked mat, called "nimal 1quares#,
designed by Ben and made by her daughter ;ary Bewick.
The assumption has always been that ;argaret Bewick#s original $%&6s rug
was of her own design but the description of the two cats and the fireside has
always worried me. By the $%&6s, rug hooking had become a huge craAe in
5orth "merica and companies were producing thousands of rug hooking tools
and stamped rug backings to feed the appetite of women wanting to create
heirlooms in the tradition of their early "merican pioneer ancestors.
;anufacturing stamped rug patterns had begun in the latter years of the $%
th

century with men like Edward 1ands 2rost . " company known as Farretts
was founded in $*%& in 5o'a 1cotia. By $%&: they already had an agent in
;aryport, Cumbria, called Hohn 9endal who would ha'e been distributing their
Bluenose rug patterns and tools in the north of England. ;any of these
patterns ha'e EliAabethan style scroll motifs and many also feature cats and
other domestic animals.
4t may be heresy to suggest it, but 4 wonder if both "nn ;acbeth and the
5icholsons saw rugs based on stamped patterns from "merica imported
during the $%&6s /or possibly earlier0 along with the technique of rug hooking
to CumbriaK Early stamped rug designs were based on the best e)amples
from homes in 5orth "merica and the pattern books that sur'i'e show them to
be relati'ely sophisticated //Peladeau &66* pp:+ff0. 2urthermore, the
brodded# technique described by 9ent has many colloquial names in Britain
which imples that it had a long established tradition Emma Tennant lists some
of the colloquial names= stobby, peggy, clippy, tabbie, tattie, proddy, probbie,
poked /ibid *:0 to which 4 can add bodgy and fent rug. Hooky on the other
hand has 'ery few, Tennant lists clootie, looped and drawn in but 4#'e always
known 1cottish clootie to be the same as prodded.
2inally, as already mentioned abo'e, .. 9ent#s 8orkshire correspondent ;r
Eccles says that the method of hooking came after brodding .
4 therefore belie'e that we are following a red herring looking for the origins of
hooked rag rugs in Britain. Howe'er the technique was de'eloped in "merica,
4 belie'e that it came to us fully fledged in the early years of the &6
th
century.
The prodded tradition is the one we can claim for oursel'es and it#s much
more realistic to suggest that the earliest of these rag rugs coincide with the
rise in production and a'ailability of factory-made te)tiles during the first half
of the $%
th
century. 1teedman suggests that we should look for their origins in
the wool areas across the Pennines, >?where wool was wo'en, there were
perhaps many more opportunities for spoilage and wastage, and the sale and
purchase of remnants and offcuts@ /1teedman $%%* p &<,0. Hessian sacks for
the base material were readily a'ailable from any grocer#s shop and farmer#s
feed merchant by the $*:6s.
The making of rugs in the home continued well into the middle of the twentieth
century but it became increasingly unfashionable to use rags to make them.
!ag rugs were closely associated with po'erty and hard times and while
!osemary "llen quotes nostalgic accounts of women gathering together to
chat, eat toffees and make rugs /"llen &66<0, the reactions 4 get to my own
collection of rag rugs tells a different story. 7ften it is men who describe the
drudgery of cutting up the endless tabs# or clips# when they were boys while
women tell of how the rugs held dirt and were hea'y and impossible to keep
clean.
People therefore began to mo'e o'er to latchet hooked rugs made using
recycled wool yarn and rug can'as. "t first they cut their own yarn lengths,
later, companies like !eadicut introduced bundles of precut wool yarn.
Preprinted patterns helped sell the yarn and tools. The 1econd .orld .ar
encouraged a brief re'i'al of rag rug making under the banner of ;ake Do
and ;end but the authentic tradition of only sur'i'ed in more remote or
impo'erished areas of the British 4sles after the middle of the &6th century.
!ural Cumbria was one of those places.
The artist .inifred 5icholson returned to eastern Cumbria in the $%+6s and
according to Emma Tennant she found her old neighbours still making rag
rugs but using banal pre-printed designs that they bought in Carlisle /Tennant
$%%& +,0. 4t is likely that these preprinted designs were the pale imitations of
their original "merican ancestors. Through a company called 2oursquare
Design set up by her son Hake she had her own designs made up by local
men and women but also encouraged them to design and make their own
hooky rugs. The company sold se'eral hundred of these rugs up until the mid-
$%<6s /ibid +$-+&0.
The hand-made fashions of the $%<6s ga'e way to the black ash, smoked
glass and steel of the $%*6s and it looked like the making of rag rugs was in
terminal decline in Britain, unlike 5orth "merica where it continued to flourish.
The tide seems to ha'e turned towards the end of the $%*6s when an
important e)hibition was held at 1hipley "rt Fallery in Fateshead. !agtime#
was a celebration of the northern tradition of rag rug making and ser'ed to
inspire a new generation of artists and craftworkers /Tyne I .ear ;useums
1er'ice $%**0. 4nterestingly at least one of the hooked rugs e)hibited as a
traditional
Today, although the craft is nowhere near as popular as it is in 5orth "merica,
there is a growing band of dedicated enthusiasts. ;any younger makers see it
as a natural e)tension of their concerns for the en'ironment with its emphasis
on recycling discarded materials. 7thers welcome the freedom of a craft that
has no rules#. "ll sorts of materials are e)ploited including carrier bags, foil
and paper, and rugs are (ust one of the many items now being produced using
ragwork# techniques.
How many of these rag rugmakers realise that proddy was the original British
tradition and hooky was probably a 5orth "merican importK
Bibliography
"llen, !osemary E /&66<0 From Rags to Riches !orth "ountry Rag Rugs
Beamish= Beamish ;useum
Bawden, Huliet /$%%+0 Rag Rug #nspirations Bondon= Cassell
Da'ies, "nn /$%%&0 Rag Rugs Bondon= Betts

Horgensen, Bise Bender Europe in Henkins, Da'id /ed0 /&66,0 $he
"ambri%ge History of &estern $e'tiles (ol 1 pp)*+,0

9ent, . . /$%,<0 $he Hoo-e% Rug 5ew 8ork= Tudor Publishing Company
&
nd
ed
9opp, Hoel I 9opp, 9ate /$%%-0 American Hoo-e% an% Se.n Rugs Fol-
Art /n%erfoot "lbuquerque= Eni'ersity of 5ew ;e)ico Press
Peladeau, ;ildred Cole /&66*0 Rug Hoo-ing in 0aine 1121+13*0 "tglen=
1chiffer Publishing
1teedman, Carolyn /$%%*0 "What a Rag Rug Means" 4ournal of 0aterial
"ulture ,=, pp&-%-&*$
Tennant, Emma /$%%&0 Rag Rugs of Englan% an% America Bondon= .alker
Books
Tyne I .ear ;useums 1er'ice /$%**0 Ragtime Rugs 5 &allhangings
1hipley "rt Fallery e)hibition catalogue