Thursday, June 26, 2008

Baah history

There is a serious/popular history just waiting to be written on the subject of sheep, sheep farming & the woollen industry

Its role in the development of the economy, trade, womens work & prosperity in Anglo-Saxon England

Its effect on the landscape of Britain

The way wool cloth facilitated travel by giving travellers protection from the weather (Sartor Resartus)

The globalisation shock caused by the development of sheep farming in the Antipodes

Merino wool imports – how they affected C19th Highland clearances. And led to a flowering of agricultural research into replacement products & improved methods in central Europe, which among other things, ensured the existence of a journal in which Mendel could publish his genetic experiments

Meat imports & the development of refrigeration

The encouragement of immigration, of mainly Muslim men, to provide labour in the post-war Yorkshire woollen mills

And much, much more besides