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
