Stroud, the Five Valleys and the Globe
A painting from about 1785 shows Stroud scarlet cloth stretched out on tenterhooks in Rodborough Fields – these fields lie just beyond platform two. Stroud scarlet cloth links this area’s history with that of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. There’s more to this than meets the eye.
The cloth was traded with the Iroquois by the Hudson Bay Company; ‘strouds’ were traded with Native Americans beyond the Mississippi; mills at Chalford and Avening served the East India Company, and, of course, Stroud scarlet clothed the British Army in the periodic great power struggles and constant colonial conflicts of that era. There was a lot of demand for Stroud scarlet.
But when times were hard, local weavers often took strike action. Colonel Wolfe (before he became General Wolfe, killed in his redcoat storming the Heights of Quebec in 1759) expressed sympathy for the weavers in 1756, even though he had to quell any disturbance: “The poor half-starved weavers … beg about the country for food … the masters have beat down their wages …” These weavers helped make the redcoats worn by Colonel Wolfe’s troops …
On the other side of the globe, in the West Indies, red coats did another job, for it was said that enslaved persons “generally avoided anyone wearing a red coat, like those worn by grenadiers” and, in consequence, “some Gentlemen put on a coat of that Colour when they Travell …”
When slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, a handful of local residents gained ‘compensation’, including Samuel Baker, up at Lypiatt, with his claim for 410 enslaved persons in Jamaica. This helped fund Baker’s Quay as an industrial hub at Gloucester Docks and fund investment in railways around Gloucester, the Forest of Dean and the Midlands.
About half a mile from the railway bridge at Paganhill in Stroud, however, you can find the oldest antislavery memorial in the country: the unique Abolition Arch from 1834, just by Archway School.
ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE BRITISH COLONIES THE FIRST OF AUGUST A.D. MDCCCXXX1V
This unique source of pride is only a couple of miles’ walk from Stroud Station and you can walk along the Stroudwater Navigation for much of the way. You can also visit Rodborough Fields to see the site of the Stroud scarlet stretched on tenterhooks and you can see the painting from c. 1785 down at Walbridge, on the canal, just below the station. There’s more to this than meets the eye …