Handbook of the Collection Illustrative of the Wild Silks of India

About The Book : The term wild silks of India must be regarded as applying to all species of silk other than that produced by the Bombyx mori, the worm which feeds on the mulberry leaf, from which is obtained the silk of commerce by regular organised industries in Bengal, France, China, Japan, Italy, Persia, Siam, and in some other parts of the world. For the most part, if not almost entirely, at present, the worms which produce these wild silks feed on the leaves of trees and plants which grow wild in the jungles and forests of India, or at any rate are not cultivated for silkworm food. An impetus was given to the utilisation of these silks by the display of some of the most important of them at the Paris Exhibition in 1878, by Her Majesty's Government of India, in a collection which I had the honour of being appointed to arrange. Since that time, as new uses have been found for Tusser silk, one of the chief and most widely spread of Indian wild silks, the question of supply has become a most important one.The object of the present collection and of this Handbook is to draw public attention to the growing importance of the subject, and to present in as concise a form as its wide range will permit all information likely to be of either scientific or practical use. About The Author : Sir Thomas Wardle (1831-1909) was a British businessman, known for his innovations in silk dyeing and printing on silk. He collaborated with the designer William Morris, who visited his dyeworks in Leek, Staffordshire to learn how to use natural dyes. He was knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to the silk industry. Wardle was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, a silk manufacturing town. He was the eldest son of Joshua Wardle, who in 1830 had opened a silk dyeing business near Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands, south of Macclesfield.