ENGLAND, 19TH CENTURY

In 1775, Thomas Whitty established his carpet manufacturing workshop at Axminster in Devon. His success was almost immediate; Whitty’s Axminster carpets were highly regarded by the Society of Arts and were awarded the Prize offered for carpet weaving in 1757 (shared with Thomas Moore of Moorfields, 1758 (shared with Peter Parisot of Exeter) and 1759 which he won outright. Leading architectural designers including Robert Adam and James Wyatt turned to Whitty to create some of the own designs. Even the Prince of Wales became a patron, commissioning a number of carpets. The full achievement was acknowledged in 1783 with the royal visit of George III to the workshop.
Little is known of the designers of British carpets of the Regency and George IV periods. The third quarter of the eighteenth century is reasonably documented, but by 1800, of the pioneers in handwoven carpets, only Axminster remained in production. Yet after the factory burnt down in 1828 even that business never really recovered. Their hand-woven manufacture was transferred to Wilton in 1838, where it continued to the twentieth century. The tragedy for the present day historian was that the Axminster records and design books were also burnt in the fire, so our knowledge comes principally from studying carpets which were made for specific interiors.