For centuries there had been a woollen industry in Mid Wales, but it had been essentially a cottage industry, undertaken mainly in the winter months by farm labourers and their families. Technological advances were to change this. First there was the carding engine, which combed the wool and then advances in spinning, such as the jenny. Factories were established, using the river as motive power, either in new buildings or converted corn mills. In this first phase of development weaving was still done by hand and Newtown quickly became a major centre of handloom weaving. The small town that had for centuries stayed within its Norman boundaries began to expand. To the south, weavers' cottages and workrooms were built on recently enclosed land alongside the Green Brook. Also, following the completion of the Longbridge in about 1827, Penygloddfa was quickly developed on the north side of the river. It is Penygloddfa that some of the last remaining handloom factory buildings can be seen, along with the traditional back-to-back cottages with weaving rooms above. Between 1801 and 1841 the population of the town rose from under a thousand to over four and a half thousand. When Newtown's most famous son, Robert Owen, the social reformer, returned to the town shortly before his death in 1858 he can hardly have recognised the little market town he had left in 1781.
The increase in trade had been such that a large flannel exchange was built by local businessmen. (Although the flannel is long gone the building remains, The Regent Centre). As well as the industrial buildings, new commercial premises, banks, a new church, St David's, and numerous chapels had been established.
By the 1830's Newtown was meeting stiff competition from elsewhere, particularly Rochdale, and workers' wages were being driven down. The town became a centre of discontent. The first Chartist meeting in Wales was held in Newtown in October 1838. Unrest reached the stage that for some years it was felt necessary to have a military presence in the town.
In the second half of the eighteenth century the woollen trade in the town was revived by further technological advances in spinning and weaving. Large factories were established, using power driven looms. This effectively destroyed the livelihood of the handloom weavers who petitioned against the new machinery. The Cambrian Mill, near the Canal Basin, was for some time said to be the largest woollen mill in Wales.
The completion of the railway from Oswestry gave a further impetus to trade as it made more distant markets accessible. A local draper exploited this new form of communication by dealing with his customers for woollen goods, not over the counter, but by post. Thus did Pryce Jones establish the first mail order firm in the world. He met with huge success, as the large Royal Welsh Warehouse and nearby factory by the railway station testify. Even Queen Victoria wore Welsh flannel from Newtown.
Despite these advances, by the end of the nineteenth century, the woollen mills were again failing to overcome their remoteness from their markets. The primary source of power was now coal. That also had to be transported long distances. Competition from Lancashire and Yorkshire could not be fought off. Eventually much of the "Welsh Flannel" sold by Pryce-Jones (he had become hyphenated when he was knighted in 1887) actually had been made in Rochdale.
Some of the mills struggled on, but the catastrophic fire at the Cambrian Mills in 1912 effectively marked the end of wool as a major industry in Newtown. It was a time of mass emigration. Many woollen workers went to other towns such as Huddersfield. Others went further afield to America and South Africa.
Newtown (Welsh: Y Drenewydd) is a town with a population of 10,783 (2001) lying on the River Severn in Mid Wales. The town is best known as the birthplace of Robert Owen in 1771, his former house now being a museum.
Newtown was founded in the thirteenth century and grew in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries around the textile and flannel industry and the arrival of the Montgomeryshire Canal. In 1838, the town saw Wales' first Chartist demonstration.
The town was designated as a "new town" in 1967 and has seen a large population growth as companies and people have settled, changing the rural market town character.
Other attractions in the town include a museum about W. H. Smith newsagents, a textile museum, the Royal Welsh Warehouse built by Pryce Pryce-Jones to house the world's first mail order service, a theatre, and an arts centre. Gregynog, a country house which is now owned by the University of Wales and built by Lord Davies of Llandinam, is nearby.