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From the fifteenth century, Newbury's prosperity depended very much on wool and the cloth trade. There were many mills along the banks of the River Kennet, including one at Greenham, owned by John Coxeter.
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Greenham Mill House |
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In 1811, he boasted that his new cloth-making machinery could turn wool from the back of a sheep into a completed coat in twenty-four hours. This led to Sir John Throckmorton of Buckland House in Berkshire betting one thousand guineas that that wool from his flock could be turned into a coat in the sixteen hours of daylight of a summer's day. The apparent impossibility of the task ensured that the bet was readily accepted.
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At five in the morning of 25 June 1811, Throckmorton's shepherd Frances Druett delivered two of his finest Southdown sheep to the Greenham Mill, where he sheared them; John Coxeter and his workers spooled, warped, loomed and wove the wool, dyed, dried, cut and pressed the cloth before handing it over to James White, a tailor of Newbury, to be finished.
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Newbury coat display, West Berks Museum |
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The job was done even quicker than Coxeter had predicted – in thirteen hours and 20 minutes.
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The whole event provided a spectacle for the people of Newbury; more than five thousand people saw Throckmorton don the coat and sit down to dinner at eight in the evening. The main dish was roast lamb, from the sheep which had so freely given of their coats earlier in the day.
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Two oil paintings of the event were made by Newbury artist Luke Clint; they depict Greenham Mill together with the large number of craftsmen involved in making the coat. A lithograph of one of them now hangs in the West Berkshire museum.
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Shearing the sheep for the Newbury Coat |
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In September 1991 an attempt to beat the record was successfully made at the Newbury Agricultural Show, when a similar coat was completed in 12 hours 36 minutes 26 seconds, the event being sponsored by long established Newbury department store, Camp Hopson.
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The original coat may be seen at the Throckmorton family's ancestral home, Coughton Court, Warwickshire. The more recent example, together with a display of many fascinating items relating to the original coat may be seen in the West Berkshire Museum, Newbury.
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Stone Age to the Romans
The Newbury Coat
