Paisley shawls

The intricately woven, and delicate woollen Paisley Shawls were a fashionable item of women's clothing in the 19th century. Although known as the Paisley pattern, the teardrop design originated in Persia and India, becoming popular in Europe - and synonymous with Paisley - in the 19th century.

History

The Paisley shawl has its antecedents in the Kashmir shawl, produced in Kashmir since the 11th century, and more intensively in central Asia in the 15th and 16th centuries. In the 18th century, travel and trade saw them brought back to Europe. Around 1808, the first shawls of this kind were being produced in Paisley, Scotland. This began a seventy year period during which the town of Paisley, which had long been an important weaving town, became the most important centre of production for these kinds of shawls. By 1850, there were over 7000 weavers working in the town. Shawls were also produced in Edinburgh, Glasgow, France and Norwich, but Paisley's innovations in production methods (particularly, sub division of labour) meant that by 1850 Edinburgh halted production, not able to compete.

Paisley

Coordinates: 55°50′48″N 4°25′25″W / 55.846627°N 4.423636°W / 55.846627; -4.423636

Paisley (/ˈpeɪzli/; Scottish Gaelic: Pàislig) is the largest town in the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland and serves as the administrative centre for the Renfrewshire council area. The town is situated on the northern edge of the Gleniffer Braes, straddling the banks of the White Cart Water, a tributary of the River Clyde.

The town, a former burgh, forms part of a contiguous urban area with Glasgow; Glasgow city centre is 6.9 miles (11.1 km) to the east. The town came to prominence with the establishment of Paisley Abbey in the 12th century, an important religious hub in medieval Scotland which formerly had control over the other churches in the local area. It is regularly cited as 'Scotland's largest town' as it has yet to attain official city status.

By the 19th century, Paisley had established itself as a centre of the weaving industry, giving its name to the Paisley shawl and the Paisley Pattern. The town's associations with political Radicalism were highlighted by its involvement in the Radical War of 1820, with striking weavers being instrumental in the protests. As of 1993, all of Paisley's mills had closed, although they are memorialised in the town's museums and civic history.

Paisley (UK Parliament constituency)

Paisley was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 until 1983, when it was divided into Paisley North and Paisley South. These two constituencies were in turn amalgamated into Paisley and Renfrewshire South and Paisley and Renfrewshire North in 2005.

Boundaries

The constituency covered the burgh of Paisley.

The boundaries of the constituency, as set out in the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1832, were-

Members of Parliament

Election results

Elections in the 1860s

Elections in the 1880s

Elections in the 1890s

Elections in the 1900s

Elections in the 1910s

General Election 1914/15: Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;

Paisley (design)

Paisley or Paisley pattern is a term in English for a design using the buta or boteh, a droplet-shaped vegetable motif of Persian (i.e. Iranian) origin. Such designs became very popular in the West in the 18th and 19th centuries, following imports of post-Mughal versions of the design from India, especially in the form of Kashmir shawls, and were then imitated locally. The pattern is sometimes called Persian pickles by American traditionalists, especially quilt-makers, or "Welsh pears" in Welsh textiles as far back as 1888.

Origins

Resembling a twisted teardrop, the fig-shaped paisley is of Persian (i.e. Iranian) origin, but its western name derives from the town of Paisley, in West Scotland, a center for textiles where paisley designs were produced.

Some design scholars believe it is the convergence of a stylized floral spray and a cypress tree: a Zoroastrian symbol of life and eternity. Paisley is the quintessential visual metaphor of Iran’s bifurcated and tormented identity – riven between Arabic Islam and pre-Islamic Persian creeds. It is a bent cedar, and the cedar is the tree Zarathustra planted in paradise. The heavenly tree was “bent” under the weight of the Arab invasion and Muslim conquest of Persia. The "bent" cedar is also the sign of strength and resistance but modesty. The floral motif was originated in the Sassanid Dynasty and later in the Safavid Dynasty of Persia (from 1501 to 1736), and was a major textile pattern in Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties. In these periods, the pattern was used to decorate royal regalia, crowns, and court garments, as well as textiles used by the general population.