Thomas Wardle

Sir Thomas Wardle (26 January 1831 – 3 January 1909

Tussar silk Wardle was interested in tussar silk, a type of wild silk. He became involved in making this silk commercially successful, after George Birdwood, a doctor and naturalist in India, who became known for his book Economic Vegetable Products of the Bombay Presidency, pointed out in 1860 its commercial potential. There was a great supply of tussar silk but it was resistant to dyeing. After much experimentation, Wardle in 1867 was able to treat the fibre, to overcome its resistance to dyes. At the Paris Exhibition of 1878, Wardle exhibited various samples of tussar silk; he was subsequently appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

Wardle also collaborated with other designers such as Léon-Victor Solon.

In Bengal and Kashmir In 1885, Wardle accepted a Government invitation to visit Bengal Province (part of the then British Raj in India), to investigate the state there of sericulture; the quality of silk from there was not as good as silk from producers in other countries. He found that a great proportion the silkworms were dying of preventible diseases, and that reeling from cocoons was not done well. He set up training courses for local silk farmers, and for local technicians, and got the dyestuffs more organized; these changes much improved the silk industry in Bengal.

On the same visit he went in 1886 to Kashmir, where silk production was in a poor state. He had ideas for its revival, which on his return home he presented to the government; eventually in 1897 he purchased in Europe large amounts of silk-worm eggs and cocoon-reeling machinery for Kashmir, which revived the silk industry there. She died at Leek, Staffordshire on 8 September 1902.

Wardle was interested in geology, and became a fellow of the Geological Society of London. He had a collection of Carboniferous Limestone fossils, and wrote about geology, particularly of his local area.

He was active in local church affairs: he was churchwarden of St Edward's Church in Cheddleton, and he wrote some church music. and Manchester's Whitworth Art Gallery.