Robert Biggin

Stoddard archivist 2004

Robert Biggin

"I was a white collar worker but worked in the factory. The area which I worked in was probably more than 90% girls. As you worked down, the larger looms were always worked (12 ft looms) were worked by men. The narrow looms were worked by the girls."

"In the late 40s early 50s most of our carpeting was exported to Australia. Probably about 60% of the carpet was exported to Australia. And we tended to make a lot of floral carpets, floral chintz, it was boring, but as Britain was trying to get its balance of payments right, we had to export as much as possible. This went on through the 50s till the very early 60s till the Australians decided to invest in their own carpet manufacturing and put quite a hefty tariff, it was something like 30%, on all carpet imports and, therefore, we had to then start and look for designs and alternative markets. The first place we looked at obviously was the home market. So we suddenly went from floral chintz carpets to almost a 30s type of carpet in a semi 'art deco' style. Mostly fawn, orange, rust brown and that went on for a few years."

"We were asked to make the carpet for the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth and the reason why we were asked to make it; first of all we were probably the largest at that time, chenille manufacturer. The aisle of Westminster Abbey is 33 ft wide and we happened to have a loom 33ft wide, which would enable us to make the aisle carpet seamless. It was obviously made in a colour called Coronation Gold. This carpet was made with a very, very short pile so that the trains of the people who walked down the aisle, although the Queen had hers lifted off the aisle, other ones had trains which dragged on the carpet and the pile was very short, so it wouldn't be too much of a trudge for people to walk on."

"We also made another carpet, which was dark blue, for other parts of the Abbey. The Coronation Gold carpet was not composed of one dyeing in itself. It was made up of thirteen different dyeings. Each of these dyeings had to be matched. It just so happened I was the colourist who passed the dyeings to make sure they all matched correctly."