I recently wove some lengths of linen from a draught written in the 1700’s by Thomas Jackson in North Yorkshire. Why did he think his version of M & O was the “right” one? And why is M and O and kind of huggaback?
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I wove the linen for these hand towels in 2024, from unbleached and half-bleached 28/1 yarn. The distinctive weave structure comes from an eighteenth century draught by the North Yorkshire weaver Thomas Jackson (1668-1746). 1 Jackson called it “The Right M and O Huggaback”.
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Above is the draught as it appears on page 20 of the Thomas Jackson manuscript, which is catalogued as “Weaver’s Thesis Book” in the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York. It is one of about 50 such notations in the manuscript. This particular draught has 48 ends in one repeat. For some reason Jackson has written out the whole draught three times. Between the first and second rows he wrote: “the same above”. The third row differs slightly, the difference seeming to be an error.
‘M and O’, otherwise known as ‘Ms and Os’, is a familiar weave structure consisting of alternating blocks of plain weave and rib weave. It is commonly woven with 8 ends and picks in each block, giving two 4-end ribs in each rib block. Jackson’s version is unusual in having 12 ends and picks per block, giving three ribs rather than two (and making it more complicated to thread). There is a formal similarity between the three ribs and the uprights of the letter M, which can be seen in the close-up photograph below:
This close-up shows a section of cloth about one-inch wide, after washing and ironing. The denser plain-woven sections have expanded into the looser rib-weave areas, becoming somewhat circular in shape. It is not hard to see the letters M and O in the surface of this version, which is presumably why Jackson called it the “right” M and O. This also suggests how the name may have originated.
Most modern authorities on weaving consider Huckaback and M & O as quite distinct families of weave structure, but Jackson seems to have thought of M & O as a type of huggaback / huckaback. In my previous post Huckaback / Piggyback I argued that that the word Huckaback derives from the German huckepack, for piggyback, referring to the way in which huckaback’s long ‘floats’ are carried on the back of otherwise plain-woven cloth. Given that huckaback and M & O share this charactertic as variants of plain-cloth, and both are useful as towelling, it seems reasonable to see them a related structures, as Jackson seems to have done.
Notes:
1. For more about Thomas Jackson and the Weaver’s Record Book see my previous posts:
From Thomas Jackson to Ralph Watson
Weavers’ Thesis Book: the Thomas Jackson Record
In Memory of Jane, Wife of Thomas Jackson
The Linen Manufacture of North Yorkshire, Once upon a Time