The San Francisco call., 1906-06-17
WILL TEACH Use
OF HAND LOON.
English Woman Is Coming to
America to Instruct in the
Art Of Weaving.
Miss Charlotte Brown Is Soon
to Have Classes in the
Quaker City.
SPECIAL CABLE TO THE CALL.

| LONDON, June 16.-Miss Charlotte
Brown. the champion hand-loom weaver
of England will start for Philadelphia
about the middle of this month to take
| charge of the weaving department in
the Arts settlement which is to be es-
tablished there with the aid of the
! financial backing of Franklin George
Bates
Sir Thomas Upton, basing his opinion
on his own experience. once told me that
the best way to train a man for sue
cesSful career was to send him to
America when young and let him learn
how to hustle there. Miss Brown is
proof that the same method may he
applied with good results to women.
Though English by birth, most of her
education and training in practical life
has been obtained in the United States,
and it is to this that she attributes her
success in the branch of utilitarian art
which she has adopted.
when l returned to England in
1S99,' she told me, Il looked around
for something to occupy my time. 1t
was during a visit to Canterbury
Cathedral that / first made the ac-
quaintance of a hand loom. In the
old cathedral city descendants of the
Flemish weavers who centuries ago
found refuge there still work at the
same ITdQe. DO lHLeISSltu OiO iiHU
myself in the work of the hand loom
that felt at once my future career
was settled The simplicity of its
mechanism and the artistic work it
was capable of producing both aston
ished and delighted me. l then and
there became a pupil"
Such remarkable aptitude did she
show for the work that in six lessons
she had mastered all her instructor
bar rrinA thp resi-
of her training unaided. She had now
secured every honor that the Guilds of
Arts and Crafts in the United Kingdom
can bestow upon her. Although she is
at the top of her craft, she still adheres
to the strenuous life, habit which she
says she contracted in America and
cannot shake off in the more somnolent
English atmosphere She frequently
puts in as much as ten hours day at
her loom and is continually evolving
new designs and making fresh discov-
cries in the manipulation of warp and
woof.
She enjoys the distinguished patron
age"-as the English phrase goes
of the Queen and other members of
the royal family, the Duchess of Marl-
borough, the. Duchess of Somerset, the
Duchess of Leeds, the Countess of
Warwick and host of other lesser
stars in the social armament, but there
is no suggestion of the spoiled favorlte
of fortune about her. She gives her
self no airs and INDUCES in no senti-
mental rawlings about "art for arts
sake"
Il am a weaver she says. mot be-
cause I am particularly in love with
it, but because it provides an honest
means of employment and combines art
with a decent income
The fact that she maintains a fash
ionable establishment in one of the
most aristocratic thoroughfares of
South Kensington indicates that her
earnings from her loom must be con-
siderably in excess Of what most folk
regard as a decent income" Her
work is prominently displayed at the
various exhibitions of the arts and
crafts associations throughout the coun-
try.
! The growing popularity of the hand
loom and the superiority of its products
over machine made goods are attracting
many women of culture to this branch
! of industry, with the result that Miss
Brown has several pupils who can af-
| ford to pay substantial fees for their
tuition. Among her pupils is Mrs.
Charles Thompson of Philadelphia, who
is greatly interested In the founding of
the Arts and Crafts settlement in that
city