John Spencer (Textiles) Ltd

About Us

A family business with six generations of experience in weaving the finest quality fabrics from a huge variety of different fibres.

"If it can be woven, then we can probably weave it!"

Products / Services

Woven fabrics for industry, furnishing, fashion, shirting, suiting, military, protective clothing, workwear, laminating, coating, filtration and a wide range of other end-uses

Industrial Fabrics
Fabric widths from 30cm to 260cm
Yarn types: predominantly spun yarns from cotton, polyester, acrylic, viscose, wool, silk, nylon, linen and special blends of the above.
Yarn counts: in single yarns from Ne 0.85 to Ne 110 and in two-fold from Ne 2/4 to Ne 2/165.
All our looms use rapier weft insertion and selvedges can be provided with either leno (fringe) or tuck-in.
We can weave up to 24 shaft dobby designs with a maximum of 8 weft colours.

Furnishings
We have the capability to weave a vast range of plain, simple and dobby weave fabrics in a wide variety of weights from voiles to heavy throws and canvases.
Colour woven fabrics such as tickings and checks can be made to order in bespoke designs in small quantities.
Fancy yarns such as chenille and bouclé are easily managable with our flexible rapier weaving machines.
Fabrics can be woven with inherently flame-retardent fibres to meet the requirements of current legislation.

Shirtings
While shirting now represents only 10% of our production, it is as shirting weavers that we are still known by much of the textile trade. Up until 1970 John Spencers were weaving around 250,000m a week of fine shirting, 40% of this destined for Marks and Spencer.
Shirting production is now much reduced and mostly confined to the very highest quality fabrics for Jermyn Street shirtmakers, or to special fabrics with unusual blends of fibres, or special designs for corporate customer

Career & Workwear
Fabrics for this end-use can be designed to match the customers requirements both for appearance and performance.
Special designs for individual companies can be made in almost any raw material. Examples of recent production include nurses' uniforms, bank and building society shirting, airline and telecommunication company corporate uniforms.
Protective clothing fabrics can be made to meet customers requirements. These include anti-static workwear and hospital drapes, barrier fabrics for health and fire services, flame-retardent clothing for fire-fighters and welders. Our main restriction is your imagination.

Military
We have been manufacturing fabrics for UK Ministry of Defence and overseas defence contractors from before the Second World War.
We currently produce fabrics to specification for:

• uniforms (both combat and ceremonial)
• parachutes (for ejector seats)
• bunting
• range marking
• survival suits for air-crew
• ordnance

amongst others!