A maker or manufacturer of woollen cloth.
Cloth-workers’ Company, the twelfth of the great livery companies of the City of London.
1528. (Jan. 18) Charter to ‘clothworkers’ of City of London.
1549. Act 3 & 4 Edw. VI., c. 2 § 9. The Wardens of the Clothworkers, or two of them at the least.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, II. xxxv. 193. It … is knowen of the Clothworkers and Drapers.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Taylors Pastorall, Wks. III. 54/2. No Cloth no Clothier, no Clothier no Clothworker, Fuller, Tucker, Shearman, Draper.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 6 Sept. To see Clothworkers’ Hall on fire these three days and nights.
1839. Penny Cycl., XIV. 118/2. In the City of London there are 89 companies … the first twelve are called the Twelve Great Companies … 12, Cloth-workers.
So Cloth-working.
1551. Robinson, trans. More’s Utop., I. (Arb.), 44. Let clothe-workinge be renewed.
1611. Cotgr., Draperie, draperie; cloath-selling, cloth-working.
