Derry had been a place of linen production from the early eighteenth century, and in the early nineteenth century it grew as Belfast moved more and more to cotton. Nothing lasts for ever and, with the subsequent decline of Irish linen production, the town rose to the challenge and redirected the skills of its people to shirt making. In the 1850s, the factory system of production had been introduced with the then new sewing machine which would dramatically increase productivity.
There had been five shirt factories in Derry in 1850 and this had grown to thirty-eight in 1902, plus a whole host of outworking. Companies of note included William Scott & Sons, Hogg & Co, Welch Margetson and Tillie & Henderson. It was the Glaswegian, Tillie, who saw the benefit in bringing all shirt making activity together under one roof, and it was he who introduced the first sewing machines, but also a steam powered cutting machine in their five storey factory with one thousand five hundred employees. The factory was significant enough for Karl Marx to reference it in Das Kapital. Shirts were supplied to the British market but also overseas.
Today, Global leaders like Du Pont and Bemis operate alongside fast-growing local firms such as HiVolt Capacitors, E&I Engineering, Fleming Agri-Products, and Seating Matters.
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