Straw Plait in Linslade

Straw plaiting in Leighton Buzzard and Linslade was extensive particularly in Linslade, then a poor community with no school, growing up alongside the new canal. The Census and Directory entries displayed here give the locations and owners of the many local plait schools. The Linslade 1851 Census page shows Ann Pratt entered as a plaiter,  age 2 years. Plaiting was at its peak from 1830 to 1850 when local plaiters supplied the hat trade in Luton. By 1870 it had begun to disappear due in part to the rise in good free schooling and also to the arrival of cheaper plait from China.