wool-combern.

1702 London Gaz. No. 3820/4 Philip Adams,..aged 25, a Woollcomber.

1776 A. Smith Inq. Wealth of Nations I. i. x. 156 Half a dozen wool-combers perhaps are necessary to keep a thousand spinners and weavers at work. View more context for this quotation

1835 A. Ure Philos. Manuf. 144 The wool is not carded in the factory, but is given out to the wool-combers, who comb it by hand.

1889 J. Burnley Hist. Wool & Woolcombing 210 The term ‘woolcomber’ had completely changed its significance. In 1825 it indicated a member of the operative classes; in 1873 it was only used in regard to a class of employers.

1913 Times 9 Aug. 17/2 An outbreak [of fire] at a Bradford woolcomber's.

1843 R. S. Surtees Handley Cross II. x. 278 I should sit on pins—on wool-combers—with nothin' but summer drawers on, till the account appeared.

1723 I. Mills Brit. Patent 456 (1857) 1 Two instruments of iron, to be vsed in the said trade of wooll kembing and pressing,..a fire being made in the body of the instrument of iron for kembing.

1808 C. Vancouver Gen. View Agric. Devon xvi. 387 The woolcombing business was formerly carried on..at Chumleigh.

1837 L. Hebert Engin. & Mech. Encycl. II. 913 Wool~combing by machinery has now almost superseded the work by hand.

1841 Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 4 440/1 A new wool-combing apparatus.