Calais lace museum 25 Rue Richelieue
 

Calais lace
The first equipment, and raw materials were smuggled into Calais, because the export of the manufacture of English lace was forbidden.
The lace industry in Calais began with the import of the first lace professions to Saint-Pierre, by the Englishmen Webster and Clark. Four professions work together to manufacture lace. From 1821, about five years after the first English arrival, there were 210 people who worked on thirty eight professions belonging to about ten manufacturers.  Little by little local manufacturers contributed to the construction of the machinery under control of the English managers.
In 1830 St. - Pierre and Calais had 113 manufacturers with 256 professions. 65 were English operators and the enterprises were small with only one profession.  Entrepreneurs invested in the manufacture, and the trade, of lace. At this time appeared the first Leavers, professions that would produce a lace more fine and of high quality.
It is also from this period, the revolution of the steam engine and the Jacquard lyonnais system that was going to transform the mechanical production of lace. 
The alliance of the Jacquard system and the Leavers profession would be the key of the lace-making industry, in the years 1840. The imitation of hand-made lace became near perfect.
The first steam engine installed by Pearson and Webster was in Saint Peter. The steam engines transmitted power to the Leavers and the other machinery in the factory by a system of pullies and cams. In 1854, 16 steam engines existed in the city. This development was going to mean increasingly vast factories with a competition between a Calais, that lacked space, and a Saint Peter that had the space and the low prices.
The two were going to know a rivalry also in their populations. The development of the lace industry in Saint Peter was going to drive a spectacular increase in its population - 14800 in 1861 - 17290 in 1866.