The popularity of South Asian textiles was boosted by the British royal family, with Queen Victoria accepting a shawl from the Maharajah of Kashmir each year, and Kashmiri shawl fabric becoming so important that when the Kashmir Valley was officially annexed to the empire in 1846, the treaty stated that the local maharajah was to pay a yearly tribute of ‘one horse, twelve shawl goats … and three pairs of Kashmir shawls’.3
