In our Fancy Flannels story we were left wondering about the missing patent for 1867, having located an unexpected one for 1862 for Joseph Fearns Lawton, previous manager of George Lawton and Sons who produced woollen, cotton and silks from Vale mill, our home.
We never thought we’d find patents exciting but on a wet spring day we did! We found evidence for the ‘missing’ patent of 1867 mentioned in ‘Fancy Flannels’, hurrah! The patent was ‘for improvements to and variety of colour of manufacture of wool, cotton and other fibrous yarns’. The lengthy submission details the arrangement of bobbins so that 2 or more colours could be spun together (rather than mixing) creating a more shaded, more wooly and lighter weight quality fabric and brilliance of colour. Here’s an extract from the patent document.
So perhaps this is some explanation why George Lawton and Sons won silver for their exhibit in Paris 1867 where the brilliance of the colours prompted comment, see our winning woolies story.
What’s more, in 1880 textiles from Micklehurst travelled by boat, to be part of the International exhibition in Melbourne, Australia and their exhibit was given the highest acclaim with a gold award! ( Note at least 3 other gold awards from this region)
And if that wasn’t enough we think the poets among you will enjoy this florid ‘verse’ dedicated to the work of George Lawton! Extract from 1876 Londoniad
We leave you (tongue in cheek) with the nugget that Micklehurst can, it seems, be rhymed with sunburst. Well it put a smile on our faces 🙂
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