The English Sewing Cotton Company Scrapbook

Manchester Evening News June 1955   Borough News March 1957 Barnoldswick and Earby Times, October 1945

 One of the major members of the English Sewing Cotton Company has left few traces of its former greatness. Raworth's of Leicester was established in 1820 by John Thomas Raworth. He was ambitious and forward, and when Queen Victoria was crowned in 1837 he lost no time in sending her samples of his sewing cotton. The plan worked and he gained a royal warrant signed by the Duchess of Sutherland, Mistress of the Robes. In 1866 he was advertising his royal favour in newspapers, pressing the case for seamstresses across the country to buy his Nine Cord, Six Cord or Three Cord Glacé thread. By the time of the ESCC combine in 1897 he was shifting 10,000 gross reels every week. The listed sites for Raworth's are Crown Cotton Mills, Leicester and Charles Street Mills, Leicester. However, an online search for any information about these sites is fruitless. Although textiles are a huge part of Leicester 's history - "Leicester Clothes the World" as the slogan went - there do

 Over many years I have purchased and read old magazines from the 1920s through to the 1950s. I love the advice columns, wacky recipes, corny stories and most of all, the old adverts. Home Chat and the like are truly a portal into another world, one that both horrifies me and makes me titter in equal measure. And quite often you can pick them up for less money than a new magazine. Throughout these forays into the 20th century, I have often been puzzled by the advertisements for Ardern's Star Sylko thread. This was a brand of varying thicknesses of thread that you could use to embroider, crochet or knit with, and which came in balls. As it was always listed as Ardern's, I wondered how they continued to get away with using the Sylko name, which had long been adopted by Dewhurst's for their sewing cotton. My investigations into the English Sewing Cotton Company  have cleared up the mystery - here was the connection. Although Ardern's, based at Hazel Grove, were not origina

  The top advertisement is from 1880, the bottom one from 1890. Neither mention the Sylko brand name, but the second refers to the Three Shells logo (taken from the Dewhurst family crest).  Obviously Dewhursts were travelling far and wide to promote their cotton and winning medals around the world.

 Dewhursts moved their cotton business into Skipton in the 1820s, but the first mill wasn't to last long before succumbing to fire.  Here's extracts from the report in the Albion and The Star newspaper, 8th January 1831 (read in the British Newspaper Archive): Another mill destroyed - On Sunday morning last, the newly erected worsted and cotton mill at Skipton belonging to Mr John Dewhurst was discovered to be on fire. Prompt assistance was rendered by a multitude of persons...had there been even one fire engine in the town...but there was none. Messengers were despatched to Keighley and Leeds, and though the Keighley engines were on the spot in 44 minutes...they arrived too late for nearly the whole of the valuable machinery and stock was destroyed...and the fine building a blackened ruin. The damage is estimated at 14,000 or 15,000, only about 8,000 of which is insured. How the fire originated no-one can precisely say,  but we add, with pain, that there is too much reason to

 An account of my trip to Skipton,  written for the April edition of the Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Tinnitus Support Group newsletter: Having been a collector and enthusiast of Sylko cotton reels for so long, it seemed to be the natural next step to visit the place where they had come from. The cotton had been dyed, processed, reeled up and packed at the Belle Vue Cotton Mill in Skipton, North Yorkshire, for many years until the demise of the British cotton industry. I knew that the mill was still standing, and had been converted into council offices and flats, so where better to head for on a summer day out?  Skipton is the gateway to the Yorkshire Dales and a popular tourist destination, so there is plenty to do besides track down old cotton mills! I am a nervous driver and never go anywhere long distance by car. I love trains, so whenever I need to go anywhere outside Derbyshire I always go by rail. I took the Cross Country train from Chesterfield to Leeds (about an hour) and