The English Sewing Cotton Company Scrapbook

 Leafing through the British Newspaper Archive, it is possible to find glimpses into the lives of the girls that worked for the English Sewing Cotton Company. Here are three stories that reflect the era that the mill girls lived through and give us some sense of their world. Breach of Promise The earliest story that I have thus far found takes place in Skipton in 1866. A young woman of 19, who worked as a weaver at Dewhurst's, was forced to go to court with a breach of promise case. The man that had neglected to marry her was aged 32 and a cattle dealer. The court heard that he had first become acquainted with the plaintiff at Whitsuntide 1864, and had obtained her mother's permission to visit their home. Letters were then exchanged, and in one of those letters a meeting in some local fields was arranged. There, the bounder seduced her, writing to her again the next day to apologise and assure her of his regard. However, by the following April, the poor girl was delivered of a ...

 D403 WVS Green There will be a needle thin minute When the coat button gap will be closed The lost lies somewhere On blasted Sidney Street  But there are trays and tins Of odd bits and many bobs Something will fit the hole It probably went when  She bent low, lifted high Caught on a counter Sweep Mopping the nervy living There will be a pinsharp minute soon When the sewing kit and Sylko comes out Visit Amazon for my book, "Sewing With Sylko - A Treasury": The Sylko cotton reel is iconic, a symbol of 20th Century sewing and of a slower, less wasteful time. Sarah Miller Walters shares her love of the bobbins and their colour names. She also weaves in the story of Victoria - an ordinary 20th century woman and her life as told by her sewing projects. The book also includes extracts from classic books, colour photographs and original artwork.   Click here to purchase for £7.49

These ESCC job adverts place an emphasis on women - who made up a large proportion of the workforce: Manchester Evening News June 1955 Borough News March 1957 Barnoldswick and Earby Times, October 1945 During WW2, Dewhursts even advertised time off for shopping and part time roles in an effort to boost the workforce. In Derbyshire Archives, there is a copy of a Pamphlet that was given out to schoolgirls to encourage them to go and work at the ESCC Mills in Belper and Milford. This highlighted the meals available in the canteen, and the tea trolley...

 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...