The English Sewing Cotton Company Scrapbook

 The English Sewing Company News published an article in the May 1967 edition that would catch the eye of any Sylko fan with its title "Plastic Spools for Sylko". I have often wondered when the change from wooden to plastic reels occurred, and the following write up gives a heavy clue: "A new company which will manufacture plastic spools is being established at Skipton by the thread division.  Called Plastic Spools Ltd, it is a joint venture with Crane and Percival...The company will be housed next to Skipton Mill in a building which is at present used for storage and where wooden spools were made temporarily in the early 1940s. It will be equipped with modern machinery costing more than £125,000 and will cater for the entire Sylko 100 yards and Trylko production. Trylko was successfully introduced on plastic spools last year, as was Super 6 Cord two years ago." The mill buildings at Skipton in 2022 There's much to mull over there. I think we can surmise that th...

 I was delighted to find out that an official English Sewing Ltd archive exists, and I determined to visit it. It is held by Manchester City Archives, which seemed like a good prospect, it being my second favourite city and only an hour across the Peak District along the glorious Hope Valley railway line. However after my initial investigations I soon realised that to see and utilise the archive might be more of a daunting project than I anticipated. I saw a note that at least 2 weeks notice is required, as it is stored away from the main site. I duly got in contact and put my request in. One of their lovely assistants soon got back to me to let me know that it is impossible to view the entire collection at once...there is so much of it. I expected a box of miscellaneous files...it turns out there is in fact 141 boxes. The assistant sent me list of each individual item, which runs to 56 pages. Here's the introduction page: As I wanted to catch the 14.43 back home I had to pick one ...

A major player in the formation of the English Sewing Cotton Company was Sir Richard Arkwright and Company. Arkwright, being the grandaddy of mechanised cotton processing, had to be acknowledged in this combine.  The early history of the Preston born Sir Richard was covered alongside that of Jedadiah Strutt earlier on this blog. The two worked together in Derbyshire, opening the mills along the Derwent Valley. In 1780 their partnership was amicably dissolved and Arkwright took the mills at Cromford and Matlock Bath (Masson) as his share. He continued working apace and by 1789 he had added mills at Wirksworth, Chorley and New Lanark. Arkwright died in 1792, but his son stepped into his shoes and filled them admirably. When the ESCC was formed in 1897, it remained a family concern and was famous for producing crochet and sewing cotton. The mill at Cromford had closed around 1840 due to problems with the water supply, but Masson Mills around the corner at Matlock Bath was to remain a ...

  This is an advertisement for Strutt's Cotton taken from a "Woman's Illustrated" magazine dated June 1951. It demonstrates a common marketing method from the 1950s, where magazine and newspaper readers were encouraged to send off for free patterns that would make good use of the sellers' goods. Note that the address to send off to is not Strutt's itself, which was based in Belper. The PO Box matches that for ESCC at Arkwright House - see the letterhead below. This is a big part of what the ESCC was set up to do - centralise the marketing for all the members' goods, thus saving on costs.  https://sewsylko.etsy.com/

 "The Buildings of England - Derbyshire " by Nikolaus Pevsner. Extracts regarding ESCC mills. Cromford: It was at Cromford that Richard Arkwright started the first successful cotton-spinning mill worked by water power. The foundation date is 1771, and the original mill still stands...it is three storeys high but was originally five, two storeys having been removed after a fire in 1930. The stone block at the W end of the group is also early (before 1777): three storeys, mullioned windows, and lintels and sills forming continuous bands. Of the big seven storey block at the E end, under construction according to Bray in 1777, only fragments remain after a fire in the C.19. The buildings of C.1790 along the road have no windows on the lower floors and suggest a defence against industrial spies and rioters. The buildings, all constructed with timber and not fireproof like those at Belper, are grouped round an irregular courtyard. It looks rather grim now and must always have look...

Rifle Green is an old colour. The earliest reference that I can find to this shade dates to 1824. It is associated with the Rifle brigade of the British army, formed during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. They wore green tunics instead of the usual red for camouflage, as rather than directly face the enemy it was their role to hide and pick them off individually.  Our Sylko shade D352 however dates from 1935 - the same year as King George V's jubilee celebrations (marked by the shade D349). It is one of those shades selected by the British Colour Council - see my previous blog post  https://englishsewingjournal.blogspot.com/2024/01/cotton-colours-of-1930s.html  Newspapers reported on the new shades in the second half of that year, with Rifle Green often being put together with another shade called Vagabond Green. I don't think that this latter shade made it to Sylko (though it may be the case that I just haven't seen it yet!). The colour shades either side ...