The English Sewing Cotton Company Scrapbook

Craven Herald and Pioneer, Friday 2nd March 1900: Khaki Fashionable  The term 'khaki', now in such general use, is a little puzzling to some people. As a matter of fact, it signifies the particular colour, and has no reference to the material, which may be cotton or wool, and yet entitled to the term 'khaki'. It is a very sandy colour, having just a yellow tinge in it, which makes it almost the tint of the ground in the tropical sandy countries. By the way, khaki will probably be a very popular tint for women's wear throughout the coming season. Already it is very much in evidence,  and is by no means an unbecoming colour to most people. Does this help to give a date to the introduction of Sylko shade D202?  Do you know about Messages in Bobbins?

The English Sewing Cotton Company was a very disparate company, with cotton mills in Lancashire, Derbyshire, Leicester and North Yorkshire among other places. In my mind, I've seen each of the mills as separate entities that had little to do with each other. So, it was interesting to glean from reports in the Craven Herald newspaper archive that during the 1920s, there seems to have been a social exchange between Dewhurst's mill in Skipton and the Ermen and Roby mill at Patricroft.  On 1st July 1927 the Herald reported on a recent match between Belle Vue Mills Bowling Club (Skipton) and ESCC Patricroft branch. The match was called off due to the unseasonal weather in Skipton that Saturday. Instead, everyone retreated to the Belle Vue Mills welfare hall - which was located where the car park for B&M Bargains is now. A social and tea was provided for 150 people, followed by dancing to the Craven Symphonic Band. A display of exercises on parallel bars was also given by members...

         A regular trawl through the many Sylko listings on ebay occasionally brings up something new to add to the online Sylko Cotton Colour Name Archive. Lately I've found these high numbered rarities - they must be fairly difficult to find as I've been collecting the names for well over a decade and not seen them until their recent ebay sales.