.jpeg)
History
Memory Lane
Keighley Pioneer Had Budget Machine Trade Sewn Up
By Alistair Shand, Chief Reporter, Keighley News (UK)
When Isaac Singer, a New York lawyer, developed the first practical domestic sewing machine he opened a factory to produce them in 1851.
A year later Thomas Sugden, his brother Frederick, and George Bradbury – who were mechanics by trade – began manufacturing one of the first commercially available machines in this country in Oldham, Lancashire.
Also working in Oldham at the same time was William Sellers, a mechanic from Wyke, Bradford. Within three years he moved to Keighley where his younger brother, Robert, was in business making machine tools. He rented space and power from his brother at his premises in Airedale Works, Lawkholme Lane, and set up in business making sewing machines.
.jpg)
William Sellers & Sons Sewing & Knitting Machine Manufacturers of Airedale Works. Keighley is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford, Borough of West Yorkshire, England.
With a good head for business, he was soon producing a "superior" machine that would "hem, bind, braid, frill, cord, quilt, tuck, and embroider". By 1860 he was one of the leading sewing machine manufacturers in the country and his machines were being retailed alongside Singer and Wheeler and Wilson, the other large American manufacturer.
He took out a patent "for improvements in the means or apparatus for sewing" in 1862 and as American patents began to expire, he quickly took advantage to improve his own machines. By the end of the decade, he was employing 50 men and his domestic machines were retailing at the "greatly reduced price" of £7 10 shillings each. Ten years later he was making them in such numbers that the price had been reduced again to £4 4 shillings. His competitive price enabled most middle-income families and many working families to buy a sewing machine and those that could not afford one were able to hire one for short periods.
Sellers sold his machines nationwide through retailers and agents and showed them at most major exhibitions. His first domestic machine was called the Stitchwell, later superseded by the improved and rather cumbersomely named Stitchwell Lock-Stitch Hand Sewing Machine. Most machines were hand-operated and could be placed on any suitable household work surface.
However, tailors and tailors’ shops could buy a purpose-built stand to support the machine. The stand also enabled the machine to be operated by a foot treadle, leaving both hands free, an important consideration when making garments on a commercial scale.
However, Sellers did not maintain his monopoly of production in Keighley for long and in the 1870s Richard Varley – also a mechanic from Bradford – set up his own business in Marley Street, off what is now Worth Way. He had probably worked for William Sellers and may well have been related to him. Varley went into an unlikely partnership with a farmer called John Proctor Wolfenden. Wolfenden was the son of a tenant farmer from Arncliffe and had taken an 80-acre farm called Cat Pits (now Ashfield House) at Junction, near Cross Hills. He was eager to invest his surplus money in the industry and together they produced a machine known as the Cyclops.
Another partnership that briefly manufactured sewing machines was that of Barwick & Haggas. They had started in business selling pianos, organs, and sheet music and had then expanded to sell jewelry, watches, clocks, etc. They had shops in both Keighley and Skipton in the 1880s, whilst continuing with their established business interests, they also turned to making sewing machines.
They produced a treadle-operated machine and marketed it under the name Criterion. However, their excursion into the sewing machine industry was relatively short-lived and they ceased production in the early 1900s.
.jpg)
Criterion machine by Barwick & Haggas of Keighley, UK
Richard Varley’s business, Varley & Company, was continued by his sons but went into liquidation in 1918. W Sellers & Company closed after the Second World War and the factory was taken over by Peter Black, a manufacturer of footwear.
Keighley News
38 High Street
Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 1JU
UK
