Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

240 BRITAIN AT WORK. frame. The story is too long for telling here. It must suffice to say that at the beginning of last century Heathcoat invented a machine which made’ it possible to twist round each other an indefinite number of threads, and to cause each thread to traverse, mesh by mesh, every other thread in the width of the fabric being netted. The machine in general use, the Levers, is an improvement upon this, and new patents are continually being registered. To understand the process, however, we must visit one of the big Nottingham factories, by preference that of Messrs. Pratt, Hurst and Co., whose or- ganisation admirably illustrates the different conditions under which the various processes are carried out. These are generally under- taken by distinct firms, but in the case of Messrs. Pratt, Hurst and Co. occupy separate factories, each under its own manager. Levers machines are established in one, curtain machines in another, bleaching and dressing take place in a third, and the final operations and the making-up are carried on in the warehouse in the district of Nottingham appropriately known as Lace Market. An- other large firm has its curtain machines in Scotland, the lace being then brought to Nottingham for dressing and finishing, owing to the abundance of female labour in the lace city. The first department to be visited is the designing-room. The designs are complete drawings, either entirely original or suggested by old fabrics, and the pattern is afterwards traced on drafting paper, ruled out into a network of very small squares, the course taken by the thread being carefully shown by the draughtsman. The squares are then numbered, and the numbers entered as a column of figures, this being handed over to an operator, who, with a special machine, having a keyboard something like a con- certina, punches holes corresponding to the numbers in narrow strips of thin mill- board, the arrangement of holes being groups of varying size. The cards, which thus con- tain the essence of the design, are then ready for transference to the Jacquard in the machine-room, whither we will follow them. The rooms in which the machines are placed are well lighted and lofty, and the factories have to be built especially strong to sustain the tremendous weight on the floor. Levers machines are about nine feet high, and from 144 to 220 inches wide, Curtain machines having a greater width of from 170 to 360 inches. As many as 4,000 bobbins are often working in a machine at the same time, and in the manufacture of the finest lace twice that number are employed. It is impossible within the limits at our disposal to describe the complicated principles on which the machine works, but an idea may be con- veyed by considering it in its simplest form as shown in the making of bobbin-net. I he frame, o.r loom, holds vertically a series of warp-threads, with sufficient space between each to allow of a shilling being passed through edgeways. Behind the threads is a row of bobbins, which are, however, alto- gether unlike ordinary bobbins. They consist, in fact, of two thin discs of brass, rather larger in diameter than a penny and about as thick as a shilling, the thread being wound between them. The bobbins, fixed in what are known as “ carriages,” rest in an arrange- ment called a comb-bar or bolt-bar, and when the machine is set in motion each bobbin, carrying its thread with it, passes between two of the parallel and perpendicular threads of the warp, and is lodged in another similar bolt-bar in front of the warp. Then this bolt-bar “ shogs,” or moves, a space to the right or left, afterwards lodging the bobbin on another back bolt-bar one distance beyond its last space. So the process is continued through the length of the net, the bobbins, millions of which are in use in the big factories, being replaced when their thread is exhausted. The machines are worked solely by men boys assisting them by filling the bobbins with thread. They work in two shifts, and are paid by the piece, so much per “ rack,” the latter consisting of 240 meshes. 1 heir hours are rather peculiar. The first shift comes on at four in the morning, and works until nine, when the second shift comes on until one. From one to six the first shift is again at work, and the second from six to twelve. Thus each works ten hours a day, and the machines are idle only four hours. The above description of a lace machine applies only to the making of net, those for pattern lace being more intricate and having fitted to them the Jacquard apparatus, on