Patons and Baldwins was a leading

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

manufacturer of knitting

yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manu ...

. It was an original constituent of the

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index of leading companies on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

Early history

The business began as two separate companies: J & J Baldwin and Partners, founded in the late 1770s by James Baldwin of Halifax,

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and John Paton Son and Co., founded in 1814 by John Paton of

Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, possibly meaning "rock plain") is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is on the north bank of the Forth at the spot wher ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. Both men had formed their businesses using the

spinning mule The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres. They were used extensively from the late 18th to the early 20th century in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of tw ...

developed by

Samuel Crompton Samuel Crompton (3 December 1753 – 26 June 1827) was an English inventor and pioneer of the spinning industry. Building on the work of James Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright he invented the spinning mule, a machine that revolutionised th ...

. They mainly produced yarns for commercial knitting machines. The Paton family were regarded as generous benefactors in the town of Alloa, where they provided funding for a significant range of public building projects, including

Alloa Town Hall Alloa Town Hall is a municipal building in Marshill, Alloa, Scotland. The structure, which was the meeting place of Alloa Burgh Council, is a Category C listed building. History Until the late 19th century Alloa lacked a public hall capable of ...

, public libraries, a school, a swimming pool, and a gymnasium. The two companies merged in 1920 and diversified into producing

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...

for home knitters, as well as publishing knitting patterns under the "Patons Rose" and "Baldwins Beehive" trademarks.

Expansion

By the mid-1930s, the company had establishments across Scotland and

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

, including factories at

Billingham Billingham is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. The town is on the north side of the River Tees and is governed by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. The settlement had previously formed i ...

and Jarrow, as well as in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, and a large factory in Launceston,

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

, Australia. The company branched out into various related lines of business, including the running of an

angora rabbit The Angora rabbit ( tr, Ankara tavşanı), which is one of the oldest types of domestic rabbit, is bred for the long fibers of its coat, known as ''Angora wool'', which are gathered by shearing, combing or plucking. Because rabbits do not possess ...

farm in Staffordshire between 1932 and 1934, and the development of new products such as

nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pe ...

and

Terylene Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foo ...

. In 1951, the headquarters of the business was relocated from

Spring Hall, Halifax Spring Hall, also known as Spring Hall Mansions, is a mansion situated off the Huddersfield Road, Halifax, West Yorkshire. A house had been built on the site by 1614, but it was demolished in 1870 leaving only the cellars. It was rebuilt in Gothic ...

to a 140-acre site in Darlington, County Durham, where a single-storey factory employing 4,000 people was developed at a cost of £7.5 million. The factory had its own railway sidings and produced 113 tons of yarn every week.

Demise of the business

In 1961, the company was merged with J & P Coats Ltd. The Patons trademark is still in use today. Ownership passed from Coats plc to Mez Crafts and then in 2020 to DMC. The yarn production facility at Alloa was closed in 1999. The bulk of the surviving business records from the Alloa operation, together with some material from other factories, is now held by Clackmannanshire Archives in Alloa. The large factory in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, a 35-acre site, employed over 2,000 people in the 1960s. The business was sold in the late 1980s, and by 1982 the factory employed 604 people. It passed through several owners until 1995 when it produced its last bail of yarn. The factory closed on 31 July 1997.

Works football club in Tasmania

The factory in Tasmania operated the Patons & Baldwins Soccer Club, a football club that played in the local Northern Premier League. The club was state champion in 1926 and 1930, and won the Northern Premier League 10 times between 1925 and 1958. It was closed in the early 1960s.

References

{{Authority control Manufacturing companies established in 1814 Knitting Defunct manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in County Durham Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1999 Defunct soccer clubs in Tasmania 1999 disestablishments in Scotland 1814 establishments in Scotland British companies established in 1814 British companies disestablished in 1999 Defunct soccer clubs in Australia