CHAPTER XXXVI.

BOBBIN NET AND MACHINE-MADE LACE.

BOBBIN NET.

A sketch of the history of lace would be incomplete without a few words on bobbin net and machine lace, manufactures which have risen to so much importance both in England and France, and have placed lace within the reach of all classes of society. The subject has been so ably treated by Mr. Felkin that we refer our readers to his excellent work for its full history.^[1237]

This manufacture has its epochs:—

1768. Net first made by machinery.

1809. Invention of bobbin net.

1837. The Jacquard system applied to the bobbin net machine.

It has been already told how Barbara Uttmann made a plain thread net in Germany three centuries before any attempt was made to produce it by machinery.^[1238]

This invention is usually assigned to Hammond, a stocking framework knitter of Nottingham, who, examining one day the broad lace on his wife's cap, thought he could apply his machine to the production of a similar article.^[1239] His attempt so far succeeded that, by means of the stocking-frame invented the previous century,^[1240] he produced, 1768, not lace, but a kind of knitting, of running loops or stitches, like that afterwards known as "Brussels ground." In 1777, Else and Harvey introduced at Nottingham the "pin" or point net machine, so named because made on sharp pins or points. "Point net" was afterwards improved, and the "barleycorn" introduced: "square" and "spider net" appear in succession.

But with all these improvements machinery had not yet arrived at producing a solid net, it was still only knitting, a single thread passing from one end of the frame to the other; and if a thread broke the work was unravelled; the threads, therefore, required to be gummed together, to give stiffness and solidity to the net. To remedy this evil, the warp or chain machine was invented, uniting the knitter's and the weaver's mechanism. Vandyke,^[1241] a Flemish workman, and three Englishmen dispute the invention. This new machine was again improved and made "Mechlin net," from which the machine took its name.

For forty years from Hammond's first attempt on the stocking-frame, endless efforts were made to arrive at imitating the ground of pillow lace, and there are few manufactures in which so much capital has been expended, and so much invention called forth. Each projector fancied he had discovered the true stitch, and patents after patents were taken out, resulting mostly in disappointment.

The machine for making "bobbin" net was invented by John Heathcoat, son of a farmer at Longwhatton (Leicestershire). After serving his apprenticeship he settled at Nottingham, and while occupied in putting together stocking and net machines, gave his attention to improving the Mechlin net frame.^[1242] In 1809, in conjunction with Mr. Lacy, he took out a patent for fourteen years for his new and highly ingenious bobbin net machine, which he called Old Loughborough, after the town to which he then removed.

"Bobbin net" was so named because the threads are wound upon bobbins.^[1243] It was "twisted" instead of "looped" net. Heathcoat began by making net little more than an inch in width,^[1244] and afterwards succeeded in producing it a yard wide. There are now machines which make it three yards and a half in width.^[1245]

In 1811 that vandal association called the Luddites^[1246] entered his manufactory and destroyed twenty-seven of his machines, of the value of £8,000. Indignant at their conduct he removed to Tiverton,^[1247] in Devonshire.

In 1818 the first power machines were put to work, and the year 1823 is memorable for the "bobbin net fever." Mr. Heathcoat's patent having expired, all Nottingham went mad. Everyone wished to make bobbin net. Numerous individuals, clergymen, lawyers, doctors, and others, readily embarked capital in so tempting a speculation. Prices fell in proportion as production increased; but the demand was immense, and the Nottingham lace frame became the organ of general supply, rivalling and supplanting in plain nets the most finished productions of France and the Netherlands.^[1248] Dr. Ure says: "It was no uncommon thing for an artisan to leave his usual calling and betake himself to a lace frame, of which he was part proprietor, and realize, by working upon it, twenty, thirty, nay, even forty shillings a day. In consequence of such wonderful gains, Nottingham, with Loughborough and the adjoining villages, became the scene of an epidemic mania. Many, though nearly void of mechanical genius or the constructive talent, tormented themselves night and day with projects of bobbins, pushers, lockers, point-bars, and needles of every various form, till their minds got permanently bewildered. Several lost their senses altogether, and some, after cherishing visions of wealth as in the olden time of alchemy, finding their schemes abortive, sank into despair and committed suicide." Such is the history of the bobbin net^[1249] invention in England.^[1250]

We now pass on to

FRANCE.

Since the failure^[1251] of Lee, in 1610, to introduce the stocking-frame into France, that country remained ignorant of a manufacture which was daily progressing in England, on whom she was dependent for stockings and for net.

In 1778 Caillen attempted a kind of net "tricot dentelle," for which he obtained a gratuity from the Academy of £40, but his method did not succeed; it was, like the first efforts of our countrymen, only knitting.

In 1784 Louis XVI. sent the Duke de Liancourt to England to study the improvements in the stocking and net machinery, and to bring back a frame. He was accompanied by Rhumbolt, who worked in a manufactory at Nottingham, and having acquired the art, returned to France. Monarchy had fallen, but the French Republic, 1793-4, granted Rhumbolt the sum of 110,000 francs (£4,400). The machine he brought with him was the point net.^[1252]

The cessation of all commercial intercourse prevented France from keeping pace with the improvements making in England; yet, singularly enough, at the beginning of the nineteenth century more net was manufactured in France than in England. At the time of the Peace of Amiens (1802) there were 2,000 frames in Lyons and Nîmes, while there were scarcely 1,200 in England; but the superiority of the English net was incontestable, so, to protect the national manufacture, Napoleon prohibited the importation. This of course increased its demand; the net was in request in proportion as it was prohibited. The best mart for Nottingham was the French market, so the Nottingham net trade took every means to pass their produce into France.

Hayne, one of the proprietors of the "barley-corn" net, had gone to Paris to make arrangements for smuggling it over, when the war broke out, and he was detained. Napoleon proposed that he should set up a machine in France; but he preferred continuing his illicit trade, which he carried on with great success until 1809, when his own agent informed against him, his goods were seized and burned, and having in one seizure lost £60,000 (1,500,000 fr.), he was completely ruined, and fled to England.^[1253]

The French manufacturers took out various patents for the improvement of their "Mechlin" machines, and one was taken, in 1809, for making a crossed net called "fond de glace"; but the same year Heathcoat producing the bobbin net machine, the inventors could not sustain the competition.

Every attempt was made to get over bobbin net machines; but the export of English machinery was punished by transportation, and the Nottingham manufacturers established at their own expense a line of surveillance to prevent the bobbin net machines from going out. In spite of all these precautions, Cutts, an old workman of Heathcoat's, contrived to elude their vigilance, and, in 1815, to import a machine to Valenciennes, whence he removed it to Douai, where he entered into partnership with M. Thomassin. In 1816 they produced the first bobbin net dress made in France. It was embroidered by hand by a workwoman of Douai, and presented by the makers to the Duchesse d'Angoulême. About the end of the year 1816 James Clark introduced a machine into Calais, which he passed in pieces by means of some French sailors. These two were the first bobbin net machines set up in France.

It is not within our limits to follow the Calais lace manufacturers through their progress; suffice it to say that it was in 1817 that the first bobbin net machine worked, concealed from all eyes, at Saint-Pierre-lez-Calais, now, if not the rival of Nottingham, at least the great centre of the bobbin net and machinery lace manufactures in France.^[1254]

St. Quentin, Douai, Cambrai, Rouen, Caen, have all in turn been the seats of the tulle manufacture. Some of these fabrics are extinct; the others have a very limited trade compared with Saint-Pierre and Lyons.

At Lyons silk net is mostly made.^[1255] Dating from 1791, various patents have been taken out for its manufacture. These silk nets were embroidered at Condrieu (Rhône), and were (the black especially for veils and mantles) much esteemed, particularly in Spain.

In 1825 the "tulle bobine grenadine," black and white, was brought out by M. Doguin, who afterwards used the fine silks, and invented that popular material first called "zephyr," since "illusion." His son, in 1838, brought out the "tulle Bruxelles."

BELGIUM.

In 1834^[1256] eight bobbin net machines were set up in Brussels by Mr. Washer, for the purpose of making the double and triple twisted net, upon which the pillow flowers are sewn to produce the Brussels application lace. Mr. Washer devoted himself exclusively to the making of the extra fine mesh, training up workmen specially to this minute work. In a few years he succeeded in excelling the English manufacture; and this net, universally known as "Brussels net," has nearly superseded the expensive pillow ground, and has thereby materially decreased the price of Brussels lace. It is made of English cotton, stated, in the specimens exhibited in 1867, as costing £44 per pound.

MACHINERY LACE.

If England boasts the invention of bobbin net, to France must be assigned the application of the Jacquard system to the net-frame, and consequently the invention of machinery lace. Shawls and large pieces in "run lace," as it is termed, had previously been made after this manner at Nottingham and Derby. The pattern proposed to be "run in" is printed by means of engraved wood blocks on the ground, which, if white, is of cotton; if black, of silk. The ground is stretched on a frame; the "lace-runner" places her left hand under the net, and with the right works the pattern. The filling up of the interior is termed either "fining" or "open-working," as the original meshes of the net are brought to a smaller or larger size by the needle.^[1257]

In 1820 Symes, of Nottingham, invented a pattern which he called "Grecian" net. This was followed by the "spot," or "point d'esprit," and various other fancy nets—bullet-hole, tattings, and others.

The Jacquard system had been used at Lyons with the Mechlin frame in 1823-4 for making patterned net and embroidered blondes. This suggested the possibility of applying the Jacquard cards to making lace, and in 1836 to 1838 Mr. Ferguson,^[1258] by applying it to the circular bobbin net frame, brought out the black silk net called "dentelle de Cambrai," an imitation of Chantilly. The pattern was woven by the machine, the brodé or relief "run in."

Various patents^[1259] were immediately taken out in England and France. Nottingham and Saint-Pierre-lez-Calais rival each other in the variety of their productions. At the International Exhibition of 1867 Nottingham exhibited Spanish laces, most faithful copies of the costly pillow-made Barcelona; imitations of Mechlin, the brodé and picot executed by hand; Brussels needle-point; Caen blondes, and Valenciennes rivalling those of Calais; also Cluny and the black laces of Chantilly and Mirecourt.

The French, by adopting what is technically termed eight "motives," produce their lace of a finer make and more complex pattern. The Calais lace is an admirable copy of the square-grounded Valenciennes, and is the staple trade of the manufacture. Calais also produces blondes, black and white, silver and gold, the white nearly approaching in brilliancy and whiteness the famed productions of Caen, which, by their cheapness, they have expelled from competition. She also imitates the woollen laces of Le Puy, together with black and white laces innumerable.

"Broadly speaking, lace-making by machinery is more nearly like the pillow lace-making process than that of needle-point. The machine continues to twist any desired threads around one another. In pillow lace-making, besides twisting, we have plaiting, and this plaiting has not been reproduced by the majority of lace machines. Quite recently, however, a French machine, called the 'Dentellière,' has been invented to do the plaiting. A description of this machine has been published in La Nature (March 3rd, 1881).

"Whilst the ordinary lace-making machine belongs to the family of weaving machines, the Dentellière more nearly resembles the pillow of a lace-worker with the threads arranged over the pillow. In general appearance it looks something like a large semicircular frame-work of iron—with thousands of threads from the outer semicircle converging to the centre, representing the table or pillow. Over this central table is the apparatus which holds the end threads side by side, and which regulates the plaiting of them. The cost of producing lace in this manner is said to be greater at present than by hand."^[1260]

Almost every description of lace is now fabricated by machinery;^[1261] and it is often no easy task, even for a practised eye, to detect the difference. Still, we must ever be of opinion that the most finished productions of the frame never possess the touch, the finish, or the beauty of the laces made by hand. The invention of machine-made lace has this peculiarity—it has not diminished the demand for the finer fabrics of the pillow and the needle. On the contrary, the rich have sought more eagerly than ever the exquisite works of Brussels and Alençon, since machinery has brought the wearing of lace within the reach of all classes of society.

The inner bark of the Lagetta, or Lace-bark tree^[1262] of Jamaica, may be separated into thin layers, and then into distinct meshes, bearing some resemblance to lace (Fig. 163). Of this material a cravat and ruffles were presented to King Charles II. by the Governor of Jamaica; and at the Exhibition of 1851 a dress of the same fibre was presented to Queen Victoria, which her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept.

Caterpillars have been made to spin lace veils by the ingenious contrivance of a gentleman of Munich.^[1263] These veils are not strong, but surprisingly light—one, a yard square, would scarcely weigh five grains, whilst a patent net veil of the same size weighs 262.

Asbestos has also been woven into lace: and a specimen of this mineral lace is, we have been told, in the Cabinet of Natural History at the Garden of Plants, Paris.

APPENDIX.