Image ID: 41966

Levers Lace making machine

Stapleford
Nottinghamshire
England

Levers lace making machine at an unidentified Long Eaton (?) factory (The same photograph was sent to the web-site from Long Eaton AND Stapleford - so the location could be anywhere in the southern Erewash Valley textile mill!). Wording on the sign says '162 inch Levers Lace Machine by Longmire'. These lace looms-machines required a constant temperature so the factories were heated to between 65 and 70 degrees. A factory containing 100 machines would have about 500 workers. Lace machine operatives, called 'twisthands', were male and as the machines were lubricated by black lead, (graphite), and oil they often finished work as black as coal miners. Twisthands were paid by the amount of work produced, not by the hours worked, and take-home pay varied considerably according to the type, width and speed of the machines and the type of lace being produced. Just before World War I, the average weekly wages of twisthands was estimated at 39s. 6d., the highest in 17 industries, include the silk trade (25s. 8d.) and the hosiery trade (31s. 6d.). Twisthands were regarded as an elite workforce and in Nottingham and the surrounding towns and villages rooms in public houses were often reserved for 'Twisthands Only.' The lace industry around the greater Nottingham area boomed dramatically in the early 1800's as new and improved bobbin net machines were introduced; one of them being the Levers' machine, designed by three John Levers (father, son and nephew) in 1814 (with later refinements). Levers lace is the best of the machine made bobbin laces, the machine mimics the motions of the lacemakers hands and it can take an expert to distinguish it from handmade.

Date: c 1900

Organisation Reference: NCCS001708

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