Patons and Baldwins

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Patons and Baldwins was a leading British manufacturer of knitting yarn. It was a constituent of the FT 30 index of leading companies on the London Stock Exchange.

[edit] History

The business began as two separate companies, founded in the late 1770s by John Paton of Alloa, Scotland and James Baldwin of Halifax, England. ^[1] Both individuals had separately formed their businesses using the spinning mule developed by Samuel Crompton.^[1] Both companies produced mainly yarns for commercial knitting machines.^[1]

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 the town hall, public libraries, a school, a swimming pool and a gymnasium.^[2]

The two companies merged in 1920,^[1] and diversified into producing wool for home knitters as well as publishing knitting patterns under the "Patons Rose" and "Baldwins Beehive" and trademarks.^[1]

By the mid 1930s, the company had establishments across Scotland and the North of England, including factories at Billingham and Jarrow and also in Canada and New Zealand.^[3] In 1951 the headquarters of the business was relocated from Halifax to Darlington, where a large single storey factory employing 4,000 people was developed at a cost of £7.5 million.^[3] The company branched out into various related lines of business, including the running of an angora rabbit farm in Staffordshire between 1932 and 1934^[4] and the development of new products such as nylon and Terylene.^[3]