Platt Brothers

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Platt Brothers & Co Ltd


Fate


Founded	1770
Defunct	1982
Location	Werneth, Oldham, England
Products	Textile-processing machinery
Key people	Henry Platt
Peak size	15,000 employees

Platt Brothers & Co Ltd, (also known as Platt Bros. of Oldham) was a British company based at Oldham, in North West England. They were textile machinery manufacturers, iron founders and colliery proprietors, and by the end of the 19th century, had become the largest textile machinery company in the world, employing over 15,000 workers.^{[citation needed]}

1 Foundation
2 Politics
3 Later history
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Foundation

The company was founded by Henry Platt, in 1770, in Dobcross, in Saddleworth, to the east of Oldham. In c. 1820 the company moved to the Werneth area of Oldham. By the mid 1850s the company had established its self as the worlds largest textile machinery manufacturer.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Politics

Henry Platt's son, John Platt (1817 – 1872), was elected the first Liberal Mayor of Oldham in 1854, an office he was to hold twice more in 1855-56, and 1861-62. John Platt also served as Member of Parliament for Oldham from 1865 until his death in 1872.^[1]

John Platt's younger brother James Platt (1824 - 1857), was also elected MP for Oldham in 1857, but died the same year.^[1]

[edit] Later history

Just before the First World War the company reached its peak, with the workforce numbering over 15,000 people, and the massive Hartford Works at Werneth covering over 85 acres of land. The Platt Company was the largest employer in Oldham and the largest maker of cotton-processing machinery in Lancashire and hence in the world.^{[citation needed]}

The fortunes of Platt Brothers were to mirror those of the Lancashire cotton industry in later years, and the company began a slow, steady decline. The company's home market gradually disappeared as large numbers of Lancashire cotton mills began to close, and in export markets the company faced tough competition from foreign textile machinery companies. The final end (at least for its Oldham operations) came in 1982 when the company closed its Oldham factory. Having been taken over in the 1960's the resultant Platt Saco Lowell (who had a factory in Accrington) had grave financial problems.^[2] The Platt name (and support for Platt products) continues.^[3]

An interesting link exists between the history of Platt Brothers and that of the Toyota company of Japan. In 1929, Platt Brothers bought the patent rights for an innovative automatic weaving loom designed by Toyota. Although Toyota is now best known as an automotive company, it actually began as a textile machinery manufacturer.^[4]