|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Alex I Askaroff
Alex has spent a lifetime in the sewing industry and is considered one of the foremost experts of pioneering machines and their inventors. He has written extensively for trade magazines, radio, television, books and publications worldwide.
Over the last two decades Alex has been painstakingly building this website to encourage enthusiasts around around the Globe. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Charles Raymond Sewing machines
It has been a great pleasure researching Charles Raymond all these years. He seemed to be one of the only men who outwitted Isaac Singer and Elias Howe as well as other big boys in the sewing machine business of the 1850's. Slowly, slowly I pieced all the information together to bring you a small insight into one of the most successful sewing machine pioneers. He was knocked back many times but the character of the man was made of strong stuff and each time he was knocked down he came back stronger. At his prime he was the largest employer in his city and one of the most respected men of his generation. I give you a brief history of Charles Raymond, sewing machine pioneer. Around the early 1850's Isaac Singer was well under way to becoming rich from copying all the best ideas that made a good sewing machine. Elias Howe was in the press almost daily with his wealth growing by the second. It must have occurred to Charles Raymond that there was gold in them there hills. A mechanical engineer by trade Charles Raymond had seen the beginning of the American sewing machine industry and was determined to be part of it.
The classic Charles Raymond sewing machine of 1861 hand painted. Charles Raymond was born in Ashburnham, Massachusetts in the winter of 1826. He was the son of a carpenter, Daniel and his mum was Sarah Greene. Skipping by all the boring bits, by the age of 21 he was a well educated God fearing man who abstained from drink and had married Mary Marston. Charles had finished an apprenticeship at a cotton mill in Lowell, Massachusetts where he became a skilled mechanic used to the intricate mechanisms that produced cloth. Like Elias Howe it was a small step from Cotton and cloth making to sewing the fabric together. Charles Raymond was there at the birth of the sewing machine era. He was one of the early pioneers in the field and through the 1840's and 1850's he saw all the big ideas come to light and the even bigger egos behind some of the men who were later to become the richest men in America. Charles Raymond had been working for years on a simple chainstitch machine and in 1851 he produced his first crude machine. He was immediately stamped on by the rough, tough, Isaac Singer and his idea had to be shelved. So a few years went by but by 1856 Charles Raymond, now a budding entrepreneur, was still busy collecting information for his new venture. After meeting Willford, Wilfred or William Nettleton (his name seems to change through the years) they prepared themselves for another stab at the sewing machine business in Bristol, Connecticut. Little did they know that it was going to be another rough ride.
By 1858 Charles Raymond formed a legal partnership with William/Willford/Wilfred Nettleton to produce a basic chain-stitch sewing machine. Soon they had moved from their rented barn to larger premises in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA where they built a manufacturing plant and produced a pretty, small sewing machine that did not sew very well but got them a foothold in the expanding sewing machine market. Now, big things were going on in the sewing world in the 1850's and entrepreneurs and investors saw huge potential in this new fangled machine that joined cloth quickly. Many of these investors were big money men and they knew that all opposition needed to be crushed at birth.
Business boomed and before long Charles Raymond and his pal employed two-dozen workmen and three young lads to fetch and carry. The adverts were bringing in good response and expansion was needed. However the Indians were circling and there was trouble at the camp. It was not long before powerful law suits were brought against Raymond and Nettleton for patent infringement. Even though some were unfounded a nice drawn out law suit would close most businesses. Charles had several patents all legal and applied for in America but that made little difference to the lawyers whose job was to destroy all opposition by any legal means. Isaac Singer had patented a similar idea slightly earlier than Charles Raymond and it was enough to tie Raymond up in expensive litigation. It looked like their new business was, once again, going to bite the dust almost as soon as it got started. However Raymond noticed on examination of the patents that they were only for America and Canada was exempt, still a virgin territory as far as sewing machines were concerned.
To avoid the law suits Raymond and Nettleton shut down their American business. The big money men probably all lit up cigars poured sippin' whisky and all had a good laugh. But Charles Raymond was far from finished. Charles Raymond moved some of his equipment to Montreal but that proved a disaster and almost 30% of his hard earned investment capital was lost in one bad move. Charles Raymond did his homework properly next time and found the ideal new town north of the border. Guelph in Ontario, Canada, offered Charles Raymond everything he needed and was exempt from patent protection from the big boys down south. Guelph was founded on St George's Day April 23, 1827. The growing town was ideal, located beside the Speed and Eramosa Rivers which flow through the town. Originally the town was named to honour Britain's royal family descending from the Guelfs.
John Galt, the Scottish novelist, designed the town to attract settlers and built the town to resemble a European city with squares and wide streets and little narrow lanes connecting roads leading to a grand square all around a clever basic layout of a ladies fan. Charles Raymond, back in the good old USA, offered his men back a new life in Canada if they would follow him and help him start a-new. Sixteen key workers moved with Charles Raymond with only one later returning home. He probably got upset at Charles Raymond's no drinking rule. In all my research I cannot find any mention of Nettleton at the Guelph factory so it may be around this point in 1861 that the men parted company.
The Raymond Lock-stitch Patent 32785, 1861
In the autumn of 1861 Charles Raymond opened Guelph's first sewing machine factory. Strangely although Charles Raymond was a huge beneficiary to the young town little mention of him is currently made in Guelph's history. Hopefully that will change as it comes to light all the good deeds he did for the city. I feel another statue coming on... Charles Raymond's business flourished over the coming years as competition from America slumped during their Civil War. In Canada his factories grew along with the prosperity of the town itself.
Originally the site of the Arms and Worswick Sewing Machine Co, bought by Charles Raymond in 1875 after a fire destroyed his old wooden factory.
Some of the buildings
still exist today including Charles Raymond's house. Free from most patent litigation his business boomed and he protected himself with further patents in Canada, America and Europe. He wasn't going to get burnt by Singer again! Much of his new prosperity was due to his cheap manufacturing. Charles Raymond was able to sell his first chain stitch machine at $12 a fraction of the price of other makes like Singer and Howe machines. Also his machines were small and light and by now stitched a good seam although still only as a chain-stitch. Charles Raymond had designed and patented a lockstitch in 1861 with a complete reel of thread under the machine like the Grover & Baker machines but he was doing so well with his little chainstitch that a Raymond lockstitch was years away. In 1869 Mary, his beloved wife died. His son and two daughters were grown by now and probably proved immensely helpful in getting Charles over this difficult time. However love soon blossomed and in 1870 Charles married for a second time to an old friend, Helen Gill, of Brattleboro. To complete his new family they adopted a son and daughter. Once more Charles Raymond could get down to business. With the help of the latest steam powered machines his factories grew and grew and By 1871 Charles Raymond employed 76 workers including 14 children and several women to hand paint and decorate his machines. His business turned out over 10,000 machines a year.
In 1872 his skilled workers earned a dollar a day plus bonuses for reaching production targets.
Markets in America fell dramatically after a long recession starting around 1870 and import restrictions were imposed so Charles Raymond looked further afield to fill his market. In Australia his Victoria agent was W T Stevens, Ballarat and Geelong. Charles Raymond sought out countries all over the world and took on agents and importers, especially in the big European and British markets. Charles Raymond had hit the big time. His Yarmouth Street factory was producing a little cracker of a chain-stitch sewing machine which was widely copied and became known as the New England style. I am sure to annoy his American competitors Charles Raymond called his little beauty the American Hand Machine. Cheeky!
Now in Britain, one of Charles Raymond's biggest markets outside America, Charles Raymond and James Weir are inextricably linked so I must include a little of James weir's history here even though it is similar in part on his own Weir page. In the 1860’s James Galloway Weir, a Scotsman with a canny business sense, saw the potential for a cheap machine in the Victorian market. As a travelling salesman for a haberdashery company he travelled the width and breadth of England constantly meeting customers who needed sewing machines. He knew the potential of a cheap and portable machine. He later met his first wife on his travels near me in Brighton, East Sussex. Laws prohibiting how you advertised your wares were scarce and hard to enforce in the 1860's. In 1863 Weir set up as an importer or commission agent. He imported the beautiful small and cheap Raymond Chainstitch sewing machine from Canada and called it his own.
And So the British Weir/Raymond sewing machine business was established. James had spent some time in Canada and had struck up a relationship with Charles Raymond the Canadian machine manufacturer. It was only natural that he saw the potential of a business relationship between the two. The son of James Ross Weir, James Galloway Weir was born in 1839. He was a man on the move by his early 20's he was already importing machines from the other side of the globe. His first machine, the Lady, was a German imported chain stitch. However James was looking for a cheaper more reliable machine and he found them in Guelph, Canada. The machine was know under various names such as Improved Common Sense and Globe. The Globe sewing machine
The Weir Globe sewing machine of 1869, identical to Weir's other models but sporting patent 1052 The name that really stuck in America was, The New England Machine. It is interesting to note that Weir himself advertised these machines in Britain as The American Hand Machine, though they were from Canada! Back in Britain it was not until the Trades
Description Act of 1890 that people were banned from stating they
made an item that they in fact just imported. Many importers got
away with false descriptions until 1890. Thomas Shakespeare
also imported, or possibly copied, the Raymond machines and marked them The Royal
Sewing Machine Company, Birmingham, England. These are super rare
machines today and few have survived. The fact that J G Weir states that he made his own machines is possibly true later on in his career but no one has yet ascertained positive proof that he made any machines from scratch. As an importer it would seem like a whole different profession. Few importers bother to manufacture even today.
The
Raymond company initially produced chain-stitch machines. They were exported
world-wide. In Canada
Charles hired Orlando Dunn as his main agent for Toronto.
In Europe his agents
included William Moore in
Ireland, P Frank in Raymond had sold his London machines through the Highbury Sewing Machine Co of 75 or 73 Holloway Road North, London, but soon supplied Weir with most of his machines. For a few years all went well with the Raymond and Weir partnership.
A very rare note from Weir advertising his New American in my Sewalot Collection. But by the late 1870's Raymond's production in Canada During this time the same Charles Raymond machine was sold under many names from the Household Fairy to the Star.
We know that James Weir and Charles Raymond had some sort of falling out and supplies from Canada to James Weir suddenly ceased. Did Charles Raymond find out that James Weir was about to produce his own model? Did Charles Raymond put his prices up too much? We will probably never know. The Split Once the collaboration between Weir and Raymond was over the Scotsman was livid and from then on made sure all his machines were clearly marked with his London address. This was to let his customers know that other supplies from Canada flooding Britain were not his Weir machines. For example Charles Raymond secured Whight & Mann of Holborn, London, as his London agents.Whight & Mann had sold the beautiful Prima Donna sewing machine. He sold his standard Raymond chainstitch machine to Whight & Mann infuriating Weir who was just around the corner. Raymond, was also not happy at the split and even went so far as to take out adverts in trade magazines letting everyone know that they had broken up and where to secure his original Raymond machines.
After his split with the Raymond Company, for whatever reason, James Weir quickly found a French manufacturer who was already making his bases to produce his popular model. This was possibly Seeling's of Paris possibly in partnership with Ms Goodwin of Paris. However I am unsure of this so if you happen to know mail me this instant! alexsussex@aol.com. Back to Charles Raymond Now that Weir is out of the way we can get back to Charles Raymond. We need to back-peddle a little. By 1871 Charles Raymond had been a busy boy. A big factory with a nice house opposite to walk across the road from each morning. Lots of new ideas and new machines coming on line and at last a lockstitch machine, models 1, 2 and 3. All basically the same machine but increasing in size for light to heavy work. Interestingly Charles Raymond never copied any of his main competitors machines in Canada, Richard Mott Wanzer. This showed a deal of character of the man. By 1872 Charles Raymond patented the Improved Lockstitch machine protected by his first Canadian Patent No 1433. In 1875 disaster struck with a fire destroying most of the old wooden works. A spark from the foundry caught in some old straw that had been badly cleared from the stables (remember there were lots of children who worked at the plant) and wind blew it onto the old dry wooden buildings. Before long the entire works were consumed in flame. By the time his works manager, J Sully, came flying into the restaurant, where Charles was eating with some of his fellow Guelph politicians, the factory was little more than rubble and ashes. I guess that gave him heartburn. Charles Raymond was not a man to be knocked down easily, he acted quickly buying out another local sewing machine competitor that had started up, the Arms and Worswick Co, and used their premises and staff while rebuilding his old works, this time in brick! Amazingly by the end of the year production had only fallen by 27%. Within two years it had not only matched previous years but stormed past. As new production and foundry came on line his latest machine was a beauty.
All this pressure took its toll and in 1877 Charles Raymond suffered badly with his health and decided to have a break. The two factories now employing over 200 men and 28 young lads were well run and the factory managers almost ran the place anyway. Charles Raymond had no worries the business was in good hands. This break left Charles Raymond time to play and as a keen politician, inventor and philanthropist his mind was always occupied with new ideas. In 1879 Charles Raymond and a couple of his friends installed Guelph's first telephone exchange. Remarkably early for the time. Charles Raymond was amongst the leading Guelph men of the day and he had a hand in most important decisions that influenced the growing town. For example he was a member of the school board, director of the Guelph Railway, instrumental for his business. A member of the hospital governors where he later died. In 1886 he became an alderman. He belonged to the Guelph board of trade and Canadian Manufacturers Association. He oversaw the construction of several important buildings in Guelph many still standing today. Deeply religious he was a deacon of the Guelph First Baptist Church and read sermons regularly there. It was with his help and donations that the church was built on Woolwich Street. Charles Raymond was also a friend of the Black community in the town. All in all an opinionated but decent human being. Something to be proud off. There was no wonder he was worn out. However he hated drink and no one who worked for him was allowed to drink. He abstained even from a celebration tipple. In fact he once ran for local office on a platform of alcohol abstinence and lost badly. Obviously the other Guelph inhabitants did not quite see eye to eye with him on his moral crusade. In 1895 Charles Raymond incorporated his business to become the Raymond Manufacturing Company Limited. By 1897 Charles Raymond decided enough was enough. He was getting old and in failing health so at the age of 71 he sold the Raymond M C Co to his faithful factory manager and his old partner Chris Koepfer. You would think that Charles Raymond would put his feet up and take it easy. I wonder if he kept his old mansion opposite the factory and used to sit in the garden watching his old business while puffing on his pipe? I know that although he retired he still kept playing with his sewing machines working on ideas including the latest new idea of petroleum engines right up until his death in 1904. Charles Raymond was 78 when he died in the same month of his birth following a failed operation on his bladder. It is quite possible that Charles Raymond knew his time was near for he gave most of his wealth away in several bequests before his death and when he died it was with almost no wealth, just a few thousand dollars and his grand home. Despite new models, without his inspiration and guidance the Raymond Manufacturing Company Limited floundered on. In 1916 the Raymond Sewing Machine Co was sold to the giant White Sewing Machine Company that survives to this day. They immediately put up prices of the Raymond machines which lead to a massive drop in orders. One has to wonder why? In 1922 the White Company decided to shut down their plant in Guelph. Today some of the factory buildings still survive as apartments. And so once more we come to the end of our history on one of the great early pioneers in the sewing world.
There were several versions of this Raymond Household all highly collectable today
In all the years Raymond produced only five distinct models with about 14 different versions. For example the Raymond Family had 11 different names from the household Fairy to the New American. The first and second Chas Raymond sewing machine models are the most sought after which were the many-named Raymond Family and the Raymond Household.
The End
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
 Well that's it, I do hope you enjoyed my work. I have spent a lifetime collecting, researching and writing these pages and I love to hear from people so drop me a line and let me know what you thought: alexsussex@aol.com. Also if you have any information to add I would love to put it on my site. And spelling mistakes!
News Flash!
Both my latest books,
Sussex Born and Bred, and Corner of the Kingdom
Fancy a funny read: Ena Wilf & The One-Armed Machinist A brilliant slice of 1940's life: Spies & Spitfires
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
CONTACT: alexsussex@aol.com Copyright ©
As a
new collector I have found your site
has increased my knowledge in
a short time to a degree
that I couldn't have
imagined. |
|||||||||||||||||||||
