My Grandfather and Great Uncle Fowler made these machines in Keighley. My mother and numerous aunties worked on these machines in Bradford. My Uncle Wilf sorted wool to be spun by them; my father shifted bobbins between them. My entire family history is constrained by their cast-iron frames.
I can do no better than quote the words of Eric De Mare: "superb sculptural forms...beauty and utility unconsciously unit..."
ReplyDeleteFifty-five years ago, one of my last jobs in the drawing office of Swift Machine Tools, Halifax was to redesign the castings for their lathe tailstocks, substituting curves with straight lines so as to make them look more "modern". How sad!