G.H.Hurt & Son Ltd_Storytelling with Nottingham Lace Artisans

g.h. hurt & son storytelling with nottingham lace artisans

g.h. hurt & son storytelling with nottingham lace artisans

ONCE UPON A TIME, IN CHILWELL At the outskirts of Nottingham, Chilwell is a small village easily reachable by bike from Beeston railway station. During the golden ages of the Industrial Revolution, such a town was home of hundreds of people employed in the textile industry within the Nottingham lace supply chain. Walking throughout the town, you can still breath an industrial athmosphere, due to the landscape permeated by former textile factories, now converted to meet different purposes.

Here the G.H. Hurt & Son Ltd was set up, a local artisanal business, making small batches of quality knitted lace, meaningfully related to the Nottingham textile heritage. Mrs Anne Tagg accepted to participate in this study, giving a tour of the factory while showing their work routine and chat about what means at Hurt Ltd’s being a Nottingham lace artisan nowadays.

ALL STARTED IN A SEED WAREHOUSE All started in 1781, in a building originally designed as a seed warehouse for John Pearson nurseryman. Here, Mr George Henry Hurt in 1912 established his handframe knitting business.

A blue plate on the front facade of a red brick building commemorates the birth of this centenary factory.

On a sunny Friday morning, 15th January 2016, the Hurt family opened its door to show me its 12 original handframe machines, using a technique invented in 1589 by William Lee of Cavelrton, from which the Leavers lace machines were derived near the 1800s. This shows the variety of products around the Nottingham lace supply chain, from stockings to shawls, a trade which started in 1850.

A PAST WITH THOUSANDS OF WORKERS Nowadays, Mr Henry Edward Hurt, grandson of the founder George, is managing director of the company, together with his daughter.

He is proud to have marked the history of the Nottinghamshire industry, which employed 16,382 handframe knitters in 1844, all working in small frame shops or cottages. At that time, each village had hundreds of handframe knitters producing stockings and all sorts of textiles. In Chilwell there were 77 framework knitters, while others were in Beeston, Hucknull etc. Handframe knitting started in these towns, but nowadays the handframes are all spread out and everything is almost died out.

With this in mind, I hope to revive the history of Nottingham lace and showcase the meaningful stories of the people who are still involved in this manufacturing. I believe that local heritage cannot be forgotten and needs to be passed to future generations; storytelling has the engaging power to do so. I hope that these interviews will capture the enthusiasm of Mr Henry Edward Hurt and will encourage local stakeholders to do take an action towards a sustainable future.

MR HURT, TIRELESS WORKER Mr Henry Edward Hurt, born in 1935 near Nottingham, is the current manager of this family business, at 65 High Road in Chilwell. He is still as actively engaged in manufacturing as he has been since 1953, and he still works every day.

As he does during the Heritage Days, Mr Hurt kindly opened the doors of his factory to me, warmly welcoming me in his office to tell me his story. I am so grateful for the time he spent with me, away from his production tasks, but I hope the meeting was very enjoyable and fruitful also for him!

WELCOME TO THE SHAWL FACTORY G.H. Hurt & Son is a lace knitting industry, making artisanal shawls, in the traditional Gossamer style of the Scottish Shetland Isles and of Orenburg in Russia.

They had quite a few people interested in visiting the factory, because the machinery they have stretches from 1510. His grandfather George set up a shawl factory in Ruddington; he was manager of a group of local handframe knitters. The picture behind Mr Hurt is from 1910 and portrays local handframe knitters working in a factory just up the road. Mr Hurt wanted to have it in his office, and actually they have occasionally used it for advertising. When Mr Hurt started working in this industry in Chilwell, there were other five manufacturers in Hucknull.

Perhaps Loughborough has a more interesting history of knitting because of William Cotton, who invented the fully-fashioned machinery. The Hurt family used to get needles from Loughborough, at one of the local four needle manufacturers, which are all gone now. They started knitting using handframes, and then William Cotton in 1820 invented powered knitting machines for mass production, and man-driven handframes started to die out. At that time, thousands of handframe knitters in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire had to readapt their expertise. In Nottingham in 1850 they changed from knitting stockings (worn both by men and women) to lace shawls. Maybe it was a common decision of people from Hucknall and Chilwell who wanted to keep the handframes in use. At that time, they were able to produce 60 lady shawls a day on a 1589 handframe; it was quite a high pace production, not so slow.

THE CONNECTION WITH NOTTINGHAM LACE Sheila Mason, in her book ‘Nottingham Lace 1760s - 1950s’, describes the path from modern lace (referred to as Nottingham lace) to the old lace (bobbin pillow lace) which was very valuable and costly and was worn by wealthy people, especially men, around their neck. That industry started in about 1500, when the Hugonos were persecuted in France. They escaped to England and brought with them the tradition of manufacturing pillow lace in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. Nottingham workers tried to produce lace on handframes, but it did not work because of the high amount of stitches which would run. With the time passing, thousands of lace machines slowly came out in the early 1800s, producing stockings. Nottigham lace took off and lots of people changed from handframes to Leavers lace; there came to be 50 manufacturers of Nottingham lace. Cluny Lace is the last one; they really are a proper Nottingham lace firm. The Hurt family congratulates with Cluny Lace if they get good customers, and vice versa, because their customers are different and there is no reason to compete. Mr Hurt has a good personal relationship with John Mason from Cluny Lace; it is a family who pushed the history of lace quite a lot. Sheila Mason is an expert writer, who raised up people’s interest in Nottingham lace, when they were losing information about it.

Both Mr Hurt and John Mason are members of the Handframe Knitters Delivery campaign; Mr Hurt joined it in 1989 for its 400 years anniversary and he attends an annual dinner in the Mansion House.

THE ORIGIN OF STOCKING FRAME The origin of stocking frame is represented in a painting depicting William Cotton who invented the handframe. His wife is knitting using a pair of needles, one stitch after another. She has got one hundred of stitches on one needle. But why not to have one hundred of needles working all at the same time? Using a handframe, a knitted fabric comes from one hundred of needles or more.

A FAMILY BUSINESS There are now about ten or a dozen of people working at G.H. Hurt & Son Ltd. They vary because of the cost of time; some are not coming on Fridays, for example. It is a small family business, but there are also other employees, and wives would often follow on.

In this building there are the offices, the handframe machinery and some departments of manufacturing; they are making new things every day here.

Whenever they see a picture with their scarves and shawls, they collect it and showcase it in their office, but they are not allowed to use some of them for external advertising.

A KNOW-HOW PASSED FROM GENERATIONS This is a handframe that Mr Henry’s father wanted him to strip down in all its bits, clean it all, and knit. Henry was a young boy and, with the help of Jeff Oxley, he managed to put it together again.

Jeff was a very good knitter; he could build a handframe from scratches.

Some people can learn at the college how to work a machine, but basically everybody learns the job here. They have currently a fashion knitwear student from Nottingham Trent University (NTU), working as an intern in her third year of studies.

They tend to move interns around the factory, so that they get a feel of the whole process.

Being a small business, this work well for the company, and also the interns prefer doing a bit of everything, although maybe they would like to spend more time creating new designs.

IN-HOUSE DESIGNS At Hurt’s they develop all the designs by themselves; chosing patterns is not much complicated. They tend to do anything you can with a pair of needles; for example, intarsia is a technique which they can make in their new machinery. Trends change and every year customers want to see something new, but hopefully G.H. Hurt & Son can resume certain sections of 60 years old lace patterns from their centennary archive and create brand new designs. Using different yarns and different machines, things evolve and look totally different. For example, for princess Charlotte they developed a mohar shawl with a plain centre, pinching the outside pattern, which comes from the 30s and was featured in the film ‘Gone with the Wind’.

There is a fabric designed by a very efficient student from Nottingham Trent University, who worked at G.H. Hurt & Son one day a week during her first year of study. There is an in-house archive, but she went to the Ruddington museum and learnt there how to use the handframe. That pattern was designed out of her imagination, which is very good for one so young.

USING THE FINEST YARNS The whole manufacturing process encompasses getting the supplies of yarns, knitting the lacy fabrics, and finishing the shawls.

G.H. Hurt & Son has always knitted only the finest kinds of yarns, mainly wool and cotton, but also linen, silk, mohar, cashmere. Their mohar and cashmere come mainly from South Africa and Turkey; they used to get some really soft mohar, used for mensuit and luxury items. but it seems to be not really available anymore.

The yarns are supplied by spinners in the UK, in Yorkshire. They also provide a kind sort of mohar, but it is not soft enough, so they have to use a blend of 50% mohar and 50% silk.

They have their own stock of about 50 colours; once you stock a colour, you slowly have to eliminate the old ones, creating a slightly changing range, although some colours are kept for all the time.

A LITTLE SPACE FOR MAN-MADE FIBRES Occasionally, man-made fibres are used for stoles and shawls for evening wear; lurex consists of two strips of polymer with a glittering metallic thread in between. Acrylic has a little space in their operation; for example, for some very hot countries, sometimes they produce shawls made of cotton and acrylic.

When there is a defeat in production, waste fabrics are sold to merchants and they are recycled into all sorts of things. Waste wool is saved for collection, but if there is some acrylic in the yarns, they throw them away. Mr Hurt is not sure about how customers dispose of their garments at the end of their lives.

KNITTING AT THE HANDFRAMES In this workshop there are two large handframes standing on bricks, which knitted 750 stitches; they used to knit six stockings at once. Such a machine is driven by pedals which turn a wooden wheel; if you tie a string to the wooden wheel, you can make things happen. The middle pedal is just a presser to press the little bird on the needles. Nowadays it is a bit difficult to find new needles to buy.

Until 1985 Jeff Oxley was working at G.H. Hurt & Son; he had the British Empire medal because of the export of large portions of products to Japan, Australia, France, and especially the USA. If you want to see a handframe working, you have to go to the Ruddington museum. The museum is in a former factory from 1870 for handframe knitters, a bit like Hurt’s one. When hand-frame knitting died out, factories got converted to other sort of uses, but the wife of the owner of the Ruddington museum managed to get the factory back, with a few handframes, gathered from five factories in Hucknull which were packed out.

THERE IS A LOT OF WORK INVOLVED HERE Sometimes, they have to rewax and reprepare (i.e. wash and rewind) the yarns, otherwise they are not knitted very well; some tools allow using thick and thin yarns in the same machines for special products.

POWER LOOMS VS. SKILLED WORKFORCE When the power looms (enabling the production of 6 or 8 stockings at once) took off, handframes became obsolete and could not compete because they were narrower and could produce only one stocking at once. At those times, the Luddite were English textile workers (or selfemployed weavers who feared the end of their trade) who smashed these frames, as an act of protest against newly developed laboureconomizing technologies, primarily between 1811 and 1816. However, if caught breaking the handframes, they were exported to Australia for several years, and they never came back. That could be the first link to Australia, in about 1800s.

Then, because exporting the Luddite became too expensive, it was decided to hang them in Nottingham instead.

When Mr Hurt started working in the factory there were only handframes; probably the oldest machine they still have in the factory is 400 years old. Nowadays, they use them only for demonstration, to teach students how to use them, but these machines are very delicate and cannot be used by many people.

THE RIGHT PEOPLE COULD REPAIR THINGS They still have a handframe from 1810 with new woodwork in it. Next door to G.H. Hurt & Son there was a factory of bus builders with a lot of mechanical engineers, who could help and fix their machines, but nowadays the factory is closed down. There are certain people who know how to help with the production done across the modern machines; for example, there was an engineer who knew how to repair the machines, but now he retired. It is all about knowing the right people to do things.

MAKING FINISHED PRODUCTS During the World War I, Laura Ashley had 3 workshops in London bombed, so G.H. Hurt & Son used to knit fabrics on a handframe (which was bought second-hand in 1935) to sell the fabrics to her. The fabrics were cut and sewn into lady jumpers, made of chiffon in France or chrochet, and sold to America in the late 30s and until World War II. The Hurt family could get a ration of wool and produce woolen jumpers and could exchange them with tanks from America. Anything they could export was helping the country survive. This was the only time they sold knitted fabrics; nowadays, they make finished products, that is to say shawls.

FINISHING THE ENDS OF GARMENTS Overlocking is the process, which fines the ends of garments. Overlocking is a kind of stitch that sews over the edge of one or two pieces of cloth for edging, hemming, or seaming. An overlock sewing machine uses loopers fed by multiple thread cones rather than a bobbin. In this, they differ from lockstitch sewing machines, which are in another room at G.H. Hurt & Son.

EVERYTHING WAS REPAIRED BY HAND Just up the road, in Derbyshire, there is Derby Pottery, which produces ceramics; if they have a little accident in the manufacturing, in the shape or anything, products get broken. Sometimes, at G.H. Hurt & Son they are a bit like them. In the old days, they used to repair everything by hand, but if this takes too long, it is not worthy.

If there is a defeat in production, they still repair some parts; the red thread marks the defeat, and a good mender can repair it. Here, there are 3 or 4 people who can mend.

SMALL QUANTITIES OF QUALITY PRODUCTS Shawls tend to be made in two days: they are knitted in the first day, then overlocked and finished in the next. They are hand- or machinewashed, depending on the type of yarn. While the shawls are still wet, they are pinned out, widening the shawls in the middle spots. They still carry on a 200 years old finishing system and they do not want others to copy it. At G.H. Hurt & Son, they haven’t converted yet the method of manufacturing to centimeters, as they use old stoles which are still marked in inches. Finally, shawls are dried out overnight, then folded and packaged.

The scale of production varies a lot. They used to have larger production, running through the machinery. For example, for Laura Ashley, G.H. Hurt & Son used to produce 10.000 per 60 squares of a colour, and then they ordered 20 colours; so, they spent 6 months making the Spring collection. Nowadays, they tend to make smaller quantities of better quality products, but it takes longer. They don’t really count how many shawls they produce; when they get an order of the same type, they are able to do it faster, while if different machines are set to make different products, it may take longer to complete an order.

A FINISHING SYSTEM 200 YEARS OLD The finishing department was set in the space of a former knitting shop. Mr George Hurt, founder of the factory had brought here original handframe machines to be tied to the ceiling with springs and worked by a knitter of 84 years of age; there is still a knitted fabric on one of them.

Shawls are finished by the hands of two ladies.

They have to make sure that the shawls have no faults, they fold them over and put them in piles, insert lebels and package the products, ready to be delivered.

ONLINE SALES ARE GOING QUITE WELL When they started in 1912 most of the products were sold to the wholesale, i.e. 1 in Leicester, 2 or 3 in London and 1 in Manchester. Wholesales used to distribute the shawls into shops, controlling them and referring what the buyers wanted. If you bypassed the middlemen, you were kicked out, because they controlled you.

Then, the Jaeger company came along, all over the country, and started to purchase directly from the manufacturer and not from the wholesale. Nowadays, G.H. Hurt & Son is doing its own retail quite a lot on its website. Single products are sold online, while thousands or hundreds are sold to the wholesale. Sometimes, they also work for other retailers or designers who have their own designs and want them manufactured on demand. To sell online they have individual packagings and boxes (in different sizes) for transport.

Products are sold at Debbie Bryan’s shop in Nottingham, and other shops in Glasgow.

Harrods in London is their best retailer, and they think G.H. Hurt & Son is the longest serving supplier, from before 1948. When Price Charles was born, the Hurt family received a phone call from Harrods saying that Her Majesty the Queen had just bought two thousand of their shawls.

CUSTOMERS LIKE THE BRITISH HERITAGE The Hurt family tries and stick to its core values, which are good customer service and traditional products. Products have the same high quality that handframe knitters used to achieve, but are now perfectioned, so pull stitches can be put on and knitted back to front.

The main target customers are ladies and babies. However, when men come and visit the factory with their wives, sometimes they ask for menswear; just before Christmas 2015 a new mens collection of scarves was launched.

Customers are mainly from the UK, but also from all over the world, i.e. USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and around Europe. They tend to get more orders from the USA and Australia than from Europe, although they haven’t got a main retailer in America, but they like the British heritage over there. For example, 1000 shawls were sold in the USA when people saw in the magazines pictures of the British royal family using Hurt’s products.

Costs vary so much depending on the material used, from acrylic yarns (a lot cheaper) to cashmere or silk; they also depend on the size of shawls. The cost range is from £10 to £50.

The retailer puts its mark-up and prices increase, whether they carry VAT, and packaging can also make a big difference. Probably the cheapest price to the retail customer is about £20, but the average price is £50-70; some items are sold in shops for £200.

SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO THE CUSTOMER Some customers are still wearing Laura Ashley sqaures which were produced for £4.90 and sold for £9.00. People tend to keep their baby shawls; recently a lady asked for a shawl that was made 25 years ago and she bought a new one for her new baby. In the 30s G.H. Hurt & Son was converted into manufacturing of vests; they could still be made, but the Hurt family tends not to do so, as they specialise in shawls; sometimes they also make some cardigans.

Originally, they used to promote themselves through word of mouth, but now they commission their advertising to a company based in Nottingham. They have a very good employee who helped the Hurt family to develop the concept of their logo. Since they have developed their brand and website, they tend to speak directly to the customer. Social media are new to G.H. Hurt & Son: only recently, they have created an account on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, managed by Mr Hurt’s granddaughter who is studying to become a vet at the University; his grandson is studying business at NTU, and maybe he will work in the factory. Mr Hurt’s daughter does a lot of photography, but sometimes for the close-up shots they employ a professional photographer. All in all, they are a small business and manufacturing is their expertise; they do not have any employees specialised in marketing, but they would like to develop it further. For example, photography is something they could develop on, because they need more pictures of models wearing the new scarves.

MAKING EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTS G.H. Hurt & Son is a shawls factory committed to make exclusive products; this is the trade of their production. The Hurt family came from Derbyshire; in 1770 one Hurt had around 17 children, and in those days the Hurt family spread all over the place, even to America. From about 1600s they had a coat of arms with a stag, which is utilised for the company’s logo.

EVOLVING INTO MODERN MACHINES When Mr Herny’s father died in 1956, he had to carry on and they had to evolve using modern machines. He found one German machine in Hull that could do the job and he managed to get one in his factory. They slowly got more of those, and nowadays they have 60 machines.

MAKING ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW In the 80s, with Laura Ashley being such a big customer, G.H. Hurt & Son had to expand the production quite quickly. They built a new part of the factory, which was a farm yard, to put machinery in. The new part of the factory was built as it looks like the old section. Nowadays, the new tram line easily connects G.H. Hurt & Son to Nottingham city centre.

By successfully designing and producing accessories to meet modern trends, G.H. Hurt & Son won the Special Award for Innovation in the Nottingham Creative Business Awards 2007. In November 2009 Mr Hurt was honoured by Her Majesty the Queen with the M.B.E. for services to the lace knitting industry.

At G.H. Hurt & Son, they are never tired to make newer and newer things every day.

“we are living in an eyeopening time, and it is time to prove it. we need to learn to know our true heroes. that’s all it takes: think, learn, act. so you will be curious, you will find out and you will do something. the noise of all this thinking and all this action will be deafening” orsola de castro (fashion revolution)

FRANCESCO MAZZARELLA PhD researcher at Loughborough Design School Funded by the AHRC Design Star CDT Supervised by V. Mitchell, A.J. May & M.C. Escobar-Tello With the invaluable contribution of all the artisans who kindly offered their time, knowledge and enthusiasm for this research project.

FRANCESCO MAZZARELLA PhD researcher at Loughborough Design School Throughout my doctoral journey at Loughborough Design School, I investigated artisan businesses manufacturing heritage textiles, having a meaningful story to tell. I started focusing on textiles due to its high employment of skilled artisans, wide range of applications, and ever-�increasing consumption trends, causing urgent environmental challenges. Since small businesses cannot compete with mass manufacturers, I decided to narrow down the scope of my research on the stories that artisans convey through their socially and culturally significant processes and products. Looking at the context which surrounded me, I found the story of Nottingham lace very meaningful. Here, all the landscape and architecture are marked by the strong presence of lace factories, but new generations are forgetting this heritage. With this in mind, I conducted contextual interviews aimed to showcase the people who are actively involved in the Nottingham lace supply chain, yet whose voice is hardy ever heard.

This photo-story is part of a storytelling study, conducted in January and February 2016 with selected Nottingham lace artisans. I collaborated with Cluny Lace Co Ltd (the oldest local manufacturer of traditional Nottingham Leavers lace), G.H. Hurt & Son Ltd (a family business producing heritage lacy knitwear like shawls and scarves) and JC Middlebrook (a designer making embroidered lace into jewellery and accessories).

Each artisan gave me a guided tour of the factory, while explaining the current work and related

routines. The aim of the first meeting was to understand what being a Nottingham lace artisan means for them nowadays. The second meeting aimed to aid the artisans in making sense of what a sustainable future may look like for their businesses and identify the challenges and opportunities for a transition towards sustainability. Throughout this study, I have captured the artisans’ intangible stories and made them tangible in the form of photostories, using a diary-like text and photographs taken in the factories while documenting their practices. This collection of photo-stories was then shared with other local stakeholders in the second part of this participatory design research. After this series of individual interviews, a co-creation workshop was organised as a platform to codesign strategies and services for Nottingham lace artisans to achieve a sustainable future. In order to avoid that future generations of designers, artisans and customers forget their local material culture, this storytelling study intends to show that there is still enthusiasm around Nottingham lace and this is a great opportunity for designers to activate meaningful social innovations within this context.