Unfortunately for them the first one they picked went on strike! Gold medals were hard to come by but in 1885 the Jones Sewing Machine Company won one!Įlias Howe and Wheeler & Wilson the American sewing machine inventors and manufacturers had been looking for engineering firms on this side of the pond to handle their work. For now we are still hot on the heels of William Jones. You will have to take the time to read about Bradbury sewing machines later, for they were the main competition for Jones besides Singer.
The name fiddlebase was due to the curving shape of the sewing machine bed. Jones sewing machine fiddlebase sewing machine made to compete with the best selling machines of the 1870's, the Singer 12k. Around London it was also fondly named after the shape of the Serpentine in London. The Jones Cat-Back sewing machine of 1880. Interestingly there may have been two John Jones Brothers along with William but with different middle names, one older one six years younger. Maybe John was instrumental in their invention? Possibly it was to keep the patents quiet from his big American counterparts and competitors. The Jones Model B sewing machine circa 1870, very rare today with slight improvements over the Model A.įor some reason, many of the sewing machine patents that William Jones patented were in his brother’s name, John Thomas Jones, three years older than William. This machine is currently in the Harry Berzack Collection. The Jones Model A sewing machine was made under licence from Howe. William Jones carried on expanding his own sewing machine business and patenting his ideas. William had big ideas and it was not long before he was manufacturing his own models.
A very solemn looking man in later life.īy 1863 William Jones was making his own Jones Long Shuttle Lockstitch which actually was a Howe machine built under licence. They operated from a small factory at Ashton-Under-Lyne. Oh! And to make some serious money as well.Chadwick had actually contacted William Jones and between them they formed the Chadwick and Jones Company. This was not enough for our young lad, he wanted, not only to make them, but also improve upon them. He needed some financial help and went into partnership with Thomas Chadwick and started to manufacture (under licence, the Howe and Wheeler & Wilson ) sewing machines. New ideas and businesses were everywhere, springing up like mushrooms on a warm August evening.īy 1859 William was well under way with sewing machine manufacture. Remember William Jones was in the centre of England, the heartland of the British industrial revolution. The earlier models had metal gears and the later fibre ones. The earlier ones had a decal motif in the bed and the later the brass badge. The Jones cat Back is the most sought after Jones machine made in the Victorian period and it ticks all the boxes for collectors, it was pretty, beautifully engineered, and made a great stitch. It was all one and the same sewing machine circa 1880-1909. The beautiful Jones was called, Cat Back, Serpentine or Swan Neck. He also knew he could undercut the expensive imports of the time. He knew there was big money to be made in sewing machines and Britain was ready. He took them apart, found their weaknesses, then rebuilt, and often improved them. William Jones must have been a little like me for he was spellbound with new fangled contraptions. His father, Thomas Jones was forge manager at a Park Bridge foundry, boiler and steam engine makers (one of his brothers also worked there).
Heap & Company in Ashton-Under-Lyne, a small suburb, a few miles from the centre of Manchester. William Jones had served his apprentice with the W. William was a skilled engineer specialising in his small steam engines that were powering machinery across the empire. At the time William and his brother John Jones were already well established and ran a small engineering plant that specialised in steam engines to power factory equipment such as pumps, lathes, jigs and other machinery of the period. The largest sewing machine factory in England at Guide Bridge, Manchester.Īround 1858 a jobbing engineer named William Jones became fascinated in the new sewing machines that were coming across from America. It hasn’t been used since the 1970’s, but it was still in operating condition at that time. Sometime in the 1940’s or 1950’s it was adapted for use electrically with a foot pedal. My hand crank Singer sewing machine was bought in the 1920′ s. The decal on the machine has 'as supplied to her majesty Queen Alexandra' It has the original owners manual.
1930S C S JONES HAND CRANK SEWING MACHINE SERIAL NUMBER
I searched the serial number to determine the year which seems to be 1915. The serial number on the machine is.286645.
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