[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Bob Dobson

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An excellent essay on a subject I find very interesting as my grandfather and his brother went to New England. The brother stayed and I am in touch with my 'cousins' and 'aunts' I once read a letter sent to the Accrington Observer by an Accringtonian who had gone out there. It told of a big gathering of Accy folk having recently taken place - 400 of them.
I have visited Lawrence & KLowell. In Lowel I came across a weaving shed with Lancashire looms The cast iron plate on the end read ENTWISTLE, LOWELL. I reckon Entwistle was a Lancashsire bloke whio had had the looms made in Accrington with his name on.

No need to have them made back in Lancashire, once Bullough's, or Northrop had set up a factory's abroad, johnny foreigner was quick to strip machines down, and duplicate their own, using the end plate of a Northrop Loom as a pattern, give it a good rapping to allow for contraction, fill in the existing name with moulding sand, and press in a wooden block with your own name on it, and when its cast it will be as you saw it. Langs & Bullough's used to do that with broken machine parts, tack weld the broken parts, & use it as a pattern, when it would have been too expensive to make a duplicate wood pattern. Some things they did have to have made here, as the septics couldn't make high quality steel, when Samuel Colt started making his early revolvers he had to buy the silver steel for the barrels & cylinders in Sheffield.
Retlaw