Courtaulds

Courtaulds was a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of fabric, clothing, artificial fibres, and chemicals. It was established in 1794 and became the world's leading man-made fibre production company before being broken up in 1990 into Courtaulds plc and Courtaulds Textiles Ltd. The company was founded by George Courtauld and his cousin Peter Taylor (1790–1850) in 1794 as a silk, crepe and textile business at Pebmarsh in north Essex trading as George Courtauld & Co. In 1810, his American-born son Samuel Courtauld was managing his own silk mill in Braintree, Essex. In 1818, George Courtauld returned to America, leaving Samuel Courtauld and Taylor to expand the business, now known as Courtauld & Taylor, by building further mills in Halstead and Bocking. In 1825 Courtauld installed a steam engine at the Bocking mill, and then installed power looms at Halstead. His mills, however, remained heavily dependent on young female workers – in 1838, over 92% of his workforce was female. By 1850, Courtauld employed over 2,000 people in his three silk mills, and he had recruited partners including (in 1828) his brother, George Courtauld II (1802–1861) and (in 1849) fellow Unitarian social reformer Peter Alfred Taylor (1819-1891 – son of Peter Taylor who died the following year). By this time, Courtauld was a wealthy man but was also suffering from deafness. He had planned to spend more time on his country estate Gosfield Hall near Halstead, but continued to play an active role in the company until just before he died in March 1881. His great-nephew Samuel Courtauld (1876–1947) became chairman of the Courtauld company in 1921 but is chiefly remembered today as the founder of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. William Julien Courtauld was also a benefactor of the arts: he gave artworks to the Essex County Council chamber at Chelmsford and the town hall at Braintree in the 1930s. Wishing to reduce their dependence on natural silk, in 1904 Courtaulds acquired the Cross and Bevan's patents to the viscose process for manufacturing artificial silk or rayon from dissolving pulp.