Figure 1.--

Patons & Baldwins Ltd. Woollen Mills were located in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia due to the abundance of fine quality wool available locally as well as a fine clean water supply. They were a major employer of labour - mainly female - for many years after WWII, until the parent company in England amalgamated with J.P. Coats (an English cotton thread manufacturer and supplier). The business was re-named Coats Patons (Aust.) Ltd. and continued on until the late 1990's. The hand knitting wool section of the business had gone into the doldrums when cheap imports became prevalent. Villawool and also Emu Wool were two other relatively major hand-knitting wool makers in Australia at that time. All produced knitting books or pamphlets but nowhere in the quantity that P & B had in the market place. Paton & Baldwins knitting books were extremely popular and some were reprinted with an 'R' number to signify that they were a repeat e.g. R24 was a baby wear pattern book.They are still sort after by hand-knitters.

Tasmania

Patons & Baldwins Ltd. Woollen Mills were located in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia due to the abundance of fine quality wool available locally as well as a fine clean water supply. They were a major employer of labour - mainly female - for many years after World War II.

Corporate Relations

The parent company in England amalgamated with J.P. Coats (an English cotton thread manufacturer and supplier). The business was re-named Coats Patons (Aust.) Ltd. and continued on until the late 1990's. The hand knitting wool section of the business had gone into the doldrums when cheap imports became prevalent and many of the staff were paid off but a small amount of manufacturing yarn was being made for other local garment knitting mills in the city. When these small mills were forced out of business by Government tariff rationalisation, Coats Patons closed its Launceston plant. I'm sure there is information on the Web about this.

Other Companies

Villawool and also Emu Wool were two other relatively major hand-knitting wool makers in Australia at that time. All produced knitting books or pamphlets but nowhere in the quantity that P & B had in the market place.

Knitting Books

Paton & Baldwins knitting books were extremely popular and some were reprinted with an 'R' number to signify that they were a repeat e.g. R24 was a baby wear pattern book.They are still sort after by hand-knitters.

Yarn

Initially, all P & B's hand-knitting yarn were in twisted skeins (that had to be wound into balls) and packaged in brown paper parcels weighing 1lb.with the appropriate label pasted on. There were quite a few types of local produced yarns. Some that I remember were 2, 3 and 4 ply Fingering (ordinary knitting wool) plus 2 and 3ply Baby wool soft 'baby' colours), Azalea and 5 ply Bluebell (special fancier twists), Patonyle in 3 and 4 ply (with nylon for workwear) as well as bulkier yarns such as 6 plyTotem, 8 ply DoubleQuick, 6 ply Jet, Camel Rug wool (coarse). Fuzzy - Wuzzy Angora which was pre-wound into 1 ounce balls and boxed in blue cardboard boxes and sent from England was also extremely popular Later they pre-wound all their wools into 1 ounce balls and packaged them in cellophane packages. The weights were converted to grams and kilograms when Australia went metric. In the manufacturing yarns, they dyed and twisted 21, 22 and 23 micron wools into 2ply knitting machine yarn and treated it to prevent shrinkage. It was coned onto 1 or 2 kilo cones to order.

Sources

Graeme Petterwood (former Warehouse Mgr. Tamar Knitting Mills - Launceston). Email message, May 12, 2004.

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Created: May 12, 2004
Last updated: May 12, 2004