Spinning machines.

Barmen Lace

During his travels Mr. G. W. Price was very much impressed by laces which he saw being made in Barmen in Germany on circular lace machines. These laces were such extremely good imitations of hand-made pillow lace that they were imported into the United Kingdom in very large quantities, and Mr. Price saw the immediate advantages of manufacturing them here.

Accordingly, in 1905, he sent his elder son, Mr. W. Harold Price, to work for a year in Barmen and to study both the methods by which these laces were made and also the principles of machine manufacture. Harold Price, like his father, was a man of very considerable enterprise and he returned to Nottingham during the winter of 1906 with twelve Barmen lace machines which he had bought in Germany.

He installed them over a small cycle shop near the Bull-ring in Shepshed, Leicestershire, not far from the family home, and the private limited company known as The Shepshed Lace Manufacturing Company Limited came into being on a small amount of capital. Mr. G. W. Price was appointed Chairman, and Mr. W. H. Price, Managing Director.

The installation of these Barmen machines over the cycle shop gave Mr. F. R. Price, the present Chairman of the Price organisation and the second son of Mr. G. W. Price, his first opportunity to work in the lace trade. At that time he was still at school but he was able to give most enthusiastic and practical help to his brother, taking out the window frames over the cycle shop and hauling in the machines with the help of a home-made derrick.

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