Company History

1905 George William Price was employed as chief salesman at the Lace Warehouse business of Joseph Truman Ltd. in the Lace Market, Nottingham. 

William Harold (WH), known as ‘Harold’, eldest son of George William (GW) had left school (Loughborough Grammar School) at the age of 17 and joined his father at Joseph Truman Ltd. He lived with the family at home in The Gables, Private Road, Sherwood, Nottingham. He soon became fed-up with packing parcels and asked his father for ideas. His father told him about a new type of Lace being imported, an imitation of hand made, called Barmen Lace, which was being made in Germany on a new type of machine He asked his father if he could go to Germany to find out more about it. Harold gave up his job at Trumans and his father sent him to Germany. He wasn’t there long before he telegraphed his father saying he had found the machinery makers in Wuppertal, West Germany and could he please borrow enough money to buy 5 of these Barmen Lace Braiding Machines. This was a big undertaking financially for George William but with assistance from the bank, it was arranged. 

Later that year the five machines arrived and because labour was considered cheaper in Shepshed, (Harold’s mother Emma (nee Wragg) was born and bred there,) Harold rented space over the Blacksmith’s shop there in which to install and run his first 5 machines. Missing from the delivery were 5 large crown gear-wheels. Harold persuaded his brother who was still at Loughborough Grammar School, to come during his holidays and help him hand file all the teeth in each wheel. It took them more than a week of laborious hard work. 

Soon Harold was beginning to produce narrow laces and needed to find an outlet for them. He asked, yet again, his father for help. Being well placed, with his extensive knowledge of the lace trade, George William naturally assisted his son. It was not too long however, before knowledge of this came to the ears of Joseph Truman. He asked George William “look here George, are you working for me or for your son?” After a weekend’s thought George William knew that he could not let his son down and that he would need his help. He therefore handed in his notice at Joseph Truman’s. George William was now skating on very thin ice. With no job, and a son with an embryo business unable to support him, let alone himself, and a loan from the bank to boot!, he decided to use his knowledge of the trade and to set up his own Lace Warehouse on Stoney Street in the Lace Market in Nottingham. FR who was also working at Joseph Truman (aged 19) left to follow and assist his father. Hence George William Price started his own business probably a little under one year after his son started The Shepshed Lace Manufacturing Company Limited in Shepshed, Leicestershire. 

1906 George William Price Limited was formed; in effect, as a direct consequence of the commencement of his son’s enterprise in Shepshed. 

1912 WH built a new purpose built factory on a new site at Sullington Road, Shepshed and moved his machinery from The Blacksmith’s shop.

1917 WH’s brother FR was in the Army (cavalry officer). WH had been making his own versions of the German Lace braiding machines taking out a number of patents on his developments. When the war started he was able to convert some of his machine tools to make artillery shells. He was commissioned by the ministry of supply to produce shells and designed and made his own purpose built lathes for the production of artillery shells. Besides this he served throughout the war as a Special Constable.

1918 After the war WH wanted to drive his rather power hungry machinery more economically and bought Peckwash Mill at Duffied, Derbyshire on the river Derwent, an old paper mill. He installed a new 200 horse power water turbine & hoped to achieve considerable economies.

1921 However by 1921 he had learned that water power was unreliable. Workers told stories of having to stand up to their knees in water to thread and keep the machines producing. Another story told was that one of his most faithful customers George Spencer of ‘VEDONIS’ fame, said “Harold, when am I to receive goods due 3 weeks ago? And WH replied that if it didn’t rain until the end of September he would have to forget about deliveries for the Christmas trade. It was at this point that he decided that he really needed to combine the production at Duffield and the workshops and machine shops at Sullington Road into one new factory. He bought 8 acres of land at Great central Road, Loughborough, on which to build his new factory.

The 1st 4 bays of the new factory were built. They were positioned well back from the road to provide a good access for goods-in at one side and goods-out at the other side; with the intention of building the office block alongside the street on Great Central Road (opposite the Coltman Boiler Works Office).

When the Peckwash Mill and Sullington Road plants were moved to Gt. Central Road the company provided a regular bus service between Shepshed and Great Central Road for employees on all of the 3 shifts and office staff; this service continued until at least 1957 (about 35 years!).

During this period of the company’s development WH applied his extremely able mechanical mind to developing many patents and working long hours every day in the machine building workshops, cementing a very close relationship with the engineering department manager Mr Walter Blunt. Between them, 2 of these patents were developed into very considerable commercial successes.

The 1st was to develop a new and shorter track for the movement of the 2-thread machine spindles. The Germans had always thought it necessary to provide an extra circle in the track of the spindles at each location for the twist on the yarn to be maintained; but WH had contrived to have his yarn spun in such a way as to obviate this necessity. He installed his own twisting and doubling machinery for this purpose. It was so successful that it made the machine at least 20% more productive. The machine shop was expanded and began to make these new machines as fast as possible. Hundreds of them were eventually made and our plant became the second largest in the world by the 1950’s with more than 1000 Barmen lace machines and more than 300 employees. Probably because of the patent the machine was never copied and they were therefore never used in any other factory.

And secondly, during this period a new version of the Barmen Lace machine was developed in Germany, called the One-Thread Circular Lace Braiding Machine. Although the basic principle was similar, this was a faster running machine with every spindle able to move or not to move depending on the punched jacquard. It opened a whole new range of possibilities which were exploited to the full by our designers and draughtsmen; entering fields as widely varied as Elastic laces for underwear to Vamps for the ladies summer shoe trade to table tennis nets to String Glove Backs to Ecclesiastical trimmings for altar cloths and surplices and this is to name only some of the outlets exploited. However WH was yet again able to apply his considerable mechanical ability, this time in a re-design of the spindle. It was always assumed that the bobbin of yarn needed to be central on its spindle.

However, there had to be an upright back to the spindle to carry the yarn up to the top and to provide a means of controlling the progressive release of the yarn. WH could see no reason why the spindle could not be eccentric (placing the bobbin of yarn to one side of centre) thereby causing the whole spindle with it’s bobbin of yarn to occupy less space around the circumference of the circular machine. This enabled the same work to be produced with less movement and the productivity to be substantially improved. Whilst he patented this and exploited it commercially most successfully, the Germans soon saw the benefits and bought the rights from ‘Shepshed Lace Co’ to use in the production and worldwide sales of their machines. It should be mentioned that WH had built up a very close relationship with both Emil Krenzler and more particularly Wilhelm Reising, the two principle inventors and manufacturers of these Barmen Lace Braiding machines. Incidentally they both produced the One-thread machines but they moved the spindles around in quite different ways. Visits in both directions were regular occurrences. They knew, of course that WH was building his own machines but their patents would only be infringed if and when he was to sell them in competition with the German manufacturers.

Further notable developments concerned the perfecting of the ability to produce Elastic Lace on these One-thread machines. A patent was successfully taken out covering the production of elastic laces under the protected trade-mark “E-lace-tic”. This ran for many years and was of tremendous benefit to the company.

1922 The building of the new factory at Great Central Road and the rapid development of the company generally had caused GW and WH to seek new capital for the company’s expansion and it was therefore in 1922 that they approached an Accountant ‘extraordinaire’ in Nottingham by the name of Sir Charles Pain to find some backers for the company. This he did without much difficulty. The company was then floated on the local stock exchange and became a Public Limited Company with many shareholders and the family lost overall control from a share-count point of view. It is interesting to note that one of the major backers was the Birkin family, Britain’s and Nottingham’s most famous name in Lace. They had set up a small plant of Barmen Machines and when they heard of the intended expansion by Shepshed Lace they openly approached us with the old adage ‘if you can’t beat them – join them’, and proceeded to sell us their whole plant of Barmen machines and take a substantial shareholding in our company; which they were to continue to hold until around the 1980’s.
It should perhaps be mentioned at this point that WH had many other machine developments patented, and not all were concerning lace machines. Around 1920 he developed a machine for dispensing postage stamps by the insertion of a coin and sent his plans to The Post Office authorities, they weren’t taken up and he never persued it, being too keen to get on with the next idea!; there were also designs for a collapsible umbrella, both with patents pending. Two full patents were taken out covering efficient and draught free ventilation for a motor car. He always complained of sciatica in his kneck and blamed the inefficient car ventilation.

Many people made the observation that it was a great pity that he could not have combined this extremely inventive mind with his brother FR’s commercial initiative and drive. They would very likely have created rewarding commercial successes, at least from some of those ideas which lay in the cupboard un-persued. Ultimately, of course, both the stamp vending and the umbrella were great commercial successes in somebody elses hands. He never saw any benefit from either.

From the inception and throughout the early growth years WH lived in Shepshed as a paying guest at the home of the Briggs family at Forest House, (Forest Road?), Shepshed. The Briggs family owned a well known hosiery and sock manufacturing company in Shepshed (on Sullington Road).

1931 WH married Doris Evelyn Kleuser on 4th September 1931 and moved to Mapperley Park, Nottingham.
Mr and Mrs WH had a son John Harold born 4th June 1932.

1937 WH died Dec 20th suddenly of a heart attack at lunch time in the Kings Head Hotel, Loughborough aged 50 years. He had been a very heavy smoker and in the light of to-days knowledge this might well have accounted for it. He was a fit man and had hunted with the Quorn Hunt regularly for over 25 years. He had 3 horses when he died and for many years he stabled them at The Boot Inn in Loughborough Market Place. One of his horses was not a hunter but a steeplechaser and when this horse “Chinwag” ran in The Loughborough Stakes Steeplechase, employees were given the afternoon off to attend the races: it was a very popular event in those days. 31st Dec. Board Meeting minutes - Mrs Doris Evelyn Price wife of Harold appointed to the board. Mr F.R. Price appointed as Managing Director at a salary of £500.

Although GW was still at Stoney St, Nottingham, his son FR had largely taken over the running of the business and was a thoroughly competent business man with a sound and level head. On the death of his brother he assumed responsibilities of running the Loughborough company and with Eric Hancock, the very able General Manager, continued to steer the company from strength to strength.

1943 12th Feb. GW chaired the 36th Annual General Meeting at The Victoria Hotel, Nottingham. He died on the 26th March some 2 weeks later aged 83. On 16th Apr Mr F.R.Price was elected Chairman and Mr W.H. Price (Bill) was elected a Director. (he moved to live in Quorn to be closer to the factory).

1948 Following the end of the war there was an unprecedented demand for lace and both companies were expanding rapidly. This included a very substantial share of the exports of lace from the UK. We believe that around 1950, GWP accounted for more than half of the total exports of Lace from the UK. GWP had always acted for Shepshed Lace as a selling point at its showrooms on Stoney Street. GWP and Shepshed Lace had agents in almost every country where there was a hope of sales, most of these agents acted for both companies; and by sharing the expenses of foreign sales trips, regular visits were made by a salesman from one or other of the two companies on a regular basis. (one of GWP’s salesmen was fluent in 6 languages, uncommon now but rare in the ‘50’s). Visits were made annually to most of the leading markets. These included South & Central America, South & Central Africa including Ethiopia, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, the Phillipines and many many other countries.

FR then took a very bold step and decided that the two companies should jointly form a new lace manufacturing company in Australia. It would be the first company to manufacture Lace in Australia. A major machinery-building programme was immediately put in hand at Great Central Road with a greatly expanded machine shop with many new machine tools. Michael Hancock, son of Eric, had joined the firm and included some formal training in textiles and dyeing and bleaching at Leicester technical college.

The plan was for Shepshed Lace to build all the Barmen Lace machines at Loughborough and ship them out to Australia and to make available 2 of it’s technicians to move over to Australia to live there in order to get the machines producing. It was also agreed that Michael Hancock would move to Australia and become the Managing Director. That would constitute it’s 50% contribution.

GWP, for it’s share, would provide the stock, the working capital, the freehold factory premises and the two houses for the 2 skilled Loughborough men and their wives.

23rd Sept William Henry Price ‘Bill’ FR’s son and Laurie Attewell (Sales Director of GWP Ltd.) sailed on the S.S. Brontis for Melbourne, Australia with the intention of remaining for about 6 months to attend to the purchase of the factory and to find houses for Mr Swift and Mr Hing and to see generally the plans put into action for the setting-up of the new business.

3rd May Directors meeting reported the purchase of a factory in Prahran, Melbourne, Australia. Mr Thomas Baenziger of our Australian agents was granted a power of attorney to act on our behalf.
It was agreed that one of the senior members of our agents out there Mr R.L. Gedye would join the new company as sales director

1950 The machines were ready and affairs in Australia also ready, so the machines began to be shipped in batches of 5 from Loughborough. Michael Hancock and Mr T.G.Swift sailed in July and Mr Hing on 28th Sept.

1952 John Harold (JH) joined the company following two years in the army. After spending 9 months going into each of the various departments, it was decided that his time would be most usefully spent by taking charge of the production of a further 40 machines in the Engineering Department. A major advance undertaken at this time was to develop a facility to produce a new form of beater head for the machines, incorporating some of the smallest ball bearings that could be produced at that time. Finding an English Manufacturer that could copy the German ones proved problematical. These beater heads were a critical part of the machine and had previously had to be imported at great expense from Germany.

1955 21st Apr JH appointed a director in place of his mother who had represented the family shareholding since her husbands untimely death.

1957 JH decided to leave full time employment with the company to persue other interests, but remained as a director in view of his shareholdings. He became involved in one or two enterprises which included a Garage business and broiler chicken rearing before setting up a new business with Geoffrey Buckland to manufacture fully-fashioned knitwear, in 1958.

1963 MRV joined the company. Eric Hancock died.

1975 MRV became a director

1979 FR was in his 80’s and the company was running into losses. Bill was M.D. There seemed to be no convincing action suggested for correcting the troubles. The company was losing money at the rate of about £120,000 per year. With considerable diplomacy JH managed to persuade FR to resign as Chairman and with the backing of the board of directors to have himself appointed Chairman.

1981 JH decided that if he was to give his full attention to the restoration of the company fortunes he wanted a larger stake in the company. This meant mounting a bid for all the shares that might be offered in the event of a successful offer. This was beyond his immediate means so MRV and a very good friend of JH’s John Wagstaff joined forces to mount a bid. This was unusually complicated because The Shepshed Lace Manufacturing Company Limited had become a public company and it was a very unusual matter for an individual or individuals to mount a bid for a public company. Both the Board of Trade and the Take-over Panel in London had to grant their approval and surprise-surprise they could not agree with one another! Solicitors fees were in lift off mode! However, matters were eventually resolved and the bid went ahead. It received acceptance from the vast majority of shareholders giving the three offerors over 80% of the share capital. (JH’s holding before the offer was 40% of the share Capital).

JH realised that it may need new direction at the top but who was there to choose from. Michael Hancock was very capable but he was doing a fine job in Australia, and in any case at his age would not want to up sticks and return to the UK. It was a chance conversation with the company accountants partner Tony Dearden which suggested to JH that MRV, working in the office in the buying department might be a useful choice. So JH’s next move was another matter requiring diplomacy. It was to promote MRV to Managing Director and persuade his father to go back as Sales Director, the position he held formerly.

JH was not interested in taking on this task as he was fully absorbed running an 111 year old engineering business he had bought in 1974, in Newark, Notts, by the name of Abbott & Co. (Newark) Ltd. Pressure Vessel manufacturers.
JH working closely with MRV soon had the losses under control but it took quite some time to close down many of the old 2-thread and braiding machines and to re-equip with an entirely new type of narrow fabric loom. However the company was eventually returned to profitability and in concert with the textile trade generally enjoyed a bumpy ride of ups and downs but included some rewarding years along the way.

1985 Bob Glen (RAG) joined the company having established a very good reputation in the narrow elastics trade. It was hoped he would bring to the company new strengths and so it proved to be.

1988 Over a period of 38 years Michael Hancock, ably supported more recently by Peter Briggs, had been thoroughly successful, not only in contributing to the profits of the Australian company every year without fail but also expanding the company gradually and sending dividends back each year to the parent companies. By now they were both approaching retiring age and an unsolicited approach was made to us to sound out the possibilities of us selling the company. A sale was negotiated in due course, affording all 3 Australian directors a very useful profit on the shares that they had acquired over the years as well as the two parent companies in the UK. The Australian directors were able to work out their remaining years before retirement with the new owners; so it was a very satisfactory outcome for all. The buyers were co-incidentally an old Nottingham family who had emigrated to Australia some 2 or 3 generations previously by the name of Greatorex..
The proceeds from the sale of the Australian Co. were used to expand our new loom plant enabling us to but the superior Swiss Muller looms.

1990 By now the production was mainly narrow woven elastics for the underwear trade and RAG reported that he was being denied appointments with potential customers because when a receptionist/telephonist announced to the buyer who it was that was calling “Mr Glenn of Shepshed Lace” the buyer would say “Oh! Tell Mr Glenn that we aren’t buying any Lace this season”. This obviously had to be countered somehow and we decided to change the name of the company as we no longer made lace. After much deliberation the name “Price Shepshed Ltd.” was chosen. The company in Australia with a similar name had been sold and it was thought there would be no confusion, furthermore it introduced the family name, whilst retaining the Shepshed heritage.

1995 MRV & RAG ably assisted by their technicians, began to develop a specialised product for use in the manufacture of under-wired bra’s for the corsetry trade. The attribute of this tubular bra’ wire casing was to provide a means of encasing the wire for an under-wired bra’ in a tubular woven fabric which was both more comfortable to wear and more importantly more resistant to the wire wearing through the casing. The wider use of washing machines and tumble driers had made this a very desirable objective. What they developed over several years was more than 3 times as resistant to failure than the conventional product and was patented under the name of “Fortitube”

1997 RJWP son of JHP joined company in the Sales office.

1999 HASP second son of JHP joined the company as a non-executive director.
RJW appointed a non-executive director. MRVP announced his intention to resign as Managing Director the following April 6th.
The narrow fabrics industry, along with all of the textile industry in the UK was having a very bad time with garment production being carried out abroad using cheaper labour. It became quite clear that if it had not been for “Fortitube” the company would have had to move abroad or close down.

2001 HAS appointed Managing Director with effect from Apr 6th.
JH announced his intention to resign as Chairman and as a director in October, but would remain in an consultant/advisory capacity. Now in his 70th year he had served the Company as a director for 46 years of which he had been Chairman for 22 years.
HAS asks MRV to become chairman for his wealth of experience
2002 As Fortitube sales increased, almost all of it being exported to the Far East, sales of other elastics falling, and following customer feedback that they wanted to buy Fortitube ‘closer to needlepoint’, it was decided at a Board Meeting that Mr HAS Price seek a licensing agreement with an international producer of textiles that could ensure quality and continued production of Fortitube for sale to the worlds markets.

2003 HAS and MRV strike a deal with Stretchline Ltd and a licensing Agreement was announced. Stretchline is a global elastics producer that had long been a competitor of the company. Stretchline had interests in production sites in Sri Lanka, China, Mexico and Indonesia. Backed by the large US company ‘MAST Industries’, they were the ideal company to take on the production of Fortitube. The agreement involved the sale of the plant and machinery and the transfer of the patent over a 4 year period.
Mr RA Glenn, the Sales Director, resigns and starts work for Stretchline with responsibility for global sales of Fortitube
Stretchline Ltd cease production at Great Central Road and move the machines and employees to their Long Eaton factory.
Mr CS Price is appointed Director. The company is now run from HAS Prices engineering business, at Abbott & Co.(Newark)Ltd, Newark Boiler works, Northern Road, Newark by three brothers HASP, RJWP and CSP.

2007 In the year of the company’s 100th Annual General Meeting, the very successful Licensing Agreement comes to an end and the company no longer has any involvement in the production of textiles. The Great Central Road site has space let to long term tenant Fine Impressions Ltd and other companies have rented space elsewhere in the factory.
Mr HAS Price is still the MD & Chairman, and Mr RJW and Mr CS Price are the other directors of the company.