Cotton Spinning: 1901-1930
Shortly after establishing his manufacturing business at Hollinwood, Lancashire, in 1896, Ferranti went to live in the nearby town of Oldham which was the principal cotton machinery and cotton spinning centre of the world. He wrote later: 'Although very much occupied with the electrical engineering work that I had in hand, I was naturally drawn into contact with the textile industry, and it therefore followed that I had continually under consideration the question of how electricity could be used to improve or speed up textile processes.' He sought to revolutionise the whole cotton spinning industry by new methods of high-speed spinning that would greatly increase production, and throughout the last thirty years of his life carried out such an enormous amount of research and experimental work (nearly all of it in secret) that it deserves mention. His idea was to employ spindles individually driven by small air turbines running at speeds up to 20,000 r.p.m. with the bearings supported on compressed air. The work was done in close association with J. & P. Coats Limited at their Ferguslie Mill, Paisley. An account of the cotton spinning experiments was supplied by J. & P. Coats Limited in 1963: 'Dr. S. Z. de Ferranti first became associated with J. & P. Coats, Limited, in 1903, and between that year and his death in 1930 many experiments were carried out under a series of agreements which were negotiated with him on behalf of the Company by Mr. E. S. Coats, the Manufacturing Director. The experiments were concerned with the improvement of twisting or doubling machinery. Dr. Ferranti and Mr. Coats endeavoured to evolve a very high speed system of twisting, using air driven turbines as a medium of driving the spindles and flyers. In the construction of the machine they also endeavoured to eliminate the winding processes in the Twisting Mill. The machine was designed to twist direct from the Spinner's package and the mule cops used were carried in the centre of the twisting frame, the ends passing through clearers and tension arrangements to the actual twisting unit. The ultimate aim was to twist a 2 ply bobbin direct from these mule cops and after automatically doffing, the 2 ply bobbins were intended to be creeled in a similar way to the mule cops and from these a 6 cord bobbin was to be twisted.... Although a stage was reached where a semi-bulk experiment was tried out, one could not state that success was ever fully attained, although it appeared to be very close.... It was, however, established that this method of twisting gave a thread of greater strength than one could attain with the Scotch system of twisting then in operation.
Shortly after establishing his manufacturing business at Hollinwood, Lancashire, in 1896, Ferranti went to live in the nearby town of Oldham which was the principal cotton machinery and cotton spinning centre of the world. He wrote later: 'Although very much occupied with the electrical engineering work that I had in hand, I was naturally drawn into contact with the textile industry, and it therefore followed that I had continually under consideration the question of how electricity could be used to improve or speed up textile processes.' He sought to revolutionise the whole cotton spinning industry by new methods of high-speed spinning that would greatly increase production, and throughout the last thirty years of his life carried out such an enormous amount of research and experimental work (nearly all of it in secret) that it deserves mention. His idea was to employ spindles individually driven by small air turbines running at speeds up to 20,000 r.p.m. with the bearings supported on compressed air. The work was done in close association with J. & P. Coats Limited at their Ferguslie Mill, Paisley. An account of the cotton spinning experiments was supplied by J. & P. Coats Limited in 1963: 'Dr. S. Z. de Ferranti first became associated with J. & P. Coats, Limited, in 1903, and between that year and his death in 1930 many experiments were carried out under a series of agreements which were negotiated with him on behalf of the Company by Mr. E. S. Coats, the Manufacturing Director. The experiments were concerned with the improvement of twisting or doubling machinery. Dr. Ferranti and Mr. Coats endeavoured to evolve a very high speed system of twisting, using air driven turbines as a medium of driving the spindles and flyers. In the construction of the machine they also endeavoured to eliminate the winding processes in the Twisting Mill. The machine was designed to twist direct from the Spinner's package and the mule cops used were carried in the centre of the twisting frame, the ends passing through clearers and tension arrangements to the actual twisting unit. The ultimate aim was to twist a 2 ply bobbin direct from these mule cops and after automatically doffing, the 2 ply bobbins were intended to be creeled in a similar way to the mule cops and from these a 6 cord bobbin was to be twisted.... Although a stage was reached where a semi-bulk experiment was tried out, one could not state that success was ever fully attained, although it appeared to be very close.... It was, however, established that this method of twisting gave a thread of greater strength than one could attain with the Scotch system of twisting then in operation.
It was proved conclusively that if all the mechanical difficulties had been overcome, the Ferranti system of twisting could have been installed in a very small area compared with that required for producing the same quantity of thread on the Scotch twisting frames then in operation. The main reason for failure was the mechanical difficulties.... It was felt over the years that as one trouble developed something else was fitted to the unit to counter that trouble so that when the final bulk experiment was made the whole unit was so complicated that special mechanical attention was necessary. When the final decision had to be arrived at, consideration was being given at that time to the introduction of Large Package twisting. The experiments made by Dr. Ferranti had all been in very small packages ... and to change over to a larger package would have meant entirely new experiments.... It had also become imperative to replace our old doubling machinery and so it was decided to discontinue the experiments and install modern machinery of a more conventional nature. Even if the "Ferranti" bulk experiment had given completely satisfactory results, further development would have been necessary to bring installation costs within reasonable figures. It was because of this combination of reasons that our long association with Dr. Ferranti produced no developments which became standard manufacturing practice.'