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International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society

The purpose of the International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society is to foster the collecting of, and research into, sewing machines.

William Carver - the first Dr Who?

Wililam Carver Sewing Machines

We thought this 1863 advert for William Carver was interesting as it has been claimed that William Carver was one of the two Platt employees commissioned to produce sewing machines by Charles Judkins in 1852.

Whilst this advert perhaps does not completely extinguish the claim, it must pour a large measure of cold water on it. Although to be certain we need to find another advert preferably pre 1863 confirming the date William Carver’s firm was founded - unless of course Mr Carver also invented time travel!

Personally we prefer to think Thomas Sugden & George Bradbury were the two men who approached Mr Judkins thus founding the British sewing machine industry.

The machine they produced - The Lancashire - with its quirky three-legged design remained in production until at least 1884 and was available with or without a treadle stand. Interestingly - the Carver version -The British machine shown on the right of this illustration has a four-legged base (although a three-legged version does apparently exist) and is mounted on a simple treadle stand. As for the monster machine on the left this would seem to be a variation on the Thomas design.


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