Coats
Encyclopedia
Coats PLC is a sewing
Sewing
Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...

 thread
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...

 and needlecraft
Textile art
Textile art may refer to:*Any one of the textile arts, those arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects*Fiber art, the creation of fine art using textile arts techniques and materials...

 with operations throughout the World.

History

In 1755 James and Patrick Clark began a loom
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...

 equipment and silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

 thread business in Paisley, Scotland. In 1806 Patrick Clark invented a way of twisting cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

 threads together to substitute for silk threads which were unavailable due to France's blockade of Great Britain and opened the first plant for manufacturing the cotton thread in 1812.

In 1802 James Coats set up a weaving business, also in Paisley. In 1826 he opened a cotton mill at Ferguslie
Ferguslie Park
Ferguslie Park is a housing area at the north-west extremity of Paisley in Renfrewshire, Scotland. It is bordered by the town of Linwood to the west and Glasgow International Airport to the north. In 2006, the Scottish Executive named it as one of Scotland's most deprived communities. This...

 to produce his own thread and, when he retired in 1830, his sons, James & Peter, took up the business under the name of J. & P. Coats. The firm expanded internationally, particularly to the USA. In 1890 Coats listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a capital base of £5.7M.

In 1952 J. & P. Coats and the Clark Thread Co. merged. In 1961 a merger with Patons and Baldwins
Patons and Baldwins
Patons and Baldwins was a leading British manufacturer of knitting yarn. It was a constituent of the FT 30 index of leading companies on the London Stock Exchange.-History:...

 created Coats Patons. In 1986 a merger with Vantona Viyella created Coats Viyella. In 2003 the Guinness Peat Group
Guinness Peat Group
Guinness Peat Group is an investment holding company with interests in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.-History:The company, which had been formed as an investment offshoot of the London-based investment bank Guinness Mahon in the 1980s, was acquired by Brierley Investments Limited in 1990...

 took over Coats Ltd and it is now registered as "Coats plc".

American branch

Coats began selling its thread in the United States by the 1830s. It set up a network of agencies to sell its own Coats brand and, in 1869, began local manufacture of thread in Rhode Island. In 1864 the Clark family began manufacturing in Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...

 as the Clark Thread Co. Thanks to its well-timed direct investments and the development of a flexible managerial structure, Coats came to dominate the American cotton thread market.

Operations

Coats plc does business under different names in different countries but most variations include "Coats". For example, in the U.S., it does business as "Coats & Clark, Inc." (consumer) and "Coats American, Inc." (industrial). In the UK and Ireland, it does business as "Coats (UK) Ltd", in Canada as "Coats Canada Inc" (and has an industrial subsidiary "Coats Bell"), and as "Coats Australian Pty Ltd" in Australia. Coats in Egypt does business as "Coats Egypt".

Speciality

Coats sells items catering to the needs of industries such as footwear, mattresses, quilting, automotive, outdoor and camping goods and furniture. Their operational units are accredited with TS16949
TS16949
The ISO/TS16949 is an ISO technical specification aiming to the development of a quality management system that provides for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste in the supply chain. It is based on the ISO 9001 and the first edition was...

, ISO9001, Ford Q1 Mark, SATRA Quality Mark and others.

Zips

Coats produces zips for industrial applications in the apparel and speciality sectors, as well as for craft and home sewing usage.

Crafts

Coats make products suitable for a variety of needlecrafts such as knitting, crochet, embroidery and quilting.

Brands

  • Dual Duty Plus
  • Red Heart
  • TLC
  • Anchor
  • J & P Coats
  • South Maid
  • Susan Bates
  • Aunt Lydia
  • Milward Henry Milward & Sons
    Henry Milward & Sons
    Henry Milward & Sons is a British manufacturer of sewing needles..Entaco as featured on the One Show on BBC One are the suppliers of John James Needles but with the majority being imported from China to their specifications and not in Redditch as portrayed on the programme.The earliest reference...

  • Prym
  • Sylko


Further reading

  • Kim, Dong-Woon. "From a Family Partnership to a Corporate Company: J. & P. Coats, Thread Manufacturers," Textile History, Autumn 1994, Vol. 25 Issue 2, pp 185–225
  • Kim, Dong-Woon. "The British multinational enterprise in the United States before 1914: The case of J. & P. Coats," Business History Review, Winter 1998, Vol. 72 Issue 4, pp 523–52
  • Kim, Dong-Woon. "J. & P. Coats in Tsarist Russia, 1889-1917," Business History Review, Winter 1995, Vol. 69 Issue 4, pp 465–94
  • Kininmonth, Kirsten W. "The growth, development and management of J. & P. Coats Ltd, c.1890–1960: An analysis of strategy and structure," Business History Oct2006, Vol. 48 Issue 4, pp 551–579
  • Knox, William W. Hanging by a Thread: The Scottish Cotton Industry, c. 1850-1914 (1995),

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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