AN ENGINE FOR THE PLAITING, INTERWEAVING OF LACES, CURTAIN AND OTHER LINES, IN THE MOST PERFECT MANNER, BOTH ROUND AND FLAT, AND A VARIETY OF OTHER ARTICLES IN THAT WAY
Year: 1777

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I THOMAS
WALFORD, in the Parish of Saint John, Clerkenwell, in the County of
Middlesex, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the
Eighth day of October, in the seventeenth year of His reign, give and grant
unto me, the said Thomas Walford, His especial licence that I, the said
Thomas Walford, during the term of years therein expressed, should and
lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "AN ENGINE FOR THE PLAITING,
INTERWEAVING OF LACES, CURTAIN AND OTHER LINES, IN THE MOST PERFECT
MANNER, BOTH ROUND AND FLAT, AND A VARIETY OF OTHER ARTICLES IN THAT
WAY;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a provisoe obliging me,
the said Thomas Walford, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular
description of the nature of my said Invention, and how the same is to be
performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within

page_text: four calender months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same (relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said provisoe, I, the
said Thomas Walford, do hereby declare that my said Invention of an
Engine for the Plaiting, Interweaving of Laces, Curtain and other Lines,
in the most perfect manner, both Round and Flatt, and a Variety of
other Articles in that way, is described in the manner following (that is to
say):
The power or first mover may be either man, horse, wind, weight, water, or
fire. An alternate motion, by means of a crank or otherwise, being given to
a rod or rods (or sliders), is communicated to a pulley or pulleys by a line
fastened to them in the grooves of the pullies and to the sliders. In the center
of the pullies are holes for the center of the pillars or shafts. On the tops of
the shafts are caps, with nicks to receive the threads that form the work
(according to the number required). Near to the bottom of the shafts are
wheels fixed with notches corresponding with the nicks in the caps; about
them are straight sticks or rods, which I call sidesmen, moveable in centers.
Near the tops, and in each of the sidesmen, are wires fixed, extending like
horns. Near to the bottom are spurs or feet, which, falling into the notches
of the wheels, let fall the threads, which were supported by the horns, into the
nicks of the caps. The motion then returning, other threads are taken up b
the horns of the sidesmen, and those which before were supported are now
carried forward in the nicks of the caps; and so alternately, making round or
flatt, from three bobbings to any number required. On the notched wheels
are fixed spring stops, which point into a nick in the moving pulley, so that if
any bobbin should be entangled, or any other obstruction, the said spring stop
is disengaged from the pulley, and that piece stands still without any obstruc-
tion to others. The bobbins are hung in frames, which have a bent wire like
unto a trigger, through which the threads from the bobbins pass, which trigger,
being pushed against the horns of the sidesmen (as the work rises), disengages
the bobbin from the trigger, and so lets go so much warp as is necessary to the
continuance of the piece.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Walford, have hereunto sett my
hand and seal, this Twentieth day of January, One thousand seven
hundred and seventy-eight.
THOMAS WALFORD. (L.B.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the same Twentieth day of January,
in the year last above mentioned, the aforesaid Thomas Walford came before
our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
of his Invention aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and.
specified, in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was
stampt according to the tenor of the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign
of the late King and Queen William and Mary of England, and so forth.