THE MANUFACTURE UPON CIRCULAR FRAMES OF A FABRIC SUITABLE FOR PETTICOATS AND OTHER GARMENTS, AND CURTAINS AND OTHER ARTICLES OF FURNITURE, TOGETHER WITH APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN
Year: 1857

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Richard Archibald Brooman, of 166, Fleet Street, in
the City of London, E. C., Patent Agent, for the Invention of "THE
MANUFACTURE UPON CIRCULAR FRAMES OF A FABRIC SUITABLE FOR PETTICOATS
AND OTHER GARMENTS, AND CURTAINS AND OTHER ARTICLES OF FURNITURE,
TOGETHER WITH APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN."A communication
from Monsieur Luce Villiard.
Scaled the 14th-May 1858, and dated the 17th November 1857.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Richard Archibald Brooman
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 17th November 1857.
I, RICHARD ARCHIBALD BROOMAN, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of
London, E. C., Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature.of the said
Invention for "THE MANUFACTURE UPON CIRCULAR FRAMES OF A FABRIC SUITABLE
FOR PETTICOATS AND OTHER GARMENTS, AND CURTAINS AND OTHER ARTICLES OF
FURNITURE, TOGETHER WITH APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN," (communicated
to me by Monsieur Luce Villiard, a foreigner residing abroad,) to be as
follows:
The object of this Invention is the manufacturing upon circular looms or
frames of knitted petticoats or knitted fabrics with sheaths, bands, or stripes,
in plain or close kuitting, to form slides or cases when required for the
introduction of or for containing strips of steel, whalebone, cane, or other
stiffening agent. In order to produce upon circular frames a fabric with

page_text: alternately open work and plain or close work, to form the band, stripe, or
sheath, several means may be adopted. 1st, one or more needles may bo
removed from the needle bed; 2nd, one or more needle barbs may be closed;
3rd, a pressure wheel may be so divided as to produce at given intervals open
work and plain or close stripes or bands. To work upon a circular frame
with two loop wheels (mailleuses), I retain one only with its presser; tho
pressure wheel of the other answers as a pattern wheel, the divisions in which
produce the open and the plain or close work. If the framo has four loop
wheels I retain three and replace the fourth by a pattern wheel. In these
two cases I work by alternating, that is to say, I make a portion of close
work with the three loop wheels, then I use the pattern wheel, and mako
three or four rows of open work, and so on. If there are six loop wheels
I retain four and substitute for the two others two pattern wheels; I can then
work without alternating, that is, without raising at intervals the two pattern
wheels. When the fabric is removed from the frame it is split in the direction
of its length and divided transversely according to the fullness required. In
order to form the cases for receiving the stiffening agent in an ordinary
knitted fabric a very light fabric only need bo produced, a thread being added
at intervals to form the sheath or case. By the same means a knitted fabric
is formed upon circular frames composed of open and close work alternately,
and this kind of fabric will be found particularly suitable for curtains,
furniture, caps, gimps, sleeves, &c.
This Invention also includes the manufacturo upon circular frames of
petticoats in which the loops are carried over. For this purpose the inventor
has contrived the following apparatus to be applied to circular looms. This
apparatus consists chiefly of two wheels, one of which wheels is furnished with
projections; each projection is hollowed out to receive a needle as it revolves,
and the other of the wheels is formed with curved or hooked teeth, each of
which takes hold of and moves a needle as it revolves. The latter wheel is
placed above the needles like a pressure wheel over their barbs, the former is
placed under the needles near the sinkers, the projections on it corresponding in
their distance apart to the teeth on the upper wheel. The action is as
follows: One of the projections of the lower wheel raises a needle with a
loop upon it, one of the teeth of the upper wheel then takes up this needlo
and passes the head of it on to the head of the adjacent needle, which also
has a loop upon it; the loop from the lower needle is then pushed ou to the
upper, which consequently has the two.loops upon it.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Richard Archibald Brooman in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 17th May 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, RICHARD
ARCHIBALD BROOMAN, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of. London, E. C.,.
Patent Agent, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing dato the Seventeenth day of November, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twenty-first year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
me, the said Richard Archibald Brooman, Her special licence that I, the said
Richard Archibald Brooman, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or
such others as I, the said Richard Archibald Brooman, my executors, admi-
nistrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from
time to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of
Man, an Invention for "THE MANUFACTURE UPON CIRCULAR FRAMES OF A FABRIC
SUITABLE FOR PETTICOATS AND OTHER GARMENTS, AND CURTAINS AND OTHER ARTICLES
OF FURNITURE, TOGETHER WITH APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN," a con-
munication from Monsieur Luco Villiard, upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Richard Archibald Brooman, my executors or administrators,
by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and
scals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Inven-
tion, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the
same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months
next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Richard Archibald Brooman, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings hereunto
annexed, that is to say:-
The object of this Invention is the manufacture upon circular looms or
frames of knitted petticoats or knitted fabrics with sheaths, bands, or stripes,
in plain or close knitting, to form slides or cases when required for the
introduction of or for containing strips of steel, whalebone, cane, or other
stiffening agent. In order to produce upon circular frames a fabric with
alternately open work and plain or close work to form the band, stripe, or

page_text: sheath, soveral means may be adopted. First, one or more needles may be
removed from the needle bed; second, one or more needle barbs may be closed;
thrid, a presser wheel may be so divided as to produce at given intervals open
work and plain or close stripes or bands. To work upon a circular frame
with two loop wheels ("mailleuses "), I retain one only with its presser; the
presser wheel of the other answers as a pattern wheel, the divisions in which
produce the open and the plain or close work. If the frame has four loop
wheels I retain three and replace the fourth by a pattern wheel. In these
two cases work by alternating, that is to say, I make a portion of close
work with the three loop wheels, then I use the pattern wheel and make
three or four rows of open work, and so on. If there are six loop wheels
I retain four and substitute for the two others two pattern wheels; I can then
work without alternating, that is, without raising at intervals the two pattern
wheels. When the fabric is removed from the frame it is split in the direction
of its length, and divided transversely according to the fullness required. In
order to form the cases for receiving the stiffening agent in an ordinary
knitted fabric a very light fabric only need be produced, a thread being added
at intervals to form the sheath or case. By the same means a knitted fabric
is formed upon circular frames composed of open and close work alternately,
and this kind of fabric will be found particularly suitable for curtains,"
furniture, caps, gimps, sleeves, &c.
This luvention also includes the manufacture upon circular frames of
petticoats in which the loops are carried over. For this purpose the inventor
has contrived the following apparatus to be applied to circular frames. This
apparatus consists chiefly of two wheels, one of which wheels is furnished with
projections; each projection is hollowed out to receive a needle as it revolves,
and the other of the wheels is formed with curved or hooked teeth, each of
which takes hold of and moves a needle as it revolves. The latter wheel is
placed above the needles like a presser wheel over their barbs, the former
is placed under the needles near the sinkers, the projections on it corre-
sponding in their distance apart to the teeth on the upper wheel. The action
is as follows: One of the projections of the lower wheel raises a needle with
a loop upon it, one of the teeth of the upper wheel then takes up this needle
and passes the head of it on to the head of the adjacent needle, which also has
al bop upon it; the loop from the lower needle is then pushed on to the upper,
which consequently has the two loops upon it.
Having thus set forth the nature of the Invention, I will now illustrate as
far as is necessary the method of carrying the same into effect by the aid of
the Drawings hereunto annexed.

page_text: For the manufacture of a petticoat, plain or ornamental, any ordinary
circular frame of a suitable diameter may be employed. After having, for
example, made about six or seven inches in depth of plain or ornamental
work, as from a to b, in Figure 1, the weaving is suspended, and the sheath
or double portion c is produced for receiving a strip of steel or other material.
Then a second depth of the plain or ornamental work is made from a¹ to b',
after which a second sheath c¹ is formed, and so on till the article is completed,
and the number of sheaths c, cl, cll, clll, &c. formed is equal to the number of
the strips to be introduced.
In Figure 2 I have illustrated a part of a circular frame adapted to the
formation of fabrics in which the loops are carried over. This comprises a
toothed wheel G, the teeth of which are curved and hooked, as shown in
Figure 3, which represents a side view of it, and another wheel F, also
formed as shewn in Figure 3. The wheel G is placed like a presser wheel
over the barbs of the needles; the wheel F is placed under the needles in
such manner that its teeth correspond to those of the wheel G. A triangular
plate is fixed behind this wheel on the same support, and serves to keep the
web at a distance to prevent it being caught by the wheel. After having
inade a plain row of loops, one of the teeth of the wheel F raises one of the
needles e from below, and one of the teeth of the wheel G takes hold of it
and carries it on to the head of the neighboring needle; the loop on the
unraised needle is then pushed on to the raised needle; and thus, while the
The turn of the frame.
one needle has no loop upon it the other has two.
being then completed the operation is again renewed, and so on. Figure 4
represents a detached piece of a petticoat manufactured by means of the
apparatus just described. The same Figure also indicates the manner in
which the strip or riband Y of steel or other suitable material is inserted in
the sheath c. In manufacturing a petticoat by means of the said apparatus
the alternation of the plain weaving and the sheath is repeated, as was
explained in reference to Figure 1.
To make the tubes or sheaths c, I produce on a circular frame, and by the
aid of the above-described apparatus, bands resembling edging or borders
separated by a plain thread. After having cut this thread, I turn over the
lower part of one of the bands on the side of the fabric on which the sheath
is to be formed, and turning it I weave about an inch in depth of the web;
I then turn over the upper part of the band left loose, and I continue to
weave until I come to the place at which a new sheath or tube is to be
formed, and so on.
My process of manufacturing a fabric with a drop stitch differs essentially

page_text: from the ordinary process of manufacture upon circular frames. To obtain
an ordinary fabric in a frame having, for example, two loop wheels, both
these loop wheels as well as their presser wheels are used, whilst to obtain
the improved fabric with drop stitches or open meshes I use one loop wheel
and its presser wheel only, and remove the other, but I retain its presser
wheel. Figure 5 is an elevation of the circular frame arranged for the
purpose. is the presser wheel, a part of which is shewn enlarged in
Figure 6. As in the former instances the fabric is woven with alternato
sheaths, as described. In Figure 7 is represented a detached piece of the
fabric manufactured in this.frame with a strip of steel Y inserted in the plain
sheath c.
After having lifted the fabric from the frame I open it in the
direction of its length, and divide it across according to the size required.
The parts of the several frames not mentioned in the preceding descriptions
are intended to be of the ordinary constructions. Although I have confined
my descriptions chiefly to petticoats it is manifest that the Invention is equally
applicable to the manufacture of other garments and of curtains and other
articles of furniture.
And baving now described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I claim,-
First, the manufacture upon circular frames of a fabric suitable for petti-
coats and other garments and curtains and other articles of furniture by the
several methods herein-beforo described, and illustrated in the Drawings
hereunto annexed, such fabric having formed in it double parts, sheaths, or
tubes, into which bands or strips of steel, whalebone, cane, or other stiffening
agent may beinserted.
Secondly, the several forms of apparatus herein-before described, and
illustrated in the Drawings hereunto annexed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Richard Archibald Brooman, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of May, One thousand
eight hundred and fifty-eight.