MY LADY’S SILK

Otago Witness, Issue 3870, 15 May 1928, Page 76

MY LADY’S SILK

By

Claude F. Luke.

At the mention of Courtaulds, the lady of to-day nods vaguely and glances at her trim legs and preens her silk-clad form; for Courtaulds represent to her no more than the cheap luxury of artificial silk, a prosaic firm to which she pays relatively large sums per annum for the oft-recurring tragedy of the “ ladder.” That and no more. Yet Courtaulds combine a family and commercial romance that should appeal to every silky young thing who helps them to prosperity. To-day this vast organization that can afford to dip into its resources for a £12,000,000 gift to its ordinary shareholders controls the* artificial silk industry of Europe, and dominates the world’s markets. A record profit of £4,500,000 was its reward last year, and the consequent boom in price has given its ordinary shares a market value of close on £100,000,000! Just prior to the War, when women’s legs were “ limbs ” and underwear a rustling mystery of satin and taffeta, an investor could have purchased one hundred Courtauld shares for £l5O. But immediately women confessed to legs and sought about for an attractive covering the Courtauld shares began their phenomenal climb until to-day that lucky investor may count his hundred shares as worth a fortune of £5500 1 As for the original £1 shares—they have multiplied their value some 55 times! But the financial interest, vivid though it is, does not present the most romantic side of the Courtaulds’ prosperity, for which we have to explore the early days of the family and trace the lowly steps by which they climbed. The Courtaulds are aristocrats by birth as well as by their long association with British industry and commerce. The family is of French origin, and during that long era of religious persecution early Courtaulds were prominent Huguenots, hunted and spied upon, with the grim vision of torture and death ever before them. One of these, Augustine Courtauld, who is described as a fine old gentleman of France, a God-fearing and courageous man -who held firm to his Protestantism in the face, of his religeous persecutors, was destined to become the founder of the English branch of the family. Rather than alter his faith, Augustine fled to England, taking with him his baby son, another Augustine. Around this child’s exit from his native land have grown romantic stories that are now part of the Courtauld tradition. It is said, for example, that the baby Augustine was smuggled from France at the bottom of a donkey-cart with a load of unwhdlesome vegetables heaped around him! Moreover, the story goes that when the child reached the seaport, he was placed in his cradle in a sewer and washed out to sea, where his father’s barque waited to pick him up and transport him to England. Safe from religious alarums, at all events, the baby fugitive grew to be a skilful worker in precious metals, and rare specimens of his silverwork, - bearing his initials and the French fluer-de-lis, together with two of his own portraits, are still treasured by a present member of the family. With the coming of the grandson of this second Augustine, the Courtauld family may be said to have laid the foundations of its present fortune. The pioneer was one, George Courtauld, born in 1761, jvho as a youth, worked with a certain Merceau, a French silk “throwster” of Spitalfields. Eventually, George began in business for himself. He had no capital, however, and he failed. Fortune tossed him up and down both here and in America, but at last he returned to England, still with. little capital, but with much experience. He joined forces with a Mr Witt, and the two adventurers toured Essex on foot looking for a likely factory site. They decided ‘on Pebmarsh, where they built a small- factory with living adjoining. From 1800 ..to 1810, George Courtauld laboured and prospered. Then he moved to Braintree, where he erected a larger factory in 1810. Exactly a hundred years later, the present gigantic works were, completed, and to-day the first and the last Courtauld factories may be seen side by side, for George’s factory has been preserved. His eldest son, Samuel Courtauld, was the : father of the modern industry, and saw his factories spread and staff multiply with the years. It was not always silk that kept the Courtauld looms a-spinning. At one time crepe was the fashion both, for mourning and other purposes, and by performing a series of different operations nt different factories, the Courtaulds managed to preserve their secret of production and delude prying rivals. Then as the demand for crepe waned in favour of artificial silk, Courtaulds’ great struggle began. Practically their all was staked on the new enterprise, and they spent vast sums in years of experimenting and the erection of new plant. Prominent in this wing-spread-ing was Mr Johnson, once a working man in the factory and now the jointmanaging director of the concern with a standing' in the silk markets of the world that is second to none. The’ conservatism of other manufacturers nearly wrecked the nicely-laid plans of the Courtaulds, who were almost alone, at one time, in seeing the vast potentialities of artificial silk.

Eventually, however, a Leicester firm that had recently built a new weaving machine was persuaded to give the new silk a trial, and from that date orders poured into the Courtauld ofiices faster than they could execute.

New factories sprang up, armies of workers were engaged, all the markets of the world were canvassed, American and Canadian holdings were purchased until the firm’s reserves had risen to £1 < ,000,000 and its dividend to 25 per cent.! To-day the firm employs 1,000 hands in Braintree and Booking, 700 in Halstead, and thousands more in Coventry, Flint, Wolverhampton, America, and Canada. My lady’s stockings begin in Coventry, where the silk thread is made; it undergoes various developments in Halstead, Braintree, and Booking, where it is weaved, wound, and spun, and dyed and finished respectively. The present-day family of Courtaulds is a large one. Eighteen of its members have holdings in the firm calculated at £10,000,000; several of them are millionaires, yet their names are seldom before the public except in connection with some charitable gift, as when the present Mr. Samuel Courtauld gave £50,000 to the nation for the purchase of modern French pictures. The titular head of the family is Mr W. J. Courtauld, J.P., of Penny Pot, Halstead, who is said to be a triple millionaire. Certainly he holds the largest number of shares, though he has never taken any active part in the direction of the firm’s affairs. Intended for the political arena, he has been confined to local government by ill-health. Braintree, which he so ably represents on the Essex County Council, owes to his beneficence its £25,000 cottage hospital, a recreation ground purchased for £20,000, and a new town hall to cost £50,000!

His intense interest in and patronage of music has given Braintree no mean status as a musical centre to which Mr Courtauld has attracted most of the world’s finest musicians. He is also devoted to astronomy, and incidentally is known as one of the best-dressed men in Essex.

His younger brother, Mr Samuel Courtauld, great-grandson of the original Samuel Courtauld, is chairman of the directors of the silk firm. He resides in Halstead and at Portman square.

Other members of the Courtauld family who have large interests in the firm are Miss K. M. Courtauld, known as the pioneer woman farmer of Essex, Miss Sidney Courtauld, who is sister to Mr W. J. Courtauld and devoted to sculpture, Mr. G. Courtauld, who fruit farms at Earls Colne, Mr J. R. Courtauld, also a farmer, and the Rev. Maitland Courtauld.

The family crest bears a silver fluer-de-lis, a happy perpetuity of the second Augustine’s silverwork, and the motto is “Tiens a la verite” (“Hold to the truth”). This, too, is aptly chosen, for if a certain gallant Huguenot had not so held to his faith the modern history of feminine apparel might have been a vastly different story.—John o’ London’s Weekly.