WHAT A SPANISH LADY BROUGHT TO ENGLAND

New Zealand Tablet, 23 October 1913, Page 61

WHAT A SPANISH LADY BROUGHT TO ENGLAND

When the unfortunate Katharine of Aragon first came to England, she brought with her from Spain an article which was quite unfamiliar to English eyes. This small but necessary article had been manufactured in France, and was sent from that country to Spain 'as a part of the elegant trousseau prepared for the ’bride of the King. Walking down one of our busy Streets, you might pick up a hundred perhaps, and not a few on any country road. But in the days when 'Henry VIII. ruled England it was an expensive luxury. And what do you suppose it was? Only a pin ! 1 Previous to that time, the fastenings in general use consisted of clasps, ribbons, strings, loopholes ; 'skewers of bone, silver, gold, brass, or wood, and 'crudely formed hooks and eyes. But the simple pin, ‘with its solid head and sharp point, was unknown. France claims that all new ideas came into the world through her, however well they may afterward be developed and perfected by other nations. In the evolution of the pin, France deserves the credit. She made the best pins long before they could be made in other countries ; and it was a Frenchman, Fournier by name, who went to Nuremberg and taught the wire drawers and makers of that city how to improve their machines and .thus draw the wire finer for the manufacture of pins with solid heads. This improvement was a muchone for an act had been passed in England prohibiting the sale of pins unless they, had solid or double heads which did not come off. For a long time, then, pins- in England belong to the list of imported articles ; but in 1626 a manufactory was started in Gloucestershire by a man namen John Tilsby, who bperated so successfully that he employed as many as fifteen hundred persons. Pin-making was for a long period a tedious labor, and sixteen individuals were employed in the eighteen processes of the manufacture of a .pin. Now machinery 'ha£ made the operation so simple and so rapid that pins can be bought for a trifle, They are manufactured only in small quantities in France, Germany, and Austria— the great seats of pin factories; while England and America have all the large pin manufactories of the world, and furnish annually hundreds of tons of them to civilised nations.