McCaw Allan

- a tea towel collection

Introduction

It is a privilege to have been asked to tell the story of McCaw, Allan & Co Ltd., a linen merchant and manufacturer with its roots firmly in the Lurgan area in Co Armagh. Although they no longer trade under their own name, the brand is kept very much alive as part of the Samuel Lamont Group also based in Lurgan. The company has generously shared records of design materials from the last 100 years or so, including its eclectic collection of tea towels. But it isn’t just the linen itself that tells a story – there are handwritten notes scribbled on scraps of paper, labels pinned to proof samples with production instructions and brand labels, all of which give us a glimpse into the day to day activities of the business and clues as to who their customers were.

Sadly, precious little remains from the early years of McCaw Allan. Family papers and business records are held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, but most of the design registers and customer ledgers are long gone, disposed of due to lack of space when the company relocated. This is a situation repeated all too often as linen businesses closed or moved premises in the mid to late 20th century. However, whilst much of the earlier material is lost, it has been fascinating to read interviews with former staff recorded as part of the Living Linen project at the Ulster Folk Museum and to speak with those McCaw Allan employees who still work for the Samuel Lamont Group today. An account of the company’s history can be found on the Lamont website, (www.samuellamont.com) together with a superb selection of images, some of which are reproduced here.

So, let’s delve into the remaining records and see what we can learn…….

Fiona McKelvie Textile Specialist

Where it all began ………

Below is a group photo of the staff taken in 1904 outside the Taghnevan factory. This was a significant year for the enterprise as it marked the beginning of the partnership between Robert Johnston McCaw and Harry Allan, forming McCaw, Allan & Co Ltd.

Former classmates from Lurgan College, R. J. McCaw and Harry Allan brought complementary skills to the table – RJ, as he was known, was an expert on the production and administrative side, and Harry a specialist in sales and marketing.

Today we might call them the dream team and in a short space of time they rapidly expanded the sales of the company’s products. Just 2 years later their sales stood at almost £16,000, singled out for special mention. Less often do we hear about Lurgan as a centre of linen importance.

However, Slater’s Royal National Directory of Ireland in 1894 tells us that ‘The staple trade of Lurgan is the linen and cambric manufacture, and in producing variety of fabrics, as cambrics, lawns, diapers, damasks, &c. A large proportion of the population of the town and its vicinity are thus employed, whilst some of the establishments of the yarn and linen merchants are extensive. Hand-loom weaving is also extensively carried on in the town and neighbouring country districts: this branch of industry is mainly confined to the production of the finest grades of linen and cambric handkerchiefs.’

In the 1896 Directory of Belfast and Ulster we read that ‘Lurgan may be said to be the cradle of the Linen industry, and to the success and skill of its inhabitants and the surrounding villages in the cambric and damask manufactory, and in later years the handkerchief hemstitching business is to be attributed the onward progress of the town.’

So, we have a sense of the importance of Lurgan and its surroundings to the production of this beautiful textile, not only in terms of the cloth itself, but also the vital role it played in providing employment for families in the local community.

Lurgan firms were some of the pioneers in the introduction of power loom weaving in the mid 1800s, but this sounded the death knell of the handloom industry, which had been so important to the town. However, it was widely acknowledged that the cloth woven on the early power looms couldn’t compete with the quality of handwoven linen. Indeed there was still demand for the work of the exceptionally skilled hand weaver well into the 20th century; the last handloom factory in Lurgan closed its doors in 1968.

It was not only in the sphere of weaving that Lurgan businesses made great strides. In 1866 James Malcolm was the first company in the United Kingdom to hemstitch linen using a machine. This transformed the finishing of fine linens, which up to this point had all been hemmed by hand.

Against this background of innovation and change, it is not surprising that the McCaw family recognised an opportunity to grow their business, whilst at the same time working closely with the local community in the Lurgan area. The firm was what was known as a merchant converter. They didn’t produce linen themselves, but rather purchased cloth, which they then transformed into a wide variety of items using different finishing techniques to create the final product.

In the early years McCaw Allan would send handwoven linen to be bleached before calling on the skills of local outworkers to embellish the cloth with embroidery or ‘sprigging’ as it was known. Drawn thread or spoke work, a technique by which threads were cut and pulled together, was also used to create a decorative border on tablecloths, pillowcases, sheets and hand towels.

Each outworker would have been equipped with a numbered sampler of designs such as the one shown here above, and they would be given the appropriate linen to embellish together with instructions as to which design should be used. For example, ten standard pillowcases of number 8 or four tablecloths with number 11. In 1912 it is estimated that in the immediate Lurgan area there were as many as 1,400 outworkers.

At the beginning of the 1900s McCaw Allan sent linens as far afield as Rathfriland and Hilltown. Each week a driver in a horse-drawn carriage would leave Taghnevan at 4.00am, not returning until 10.00pm. By the 1970s such trips were less frequent –Douglas Mowbray, the present Purchasing Manager, was the office boy at this time and it was he who made the deliveries and collections, but perhaps only once a month or so.

R. J. McCaw was an innovator and a forward-thinking man, always keen to take advantage of new industrial and technical developments to ensure the efficient functioning of the business. In 1911 he arranged for the town’s gas supply to be brought to the factory to provide lighting. He also grasped the opportunity to install the new-fangled telephone. McCaw Allan’s was one of the first ten telephone lines to be supplied in Lurgan. The number allocated was Lurgan 2 – the Post Office was

Even as recently as the 1970s the company was generating its own DC electricity supply to run the belt driven machinery in both the sewing and laundry rooms. The laundry department at that time relied on gas irons and all the linen would have been ‘damp smoothed’. Linen is much better ironed when damp and this method of pressing gives a superior finish, particularly important for the fine linen sheets and pillowcases being supplied to prestigious clients such as Harrods and The White House in London’s Bond Street, not forgetting the Royal Household.

Billy Duff who worked for the company from 1939, recalled working for RJ – he described him as a gentleman of high standards who expected the same from his employees. He was a stickler for efficiency and insisted that there be no waste in the factory. He was meticulous in everything he did and stood for no nonsense from his staff. It seems that these qualities were inherited by his son George, who was described by one interviewee applying for a post with the company in 1980 as being very correct and Victorian.

Harry Allan is remembered as a larger-than-life character and a gifted salesman. He was based at the company’s office in London and, unlike the majority of salesmen of the time, he refused to wear formal clothing such as a frock coat and top hat, preferring instead to don a Donegal tweed overcoat and hat, making him instantly memorable. Visiting salesmen to Harrods were always expected to use a back entrance, indeed they still are today. Harry however always made his entrance through the front doors of the store.

The company relied hugely on the workforce of the local area. Whether as outworkers weaving or embroidering at home or machinists working in the factory, the employees of McCaw Allan were primarily local people. They came from the nearby townlands of Legacorry, Drumgor and Moyraverty. The firm was very fortunate in having the loyalty of its staff. Douglas Mowbray, who began work as an office boy in 1972, reports that his great aunt, Lilly Lyness, appears in the 1904 image of staff outside the factory; she is also amongst the group photographed on the occasion of the firm’s 50th anniversary in 1954. Moreover, it was not uncommon for generations of the same family to be working for McCaw Allan.

It should be remembered that there were also local businesses which relied on the linen merchants and manufacturers of Lurgan for their livelihood. Not all the hemstitching and finishing of linens happened ‘in-house’. McCaw Allan relied on ‘trade stitchers’ such as Twyble & Co. for hemstitching and purchased boxes and packaging from John Best & Co. They would also have bought labels and ribbons and acetate lids for the vast quantity of ‘fancy linens’ they produced. The image below shows a typical example. Fancy linens included items such as tray cloths, breakfast sets and trolley sets, which were very popular up to the 1960s.

A box of Irish Linen hand embroidered, hemstitched handkerchiefs sold by McCaw Allan under the Irish Cabin brand. Presented in a simple cardboard box with an acetate lid, the hankies were meticulously folded and pinned in place by someone known as a ‘fancy folder’ or ornamenter. Two bows of ribbon were added together with two labels.

A Breakfast Set from McCaw Allan from the 1950s consisting of a small padded teacosy and cover, a traycloth and matching napkin, all hand embroidered on Irish Linen.

The Living Linen transcripts of the interviews with former McCaw Allan staff, which are part of the archive collection at the Ulster Folk Museum in Cultra, give an excellent picture of the company. Jimmy Mills, who joined the firm as an agent in 1975, recalled that they had a very good name and reputation.

With their beautiful London showroom, they gave the impression of being a very big company, whereas they were working from a small factory and warehouse in Lurgan. Billy Duff started with the firm in 1939 ‘licking stamps’ and stayed for 52 years. By the time he retired he was a director of McCaw Allan. The firm was primarily a converter of linen but also manufactured cotton goods as the market might require. Billy remembers that during World War II they made denim uniforms for the army. We know that the company was involved in the production of linen for the war effort during this period.

Billy recalls how post war they had a large handkerchief collection, as well as fine linen sheets in 3 or 4 qualities and a wide range of fancy linens. He remembers that packaging was of huge importance for the fancy linens products and at one time the warehouse was home to a stock of tens of thousands of boxes.

He lists some of the prestigious names on the firm’s customer list: Harrods, The White House, Bourne and Hollingsworth, Swan and Edgar and Robinson and Cleaver. It is interesting to note that the McCaw family were producing linens 50 to 60 years before most of these companies started in business. We read that the company added CMT (cut, make and trim) to its list of activities in the 1970s and it was at this time that their relationship began with Liberty in London, one which still continues today. Liberty would send fabric to Lurgan and McCaw Allan would make handkerchiefs or aprons or carrier bags as required.

The firm sold their goods throughout the UK and regularly participated in the major textile exhibitions in London. The Ulster Office in the Robinson and Cleaver building in London’s Regent Street was where they had a base for some years. The company was also active in export sales and sample ranges of their products were held by agents in the USA, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. They sold their linen products using the Irish Cabin brand and cotton goods had Irish Abbey as their trademark. The labels reflected the huge importance placed on the products’ Irish origins, reinforcing the reputation held by Irish Linen as being the very best.

There are instances where McCaw Allan was required to show the branding of the customer rather than their own trademark as we see here on the packaging of linen sheets for Harrods. Different coloured boxes and ribbons were used to differentiate between the various finishes of linen supplied. In this case green to denote a corded style and blue for a hemstitched finish.

By the late 1990s McCaw

Allan had been granted a Royal Warrant for the supply of fine bedlinens to Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and this gave them the right to display the Royal Arms on their packaging, stationery etc. Here is a set of boxed linens showing the Royal Arms on the box lid, together with the Legend, which provides details of the warrant granted. Here also we see that the McCaw

Allan name is now printed in gold on a green ribbon.

In the second half of the 20th century many linen companies in Northern Ireland were finding business difficult. Households were turning to easy care textiles from the Far East, the traditional table linens were less popular, and the advent of the paper hankie had put a strain on the handkerchief manufacturers. McCaw Allan was fortunate in that it had none of the difficulties of the linen bleachers and weavers. As a merchant converter they were better placed to adapt their product ranges to meet the changing demands of the consumer – and that is exactly what they did.

Whilst they continued to produce fine bedlinens, handkerchiefs and classic tablecloths, which were a core part of their collection, McCaw Allan made the decision to refresh their range of kitchen linens. The traditional linen glass cloth or kitchen cloth, with its red or green woven stripe on a white background, had always been a strong seller for the firm. Linen has many properties that make it the perfect choice for a kitchen textile. It is exceptionally absorbent and dries quickly, it is stronger when wet, it is naturally antimicrobial and, being lint free, it is ideally suited to drying crystal and glassware, leaving them free of streaks or fluff. As the 1960s approached the firm decided to add to their range by offering printed tea towels and in the years that followed McCaw Allan produced them in their millions.

Following the Festival of Britain in 1951 the field of textile design had changed radically. This was a time of creativity that transformed the design of textiles for the home and many talented designers and artists contributed to this style revolution. The simple and traditional linen tea towel became the perfect canvas for artists to express the optimism and energy of the time. Suddenly people had access to exciting design for their home at affordable prices. What was once a humble utility textile now took on a very different role and many a vividly patterned tea towel in bold and bright colours was hung on the wall as a piece of art. Of course, they also continued to be used to dry dishes as originally intended.

The printed tea towel epitomises the spirit of McCaw Allan. Innovation, collaboration, the international nature of the business and their relationships with many world-famous brands. The archive textile materials still safely stored in the Lurgan warehouse span a period of around 30/35 years with some designs dating from the early 1960s. There are ring bound folders with page upon page of tea towel designs. Six photos, every one the size of a playing card, fill each A4 sheet, and they are accompanied by handwritten notes giving us details of the design name, where it was printed and the last date it was printed.

The design themes are hugely varied. In the 1960s the world of printed textiles was significantly influenced by the Flower Power, Psychedelia and Pop Art of the era and there are many designs echoing these artistic styles. There is the traditional ‘tourist’ type image of Big Ben or a Beefeater at the Tower of London; characters from children’s nursery rhymes; numerous designs inspired by the natural world - animals, butterflies and endless florals. There is also a fascinating group which could be classed as ‘educational but fun’ – a guide to going metric, handy hints on how to store different foods or eat healthily, and even instructions on how to plant bulbs in the garden.

There are many commemorative designs, mainly featuring the Royal Family; the investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales in 1969, the 80th birthday of The Queen Mother in 1980 and the 1977 jubilee of HM The Queen. And, as one would expect, the culture of Ireland is celebrated in many different forms – recipes for Irish breads and stew and coffee, maps, the thatched cottage and traditional Dublin pubs. There are nostalgic images of the seaside, several versions of the London Underground map, views of ‘Bonnie Dundee’; it seems that the tea towel was fast becoming a longer lasting version of the holiday postcard - a souvenir to take home to remind you or someone else of where you had visited that summer.

The artists who created these designs are for the most part anonymous – of the many hundreds of tea towels studied, only 5 included the name of the designer, and in each case the designs had been supplied by the client, with McCaw Allan producing the finished article. McCaw Allan for their own collections would buy designs from freelance designers and also had a small studio in house.

The Council of Industrial Design or CoID had been formed in 1944 to champion good design from British industry and its Design Centre opened in London’s Haymarket in 1956. Products manufactured by McCaw Allan were recognised by the Design Centre on several occasions. The Historic Houses of Great Britain tea towel illustrated here was one of the winning items in the Historic Houses Competition organised by the CoID and the British Tourist Authority. The cloth was made in 3 colourways. The competition judges, chaired by Sir Hugh Casson, selected around 140 souvenirs from the 396 entries and the winning products were included in the Design Index.

Having been selected the tea towel could carry the coveted Design Centre label as shown below.

McCaw Allan offered a vast range of designs in their collection, but they also worked with companies who wanted their own design created as a tea towel or apron. The introduction to an early catalogue explains as follows:

‘Design your own

Have your own design or logo printed on a tea towel, ovenglove, PVC coated bag or apron. Our promotional department has wide experience in producing quality products for promotional and other purposes.

Give us your ideas with rough sketches, photographs etc. and we will prepare full size artwork for your approval, or we can work from your artwork.’

Many companies were quick to spot the commercial potential of the printed tea towel as a means of advertising their brands. The cloths were given away as promotional gifts or formed part of a brand orientated gift collection. Leafing through the ring bound folders reveals an impressive roll call of well-known names – Guinness, Thames Television, Liberty, Twinings tea, Fyffes, the Potato Marketing Board, Skol lager, McDougall’s flour and Lyons coffee to name just a few all commissioned McCaw Allan to print for them. There are too many examples to show here but I have selected two which really stand out.

‘Bottle of Hastings’ 1966. The design, devised by Stanley Penn of the Guinness advertising agency SH Benson Ltd, featured a Guinness take on the famous Bayeux Tapestry. This tea towel was issued in 1966 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the 1066 Battle of Hastings.

The minimum print run for a design would have been approximately 1300 units. McCaw Allan worked with a number of different printers in the province – amongst them Clendinnings, Belfast Silk & Rayon, Ulster Print Works and Riverside Textiles printworks in Antrim. Before the advent of digital technology the designs were screen printed. The printed cloth would then return to the Lurgan factory where it would be cut, hemmed, labelled and packed before being sent to the customer or added to the warehouse stock of their own collection. None of the original screens has been preserved but here we have an image of a selection, together with a photo taken in 1949 illustrating the hand printing process at Belfast Silk and Rayon.

The records held in Lurgan include some stunning original pieces of artwork and a set of colour separations. The painstaking task of creating the artwork required for the screen-printing process was all done by hand. When printing the linen each colour is applied separately using a different screen so the design is built up layer by layer. To prepare the screen, what is known as a colour separation is created on an acetate sheet.

The image below shows the 4 acetate sheets used to make up the Miss Liberty design as shown opposite. This illustrates the 4 different pieces required to achieve the finished tea towel.

Below is an image showing the process being used to produce the separations for the Herbs and Butterflies design and the finished design. Nowadays, the laborious process of hand drawing and colouring is a distant memory as all design work is done on a CAD system - computer aided design. This cuts the timescale and eases the sampling of designs considerably. A long way from how things were done in the 1970s.

The original paintings and artwork reveal the immense skill and talent of the artists. The detail and intricacy of the designs is impressive. The artwork is annotated with details relating to the colours, sometimes on the front but most usually on the reverse.

The production activity, too, was meticulous. For example, the records contained four identical tea towels featuring a design for the Milk Marketing Board from the early 1970s. Extolling the virtues of Real Dairy Cream, the tea towel gives recipe suggestions for both sweet and savoury dishes. There are small scraps of paper attached to two of the towels – one records that a wash test has been conducted and the towel has been ‘Boiled for an hour with mild detergent and ironed 30/12/71’. The laundered towel is pristine and has reassuringly lost none of its colour or crispness. The other label states that the design has been ‘approved per letter 31/12/71 except that / strokes in ¼ pint need thickened’. Looking closely, you can see that the forward stroke is barely visible in the original sample. Remedial work has been conducted on the screens and the final sample shows the ¼ very clearly. This reveals the attention to detail entailed in the production processes.

McCaw Allan entered the new millennium in optimistic fashion. Reporting on the group of Northern Ireland exhibitors at the Heimtextil international trade fair in Frankfurt, in January 2000, the trade journal Fabrics and Furnishings International quoted the firm’s then Managing Director, Stanley Hadden, as saying ‘Linen is still a good business, but it is a changing market. Perhaps we need to reinvent the fabric for a younger market and give it a more contemporary treatment.’ The spirit of RJ McCaw and Harry Allan was still in evidence as the firm continued to realise the importance of adapting to changes in customer tastes.

2004 saw the celebration of the centenary of McCaw Allan; the following year the firm became part of the Samuel Lamont Group. By joining forces with another long standing linen company , McCaw Allan now benefit from the well-established online presence of Givans, another member of the group which offers their traditional classic linens directly to an international customer base. Yet again the firm moves with the times. As their 120 year anniversary fast approaches McCaw Allan continue to produce classic heirloom quality linens as part of the Samuel Lamont family department store Liberty and the Victoria and Albert Museum continues and thrives, and it is encouraging to learn of exciting new projects being worked on that will carry forward the tradition of the commemorative linen tea towel on the one hand and the finest of bedlinen on the other. RJ and Harry would be proud to see that their values of efficiency, adaptability and excellence in all things are still very much at the heart of this Lurgan institution.

About the author

This booklet has been compiled by Fiona McKelvie with the support of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council and R-Space Gallery in Lisburn. Fiona has had a career in textiles for more than thirty years, much of that time with Liberty of London. She has spent many years researching the connections and legacy of Irish linen, flax and textiles. In 2013, she launched her website www.mcburneyandblack.com, specialising in the sale of antique and vintage Irish linens. She has contributed to the British Textile Biennial via the Cloth Cultures podcast with Amber Butchart and worked closely with R-Space on the heritage aspects of the first Northern Ireland Linen Biennale in 2018. She has recently returned from London to live permanently in Co Down.

Exhibition

At R-Space Gallery Lisburn, 22 April to 19 May 2023.

Acknowledgements

This project has been supported by the Lurgan Townscape Heritage Scheme, an initiative funded by the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council and the National Lottery Players through The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Thanks to the staff of National Museums NI Library and Archives, Cultra for their help in accessing the Living Linen transcripts.

Many thanks to Douglas Mowbray and the Samuel Lamont Group for their help with access to the physical archive and images.

Photographs: Robert Peters, Fiona McKelvie and archive images from Samuel Lamont Group.

Booklet design: Christina Herdman

Printed by: solopress.com

Text by Fiona McKelvie © 2023