3-102-258 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A few of seven hundred skilled work-people: a busy scene in one of the work-rooms, 1909. 'Caps and the Man. As recently as 1863 under twenty men were employed in cap-making in Manchester; now Messrs. N. Jacobson, Limited, alone employ seven hundred skilled men and women. The output of the firm is 5000 dozens of caps a week, and added to these are many hats and pith helmets of various sorts...the sewing together of the different segments of cloth into the cap proper is done by girls at electrically driven sewing-machines, of which there are 500 In the factory. Mr. Jacobson, head of the Clarence and the Imperial Hat Works, Manchester, recalls that when he commenced the manufacture of caps in 1863 it was a trade which employed scarcely twenty men in the whole of the city.' From "Illustrated London News", 1909.