Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company

Joseph Bancroft (1803-1874) began manufacturing cotton cloth at a small mill in Rockford, Delaware, just north of Wilmington, on March 25, 1831. The mill was built to take advantage of the Brandywine River's water power, and Bancroft adopted the traditional British spinning and weaving technology for use in his operation. The firm expanded steadily during the 1830s and 1840s as it began producing cotton for the Philadelphia and New York markets. In the late 1840s, Joseph Bancroft brought his two sons, William (1825-1928) and Samuel (1840-1915), into the business, assuring that the company would remain a family enterprise. During the American Civil War, when the American market was largely closed to English imports, the Bancroft firm, like many other U.S. textile companies, prospered. After the war, the company developed a new bleaching process and began to concentrate on finishing cotton cloth. The firm incorporated as the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company on October 1, 1889.

The company purchased the Kentmere Mills adjoining their property on the east in 1895 and concentrated manufacturing there, while the old Rockford property was devoted to bleaching, dyeing, and finishing. In 1910, the Bancrofts purchased a third plant at Reading, Pennsylvania, and incorporated the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company of Pennsylvania on May 28, 1911.

Subsequently, all manufacturing was concentrated at Reading, with the Wilmington facilities devoted to bleaching, dyeing, and finishing. In the spring of 1925, the Bancrofts purchased a controlling interest in the Eddystone Manufacturing Company, another cotton manufacturer, and secured 100% control in 1929. The Eddystone Plant was converted entirely to the printing of cottons and linens, and a rayon finishing plant was installed there in 1930.

As new synthetic yarns came into use, Bancroft expanded into those fields. In 1936, it established its Research Department at Wilmington under Dr. Arnold L. Lippert (1910-2004). Its first success was trademarked as "Everglaze," originally the production of a durable finish on glazed chintz, but later used to create permanent-press fabrics. Bancroft began a program of licensing its patents and trademarks in 1938. In 1953, it purchased the rights to a process for crimping yarn from Alexander Smith, Inc. and successfully applied it to nylon to create its "Ban-Lon" brand, which became popular for outerwear, swimsuits, sweaters, and hose. "Ban-Lon" and "Everglaze" were the company's mainstays in its later years.

Around 1947, Bancroft acquired two additional companies, Wm. Simpson, Sons & Co., a converter, and Albert D. Smith & Company, Inc., which had been Bancroft's sales agent for book cloth, window shade cloth, and industrial fabrics, and which they also manufactured on their own account. However, Bancroft remained primarily a finishing company and, as such, found it harder to compete with large, vertically-integrated textile companies. It liquidated its manufacturing operations at Reading in 1957.

By 1960, the Research Department, which handled both research and licensing of products and trademarks developed by Bancroft, was the only viable part of the business. The company considered changing the parent firm's name to Joseph Bancroft & Sons Research Company and spinning off the manufacturing units to a new subsidiary for a tax loss. When this proved too risky, the entire business was sold, and Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Indian Head Mills, Inc., of Massachusetts in September 1961. With the continued erosion of the Northeastern textile industry, the plant became increasingly unprofitable. Indian Head Mills, Inc. became a conglomerate called Indian Head Inc. in 1966, and the finishing plant was put up for sale in 1972. It was purchased by the Wilmington Finishing Company, composed mostly of Bancroft department heads, on June 4, 1973. Indian Head Inc. sold the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company, which by now was reduced to the licensing operation, to Beaunit Corporation in February 1975. Finishing at the Rockford site ended in 1981, and the plant was redeveloped as a condominium complex.

Eddystone Manufacturing Company

William Simpson (1812-1888) began a textile mill in partnership with John Halliday (1810-1875) at the Falls of Schuylkill near Philadelphia in 1836. Born in Manchester, England, to Scottish parents, Simpson came from a family with a long association with textile printing. The family immigrated to Philadelphia in 1818, where John later became apprenticed to a wood block cutter and printer. He eventually went into business for himself in 1836, when, with his brother-in-law John Halliday, he purchased a small factory at the Falls of the Schuylkill and began printing silks. In 1837, after a financial panic, Halliday gave up his share in the business.

In 1842, Simpson partnered with Duncan McGregor (dates unknown), and they expanded the plant and started printing calicos. Although the partnership was initially successful, McGregor left the business in 1845 after the firm's debts had grown. Simpson continued as sole owner, and business conditions had greatly improved by 1848. In the late 1860s, his physician ordered Simpson to take a long sea voyage in hopes of improving his ill health. While he was away, his wife Maria Seville Simpson (1811-1897), continued running the firm.

After Simpson returned in better health, he brought in his two oldest sons, Thomas Simpson (1843-1884) and William Simpson, Jr. (1846-1896), into the business, forming the partnership of William Simpson & Sons in January 1869. The plant, by this point, was highly successful and known as "The Washington Print Works."

As plans began to form for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia of 1876, Simpson needed to move the business away from the Falls of the Schuylkill, as the Fairmount Park Commissioners intended to condemn and purchase the property to expand the exposition site. In 1872, the firm secured a site on the Delaware River at Ridley Creek, and the new plant built there was named "The Eddystone Print Works," after Thomas Simpson had seen the Eddystone Light off the coast of England. The Eddystone location offered plenty of open space for a large, steam-powered factory, in contrast to the constricted water power site at the Falls. Production began in 1874, and the Washington Print Works plant was dismantled in 1875.

In 1874, the firm formed a separate sales company under the name William Simpson, Sons & Company with all three partners and additional members. In 1877, William Simpson & Sons formed The Eddystone Manufacturing Company, Limited, to handle production. The original members of this new 20-year limited partnership were William Simpson, Maria Seville Simpson, Thomas Simpson, Thomas's wife Elizabeth Molten Simpson (1849-1908), William Simpson, Jr., and William's wife Emma Cordelia Morgan Simpson (1849-1919). William Simpson passed away in 1888, and in 1892, the parent firm of William Simpson & Sons dissolved due to the ill health of the remaining members. The sales company continued with organizational changes until acquired by Joseph Bancroft Sons & Company in 1947.

As the initial partnership term was coming to an end, the stockholders decided to form a corporation under the name The Eddystone Manufacturing Company, Inc., incorporated in 1895. The corporation operated until Joseph Bancroft and Sons Company acquired it in 1925. It became the Print Works Division of Joseph Bancroft Sons & Company in 1929. The corporate organization was maintained as a shell company until 1959.

The company expanded its product line several times to offer wide goods, percales, and draperies in 1896; custom printing in 1909; wash goods in 1915; and plissé and printed warps in 1922. The firm introduced its "Fast Color" line of dyed and printed cottons in 1924 and its "Everglaze" permanent glazed finish in 1937. Rayon processing began in 1929.

The other companies and persons represented in this collection each have separate historical or biographical notes at the record group level of this finding aid.