BRITISH  PATENT  1.143 - 1857

1.143  Matthew Dunnett, Glasgow, improvements in embroidering or sewing and in machinery or apparatus connected therewith. These improvements have chiefly for their object the production by machinery of sewed muslins and other ornamental fabrics in a more satisfactory and economical manner than has hitherto been attainable, whilst at the same time modifications of the improved system are applicable to sewing of a non ornamental character. One modification of machinery or apparatus to which the improvements are applicable is constructed, as regards its general features, according to a well known principle, being capable of producing simultaneously any convenient number of uniform repetitions of the same pattern by means of a corresponding number of needles. The form of the ornamental details embroidered upon the fabric or material is produced either by the movement of the frame carrying the fabric or by that of the frame or frames carrying the needles and is derived from a pattern or design drawn to an enlarged scale, by means of which the movement referred to is regulated. When, as is generally the case, the pattern is shaped by the movement of the fabric the latter is stretched between rollers or otherwise in a vertical frame, mounted so as to be capable of moving in any direction in the piano of the fabric, whilst it continues in every position parallel to the some vertical and horizontal or other lines. Counter weights are applied to the frame, to enable it to move in every direction with equal freedom and it is usually connected to tho fixed framework of the machine by rods and guides, arranged to retain it in one plane, but allowing it to move freely in that plane. According to one plan comprehended in the present invention the frame upon which the fabric is stretched is arranged to move in horizontal or vertical grooves in a second frame or slide, which last is capable of moving at right angles to the first frame in grooves formed upon the fixed framework of the machine. The regulating movement by which the embroidered device is shaped may be constructed on the principle of any suitable pantographic instrument, but according to one plan comprehended in the present invention it is constructed on the principle of the instrument known as the Eidograph. 

Petition recorded.                                                                  April  23, 1857