BRITISH PATENT
GB 3.077 William Edward Newton
Sewing Machine
of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer, for an invention for improvements in sewing machines. Partly a communication.
Provisional protection only. December 27, 1856
Provisional protection was allowed on the 27th of November, 1856, to William Edward Newton for an invention communicated to him from abroad and consisting of a new stitch incapable of being ripped out, as each individual stitch is tied or knotted by throwing a shuttle and thread through a loop formed from its own thread. The thread is, by a peculiar needle, through the cloth, both upwards and downwards in the form of a loop and one thread only is used, which is carried in a shuttle. The shuttle passes with the end of the thread through the loop; both strands, however, of the loop do not pass through the adjacent loops, as in the ordinary chain stitch, but one strand of the loop passes through one loop and the other through the next loop in succession. The needle employed is a barbed one and the shuttle, by carrying the thread in a single strand through the loop of its own thread, as formed by the barbed needle, ties a knot in the thread at each stitch in such a manner that it cannot possibly be drawn out. The essential feature of this invention is stated to be the making a stitch of a single thread by throwing a shuttle and thread through a loop formed from the shuttle thread itself.
We are very sorry that this provisional protection was not proceeded with, as judging from the nature of the stitch (a firm and lasting single thread stitch) and the apparent simplicity of the machine itself, we are inclined to write it down as a valuable invention and shall be glad to recognise it again should our researches enable us to obtain further and more detailed particulars of it.
extract from
History of the Sewing Machine The Practical Mechanic’s Journal