Luke Turner & Co. Ltd.

Elastic webbing, a key ingredient

In the mid-19th century the manufacture of elastic webbing for boots, stockings, braces etc. was a very profitable business in Leicester. Elastic web is a material widely used in clothing, upholstery and other products. It is a woven rubber thread sometimes interwoven with cotton, wool or other fibres to provide elasticity.

The manufacture of elastic web in Leicester dates from 1839, when Caleb Bedells opened a factory in Southgate Street to produce a new and improved type of rubber webbing.

The rise and fall of an industry

From 1844 the process of vulcanisation of rubber vastly improved the raw material for elastic web and in the same year Archibald Turner founded his elastic web factory, the Bow Bridge Works, Leicester. The industry grew throughout the nineteenth century and by 1877 there were an incredible 47 elastic web manufacturers in the town! However, partly through changes in fashion and partly because manufacturers failed to involve themselves in research and development of new products, processes and machines, the industry declined towards the end of the nineteenth century. By 1902 there remained only 18 viable companies in operation, but one that survived – well into the twentieth century – was Luke Turner & Co.

Adverts for Luke Turner and E. Wykes Ltd. from the ‘Leicester Official Handbook 1954’

Luke Turner & Co. Ltd.

Supplying both the footwear industry and hosiery, the Luke Turner company extended the uses to which the material could be put – such as braids, cords, garters, corsetry, bandages, covered fine elastic for millinery, drapery, umbrellas, welts for underwear and kindred goods. One of their famous brand names was ‘Lion’.

The original factory in Grange Lane

Whilst many of the elastic web factory buildings have been demolished or changed usage, the Turner factory survives. The original 1862 factory built for Luke Turner & Company in Grange Lane with extensions into Deacon Street, covers a complete corner site. It contained a research department and a room with special looms for experimentation, trial and testing of new products, designs, material and colours. This progressive attitude kept the company in business with national and international markets.  In 1878 the company built another factory at Peterborough  and expansion in Leicester led to the building of a large, custom-built factory in 1893.   

Part of the Luke Tuner factory being demolished, 1970. Vanished Leicester at the University of Leicester

A new factory designed for productivity

A double row of cast-iron columns runs centrally through each floor of the factory providing a central aisle, so that machines and processes could be accommodated on each side, with benefit of considerable natural light and cross ventilation from the large expanses of glazed wall.  The exterior walls are the factory’s most unusual feature and appear to be unique, at least in Leicester, and far ahead of their time. The vast window walls are only subdivided by narrow, undecorated cast-iron struts and lateral girders holding the floors. The narrowness of the struts permits maximum light into the interior. Because of its cutting edge design and for being one of the earliest iron-frame examples in the UK it is listed, preserving it for future generations.

Luke Turner - a prominent citizen

Luke Turner died in 1897. He had been a substantial figure in the life of the town; he was considered of considerable standing in Anglican religious and educational circles. Amongst many local dignitaries who attended his funeral, were the Mayor and the incumbents of four major Leicester churches.

After Luke Turner’s death, his sons carried on the business until 1941 when it was taken over by Penn Elastics, an American-owned firm. The factory closed in 1974 and since then it has been restored and re-purposed into residential apartments.