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FAMOUS PEOPLE

JOHN HEATHCOAT:
JOHN HEATHCOAT was born into a farming family in 1783 at Duffield in Derbyshire. At the age of eleven, he was sent to school in HATHERN when his family moved to Long Whatton. He was first apprenticed to a hosier in KEGWORTH and later to a frame-smith in NOTTINGHAM, whose business he eventually bought.

In 1803 he moved to HATHERN, and then, in 1805, to LOUGHBOROUGH where he worked on the construction of a machine for making lace. In 1808 he took out his first patent on the machine known as the "horizontal pillow" but it was his second patent which brought him fame and fortune. This was called the "Old Loughborough", taken out in 1809 and in a very short time the machine made him one of the Midlands' leading employers. About the same time, he went into partnership with CHARLES LACY, a Nottingham manufacturer of net lace.

But soon many other manufacturers were blatantly copying his inventions and, although this was an illegal infringement of patent, there was little protection from the law in such circumstances. By 1816, there were 150 such infringements generating so much competition that HEATHCOAT and his new partner JOHN BODEN cut the wages of their workers. This action was, not unnaturally, much resented by the work force and ultimately led to an attack on HEATHCOAT AND BODEN's factory in MILL STREET, LOUGHBOROUGH (now MARKET STREET) by a group of LUDDITES. On the night of JUne 28th, 1816, a group of seventeen raiders allegedly smashed fifty five lace making machines in the factory and burned the lace. One watchman was shot, but not fatally.

The raiders were dealt with extremely harshly and in some cases on very unreliable evidence from a raider who turned KIng's Evidence in return for a light sentence. Seven of the Luddites were hanged in Leicester and three others were transported to Australia.

But even before the attack, HEATHCOAT had decided to move his business to Devon where the failure of the wool trade mean t there were plenty of empty mills and cheap labour. He set up his new enterprise in TIverton and made a great impact on the town, serving as it's MP from 1832 to 1859. The partnership with BODEN was dissolved in 1821 and he ran the business alone until retiring in 1843. He died in January 1861 and is buried in Tiverton churchyard. HEATHCOTE STREET, off FREDERICK STREET in LOUGHBOROUGH still keeps alive his memory.