By the end of the 19th century, the company had become the largest textile machinery manufacturer in the world, employing more than 12,000 workers.

[1] Henry Platt was a blacksmith who in 1770 was manufacturing carding equipment, in Dobcross, Saddleworth, to the east of Oldham.

When John Platt died in 1872 the company employed 7,000 men and had established itself as the world's largest textile machinery manufacturer.

[3] During World War I the company produced munitions, but afterwards resumed textile machinery manufacture and continued to expand.

The drawings and rights to the Platt Ginning Machines are owned by HSL Engineering in Leeds West Yorkshire.

Cotton was the most important natural fibre, but there was a sizeable Worsted industry in neighbouring West Yorkshire.

Platts introduced successive models of carding machines, roving frames and self-acting mules in 1868, 1886 and 1900.

[4] After a record year in 1896, the company faced competition from new ring spinning frames, an alternative technology suited to coarse counts.

[1] The works were visited by George V and Queen Mary on the first day of their eight-day 1913 Royal Tour of Lancashire on 7 July 1913.

Having been taken over in the 1960s, Platt Saco Lowell had grave financial problems, and was put into administration by its parent company, Hollingsworth.

The name change was done for phonetic reasons so although Toyota is now best known as an automotive company, it began as Toyoda the textile machinery manufacturer.

His advocacy of free trade and business knowledge led him to visit Paris with Richard Cobden to assist in the negotiations of the French Commercial Treaty.