Samuel Holt (weaver)

Samuel Holt (7 February 1811 – 16 September 1887) was a British weaver, inventor and industrialist who emigrated to the United States in later life.

On his return home he gave it to his brother, Richard Christy, who recognized its sales potential if it could be produced.

[3] Holt succeeded and had his first machine running in 1848, and by 1851, a second design using two warps on a loom, one of which formed the looped surface and reproduced the unique pile of the handmade item.

Holt patented his invention which would soon bring terry cloth into mass manufacture for the first time and within the price range of average people!

The first examples of the Turkish towelling(which were knotted by his wife Ann)[4] were displayed at the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, London, where it caught the eye of Queen Victoria.

Samuel Holt left his employer of thirty years and travelled to America, where he helped build and set up the American Velvet Company.

Holt first married in 1833, Elisabeth Hibbert, of Taunton, Ashton-under-Lyne, who died in 1841, leaving two sons, John, b.

His second wife was Ann Aspinall, whom he married in 1847, and who died in Paterson, December 3, 1881, leaving three children, — Samuel, b.