Cloth Seal, French, ROUBAIX, Image & Found by Peterh
Found near Bedmond, Hertfordshire, 27 x 23mm.
Yanok (Wed 25 Apr 03:15:32 2007)
Cloth lead seal from Roubaix (France) :
MANU
FACTURE
DE
ROUBAIX
On the other side, arms of duke of Bouffers, governor of Flanders.
This type of seal started in april 1733.
The coat of arms of Charles de Rohan-Soubise, marquess of Roubaix (among other titles) and governor-general of Flanders and Hainaut.
From Nordmag, "Lord Peter of Roubaix obtained in 1469 from Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold the permission to manufacture cloth, which was confirmed in 1564. In the 17th-18th centuries, cloth-making family workshops developed, the biggest of them being owned by emerging dynasties of manufacturers-traders. The population of the town reached 8,000 in 1800; steam engines were introduced in 1820 by the Grimonprez- Bulteau factory, and their number increased to 29 in 1834, 113 in 1857 and 250 in 1872, yielding to Roubaix the nickname of the "1000- Chimneys Town". Mechanization increased with the introduction in 1843 of the "self-acting mules" by Louis Motte-Bossut. At the end of the 19th century, Roubaix, known as the "Manchester of Cloth", was one of the world capital of cloth: eight manufactures presented their production at the Paris World Fair in 1889. Considered as the European center of cloth-making, Roubaix was visited in 1911 by President of the Republic Armand Fallières and housed the same year the Cloth- Making International Exhibition.
Ruined by the First World War, the cloth industry reemerged at Roubaix in the 1920s, but was again hit by the 1929 crisis and the 1931-1932 strikes. In the same time, Jean Lebas, Mayor of Roubaix from 1912 to 1940, pushed several social innovations, such as school's canteens, school's outdoor centers (centres aérés, the first in France) and council flats (habitations à bon marché).
In the 1960s, cloth industry was hit again by the crisis. In 2000, most factories had disappeared, for instance Motte-Bossut, founded in 1843 and closed in 1981, and the emblematic La Lainière de Roubaix, founded in 1912 by the Prouvost dynasty and closed in 1999. Roubaix moved over into new methods of marketing, becoming the French capital of mail-order selling (La Redoute)."