Christy (also known as Christy UK and Christy Towels)is a long-established manufacturer of household linens and is known as the inventor of the first industrially produced looped cotton ( terrycloth) towel. It was founded in 1850 in the English mill town of Droylsden,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancas ...

(now part of

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

History

John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a Victorian era, late-Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to t ...

archives show that the roots of the Christy company date from at least 1833, when the

Stockport Stockport is a town and borough in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey here. Most of the town is withi ...

firm of W. M. Christy & Sons Ltd – established by banker and

hatter Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter. Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of g ...

William Miller Christy William Miller Christy (1778–1858) was an English Quaker hat and textile manufacturer, known also as a banker. He is credited with the invention of the penny receipt-stamp. Life He was the second son of Miller Christy (1748–1820) and Ann Ri ...

– was manufacturing cotton goods. Christy's son, the noted collector and

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropolog ...

Henry Christy Henry Christy (26 July 1810 – 4 May 1865) was an English banker and collector, who left his substantial collections to the British Museum. Early life Christy was born at Kingston upon Thames, the second son of William Miller Christy of Woodbi ...

, discovered the product that would make the company famous. While travelling in

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, he saw an example of the looped pile fabric that is known today as

terry towelling Terrycloth, terry cloth, terry cotton, terry toweling, terry, terry towel, or simply toweling is a fabric woven with many protruding loops of thread which can absorb large amounts of water. It can be manufactured by weaving or knitting. Terrycl ...

, but which was initially known as the 'Turkish towel'. The company found a method of weaving the looped pile fabric on an industrial scale using a machine designed by one of their employees Samuel Holt, who patented the design. The first Christy towels factory opened in Droylsden in 1850. A year later, Christy towels were displayed at

The Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

became an early client. By 1891, the company's Fairfields Mill in Droylsden had 310 looms and 30,000 spindles, according to ''Worrall's Cotton Spinners Directory''. Christy was purchased by

Fine Spinners and Doublers Fine Spinners and Doublers was a major cotton spinning business based in Manchester, England. At its peak it was a constituent of the FT 30 index of leading companies on the London Stock Exchange. History Formation Fine Spinners and Doubler ...

in 1955, and became part of the

Courtaulds Courtaulds was a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of fabric, clothing, artificial fibres, and chemicals. It was established in 1794 and became the world's leading man-made fibre production company before being broken up in 1990 into Courtaulds ...

group eight years later. The company relocated from its Droylsden base to

Hyde, Greater Manchester Hyde is a town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England, which had a population of 34,003 in 2011. Historically in Cheshire, it is northeast of Stockport, west of Glossop and east of Manchester. History Early history Newton Hall was presen ...

in the late 1980s. When Courtaulds spun off its textile businesses in 2000, Christy was sold to a

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena o ...

team.

The company today

Christy became a subsidiary of

Welspun India Ltd Welspun India Limited is a textile company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is Asia's largest and the 2nd largest terry towel producer in the world It exports more than 94% of its home textiles products to more than 50 countries. It exp ...

in 2006, shifting towel manufacturing from its base in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

in 2010. The company's UK headquarters was relocated to Cheadle in 2012. In addition to retailing towels, bathrobes and bedlinen in stores throughout the UK, the company sells online and in Europe, the U.S. and Australia. Notably, it supplies towels to

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the business. It became a di ...

. Christy also produces for other brands, including Harlequin and

Agent Provocateur An agent provocateur () is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, th ...

. The company has a long-term relationship with tennis, producing the towels used by players at Wimbledon since 1987. In 2012, the company produced over 99,000 Wimbledon towels, which are also sold to tournament attendees.

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

reported in 2013 that only a third of the towels Christy supplies to the Championship are returned, due to the players keeping them or throwing them into the crowd as mementos.

References

{{reflist

External sources

Christy website detailing company historyW.M. Christy & Sons Ltd archive at the University of Manchester Library
Textile manufacturers of England Companies based in Tameside Manufacturing companies established in 1850 Manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom British companies established in 1850