Tootal Broadhurst Lee
| Product type | Scarves, ties, fabrics, accessories |
|---|---|
| Owner | Coats Viyella |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Introduced | 1799 |
| Markets | Worldwide |
| Previous owners |
|
| Website | tootal |
Tootal is a brand name for a range of British ties, scarves and other garments. The brand is now owned by Coats Viyella. It originates from a textile spinning and manufacturing company established in Manchester in 1799, which later became Tootal Broadhurst Lee, and subsequently Tootal Ltd. The company held patents in crease-resistant fabric.
The firm identifies its origins in a company founded in Manchester in 1799 by textile merchant Robert Gardner. The Tootal family, who resided in Wakefield, Yorkshire, became involved in the company in the early nineteenth century. Sarah Tootal married Daniel Broadhurst in 1811, and their son Henry Tootal Broadhurst (1822-1896) – the brother of Charles Edward Broadhurst and brother-in-law of Sir Joseph Whitworth – established a business partnership in Manchester in 1842 with Edward Tootal and Henry Lee, who had worked in Gardner's cotton goods warehouse.
The partnership opened the Sunnybank cotton spinning and weaving mills, and became the largest manufacturer of hand looms in Blackburn, but the partnership was dissolved in 1860. The firm then developed the manufacture of fancy cloths, using steam-powered looms in place of hand looms, and acquired mills at Bolton and Newton Heath for their manufacture. In the 1860s, Henry Tootal Broadhurst, Henry and Joseph Lee, and Robert Scott, were business partners who formed a limited company, Tootal Broadhurst Lee, marketing their goods under the name Tootal.
The company was notable for its vertical integration, combining both spinning and weaving activities, and for its marketing network which included offices and warehouses in Bradford, Belfast and Paris, and national and international agencies promoting their goods. By 1888, when the Tootal, Broadhurst, Lee and Company Ltd. was formed, the firm employed some 5,000 workers and operated 172,000 spindles and 3,500 looms, making it one of the largest integrated cotton textile producing companies in Lancashire. Sir Joseph Cocksey Lee (1832-1894), the brother of Henry Lee MP and later an active promoter of the Manchester Ship Canal, became its chairman. At the same time, a separate company, the Lee Spinning Co., was also established.
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