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Kilmarnock Standard Ltd., Published 1960. Hardcover, 48 pp.; 23 cm; illustrated with black-and-white plates (frontispiece portrait, the Alexander Morton Memorial and its bronze bust, hand-loom weaving, the modern lace machine, and the champion hackney "Little Ruby").
In Good condition, no dust jacket. Red cloth boards, gold lettering on front cover; nicking and fraying to the cloth at corner tips and head and foot of spine. Moderate scuffing and spotting to covers with some swelling, and some color loss along edges and at head and foot of spine. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked.A short biography of Alexander Morton (1844-1923), the Darvel weaver who pioneered the machine-lace industry in the Irvine Valley of Ayrshire. Drawn from a series of articles published in the "Kilmarnock Standard" at the time of his golden wedding in 1913, written by John Livingstone of Darvel and edited and arranged by William W. Morton. Traces Morton's descent from the Covenanter blacksmith John Morton, who fought at Drumclog in 1679; his start as a hand-loom weaver; his founding of Alexander Morton & Co. and its expansion to Carlisle and to Donegal; his celebrated pansy growing, which earned him the nickname "Pansy San"; and his hackney horse stud at Gowanbank. Closes with his death at Bruckless, County Donegal, in 1923 and the memorial erected to him between Darvel and Newmilns, designed by Sir Robert Lorimer with a bronze bust by C. Pilkington Jackson.Alexander Morton & Co. became notable for commissioning textile and carpet designs from leading Arts and Crafts artists, among them C.F.A. Voysey, Lindsay Butterfield, and Lewis F. Day.