# Tootal

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**Tootal** is a brand name for a range of British [ties](/source/Necktie), [scarves](/source/Scarves) and other garments. The brand is now owned by [Coats Viyella](/source/Coats_Viyella). It originates from a textile spinning and manufacturing company established in [Manchester](/source/Manchester) in 1799, which later became **Tootal Broadhurst Lee**, and subsequently **Tootal Ltd.** The company held [patents](/source/Patent) in crease-resistant fabric.

## History

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](/source/Wakefield), [Yorkshire](/source/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](/source/Charles_Edward_Broadhurst) and brother-in-law of [Sir Joseph Whitworth](/source/Joseph_Whitworth) – established a business partnership in Manchester in 1842 with Edward Tootal and [Henry Lee](/source/Henry_Lee_(Southampton_MP)),[1] who had worked in Gardner's cotton goods warehouse.[2]

The partnership opened the Sunnybank cotton spinning and weaving mills,[2] and became the largest manufacturer of [hand looms](/source/Hand_loom) in [Blackburn](/source/Blackburn), but the partnership was dissolved in 1860. The firm then developed the manufacture of fancy cloths, using [steam-powered looms](/source/Power_loom) in place of hand looms, and acquired mills at [Bolton](/source/Bolton) and [Newton Heath](/source/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](/source/Limited_company), Tootal Broadhurst Lee, marketing their goods under the name Tootal.[1]

The company was notable for its [vertical integration](/source/Vertical_integration), combining both [spinning](/source/Spinning_(textiles)) and [weaving](/source/Weaving) activities, and for its [marketing](/source/Marketing) network which included offices and warehouses in [Bradford](/source/Bradford), [Belfast](/source/Belfast) and [Paris](/source/Paris), and national and international agencies promoting their goods.[3] By 1888, when the [joint stock company](/source/Joint_stock_company) Tootal, Broadhurst, Lee and Company Ltd. was formed, the firm employed some 5,000 workers and operated 172,000 [spindles](/source/Spindle_(textiles)) and 3,500 looms, making it one of the largest integrated cotton textile producing companies in [Lancashire](/source/Lancashire). Sir Joseph Cocksey Lee (1832-1894), the brother of Henry Lee MP and later an active promoter of the [Manchester Ship Canal](/source/Manchester_Ship_Canal),[4] became its chairman. At the same time, a separate company, the Lee Spinning Co., was also established.[1]

In 1898, the company opened a large new brick-clad warehouse and office block, now known as [Churchgate House](/source/Tootal,_Broadhurst_and_Lee_Building,_Manchester), in [Oxford Street](/source/Wilmslow_Road), Manchester. The building, designed by Joseph Gibbons Sankey, is now a [Grade II* listed building](/source/Grade_II*_listed_building),[5][6] described as "a powerful monument to the entrepreneurialism of the Industrial Revolution and Victorian bombast."[7] Plans in the 1930s to build an adjoining warehouse which would have been the tallest building in Europe at the time were never completed.[7]

Tootal, Broadhurst, Lee continued to develop in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and in 1907 [Edward Tootal Broadhurst](/source/Edward_Tootal_Broadhurst), the son of Henry Tootal Broadhurst, succeeded Harold Lee (the son of Henry Lee) as chairman. The company was an innovator in its promotion of [brand names](/source/Brand_name), and in selling its goods direct to retailers.[1] Though early in its history it specialised in [cotton](/source/Cotton) fabrics, it later diversified into other [yarns](/source/Yarn) including [silk](/source/Silk) and [rayon](/source/Rayon). It developed a range of fabrics in a wide variety of patterns, including a [velvet](/source/Velvet) marketed as "Tootal cloth", and "Tarantulle", used for [lingerie](/source/Lingerie) and [baby wear](/source/Infant_clothing), as well as focussing on products such as [handkerchiefs](/source/Handkerchief), [scarves](/source/Scarves) and ties. The company provided [neckerchiefs](/source/Neckerchief) and other items for soldiers in the [Boer War](/source/Boer_War).[1] A research department was established, and it was active in developing new innovations, such as crease-resistant fabrics.[1] In the early 1920s, it took out [patents](/source/Patent) on [urea-formaldehyde](/source/Urea-formaldehyde) [resins](/source/Resin) to produce crease-resistant fabrics, and commercialised its patents by developing an international licensing programme, with successful agencies being granted the use of the Tebilized [registered trade mark](/source/Registered_trade_mark).[8]

In the [First World War](/source/First_World_War) the company was noted for giving early guarantees that all their men returning after service would be reinstated in their old positions.[9] By 1939, Tootal had branches throughout Britain and subsidiaries in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, and New Zealand, as well as agencies throughout the world. The company participated in the 1947 [British Industries Fair](/source/British_Industries_Fair), and featured its "Lystav, Robia and Tobralco patented dress and furnishing fabrics, Pyramid men’s handkerchiefs and a bright display of Tootal ties and scarves."[7] New factories were opened in [St Helens](/source/St_Helens,_Merseyside) in 1947, and in [Devonport, Tasmania](/source/Devonport,_Tasmania), in 1952. In the 1960s, Tootal joined the English Sewing Cotton Co., and later the [Calico Printers' Association](/source/Calico_Printers'_Association), becoming English Calico Ltd. which was renamed Tootal Ltd. in 1973. In 1985 it became Tootal Group [plc](/source/Public_limited_company), and in 1991 was acquired by Coats Viyella, which disposed of several of its subsidiaries.[1]

## In fashion

Tootal scarves and ties in [polka dot](/source/Polka_dot), [Paisley](/source/Paisley_(design)) and other patterns are now regarded as [iconic](/source/Cultural_icon) of the period between the 1920s and 1950s in Britain, when they were advertised widely with the [slogan](/source/Slogan): "Every Man Needs… Tootal Ties".[7][10] They were associated with the [mod subculture](/source/Mod_subculture) in the 1960s, were again revived as fashion accessories in the 1980s and 2000s, and are now seen as emblematic of classic British [men's fashion](/source/Men's_fashion).[7][11]

## References

1. ["Tootal Broadhurst Lee Co"](http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Tootal_Broadhurst_Lee_Co). Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 12 August 2016.

1. ["Biography: Henry Lee JP", *Weaste Cemetery Heritage Trail*](http://www.weasteheritagetrail.co.uk/salford-people/biographies/entry/henry-lee-jp.htm). Retrieved 12 August 2016

1. [Stanley Chapman, *Merchant Enterprise in Britain: From the Industrial Revolution to World War I*, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p.200](https://books.google.com/books?id=adHhYTIZyf0C&dq=tootal+broadhurst+lee&pg=PA200)

1. ["head-piece / cloth - item 2009,8012.3", *British Museum*](https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3288332&partId=1). Retrieved 12 August 2016

1. [Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee Building, 56 Oxford Street, Manchester, *British Listed Buildings*](http://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-454851-tootal-broadhurst-and-lee-building-56-ma). Retrieved 12 August 2016

1. [Joseph Gibbons Sankey, *Dictionary of Scottish Architects*](http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=207357). Retrieved 12 August 2016

1. [Matthew Dennison, "Tootal recall", *Country Life*, 20 January 2016, pp.72-74](http://www.tootal.co.uk/download/countrylife.pdf)

1. Heywood, D.W. (1995). [*Chemistry of the Textiles Industry*](https://books.google.com/books?id=e9Uy3umkVmUC&q=tootal&pg=PA173). Springer Science & Business Media. p. 173. ISBN 9780751400540.

1. [John Hartley, *6th Battalion, the Manchester Regiment in the Great War: Not a Rotter in the Lot*, Casemate Publishers, 2010, p.17](https://books.google.com/books?id=g_-1oMJsPCMC&dq=tootal+broadhurst+lee&pg=PA17)

1. ["Tootal - The Company History and its products (ties, scarves etc)", *The Fedora Lounge*](http://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/tootal-the-company-history-and-its-products-ties-scarves-etc.64730/). Retrieved 12 August 2016

1. ["Why the iconic Tootal scarf is so timeless", *Menswear Style*, 13 November 2015](http://www.menswearstyle.co.uk/2015/11/13/why-the-iconic-tootal-scarf-is-so-timeless-/4036). Retrieved 12 August 2016

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Tootal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tootal) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tootal?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.