JOHN

See also:

• JOHN HEATHCOAT

HEATHCOAT  (1783-1860, English inventor, was born at Duffield near Derby on the 7th of August 1783 . During his apprenticeship to a framesmith near Loughborough, he made an improvement in the construction of the warp-loom, so as to produce mitts of a lace-like appearance by means of it . He began business on his own account at Nottingham, but finding himself subjected to the intrusion of competing inventors he removed to Hathern . There in 18o8 he constructed a machine capable of producing an exact imitation of real pillow-lace . This was by far the most expensive and complex textile apparatus till then existing; and in describing the process of his invention Heathcoat said in 1836, " The single difficulty of getting the diagonal threads to twist in the allotted space was so great that. if now to be done, I should probably not attempt its accomplishment." Some time before perfecting his invention, which he patented in 18o9, he removed to Loughborough, where he entered into partnership with Charles Lacy, a Nottingham manufacturer; but in 1816 their factory was attacked by the Luddites and their 55 lace frames destroyed . The damages were assessed in the King's Bench at £io,000; but as Heathcoat declined to expend the money in the county of Leicester he never received any part of it . Undaunted by his loss, he began at once to construct new and greatly improved machines in an unoccupied factory at Tiverton, Devon, propelling them by water-power and afterwards by steam . His claim to the gnven of Stobs, Roxiurghshire, was born on the 25th of December 1717, and educated abroad for the military profession . As a volunteer he fought with the Prussian army in 1735 and 1736, and then entered the Grenadier Guards . He went through the war of the Austrian Succession, and was wounded at Dettingen, rising to be lieutenant-colonel in 1754 . In 1759 he became colonel of a new regiment of light horse (afterwards the 15th Hussars) and became well known for the efficiency which it displayed in the subsequent campaigns . He became lieutenant-general in 1765 .

In 1775 he was selected to be

governor of Gibraltar (q.v.), and it is in connexion with his magnificent defence in the great siege of 1779 that his name is famous . His portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds is in the National Gallery . In 1787 he was created Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar, but died on the 6th of July 1790 . He had married in 1748 the heiress of the Drake family, to which Sir Francis Drake belonged . His son, the 2nd baron, died in 1813 and the peerage became extinct, but the estates went to the family of Eliott-Drake (baronetcy of 1821) through his sister .