Marshall Burns Lloyd

Marshall Burns Lloyd (born March 10, 1858 in St. Paul (Minnesota) , † August 10, 1927 in Menominee (Michigan) ) was an American inventor and entrepreneur . A large number of manufacturing and textile technology inventions go back to Lloyd , in particular the invention of the Lloyd Loom fabric .

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Lloyd was a son of John Lloyd and his wife Margaret, b. Conmee. John Lloyd emigrated from England to Canada in 1832 and in the 1850s relocated with his wife to St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, where Marshall B. Lloyd was born in 1858. Even in Lloyds childhood the family returned to Canada, where his father in Meaford ( Ontario ) on the Georgian Bay , a farm and a sawmill for shingles ( "shingle mill") operation.

After a short school career, Lloyd began working in a village shop when he was fifteen. Shortly afterwards, he went into business for himself, going door to door selling fish. At sixteen he went to Toronto alone to work in a grocery store and also peddle soap . At eighteen he became a postman ; then he joined a settler trek and real estate agents en route to Winnipeg . He made his living there as a waiter. Thanks to smart real estate deals, he managed to raise several thousand dollars within a few months with a small financial investment, from which he bought a farm in Grafton, North Dakota and brought his parents and siblings there. After discovering that agriculture was not his thing, Lloyd moved to St. Thomas, North Dakota, where he worked in the insurance industry.

During this time he patented a scale that he had developed for agricultural purposes. He then undertook to produce this device in St. Thomas. The factory set up for this purpose - and with it all of Lloyd's fortune - was completely destroyed by fire. In the hope of a new beginning, he went to Minnesota , where he initially had the plan to rebuild the factory with a loan. However, since this failed, he began to sell shoes. At the same time he was busy with other inventions. So he developed a machine that could weave wire for floor mats and table coasters . He had this machine patented. The sale of the corresponding right of use earned him a share in the CO White Manufacturing Company in Minneapolis . Then he invented a machine to wire components of innerspring - mattresses could weave. The money he raised from this invention by selling the rights of use in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, he used in 1900 to purchase the CO White Manufacturing Company and to found the Lloyd Manufacturing Company . This company and its factory were initially in Minneapolis and from 1907 in Menominee, Michigan. There he perfected a machine for wire-spoke wheels for prams . Then he invented a machine that fabricated thin tubes from steel strips, then the Lloyd Loom machine that could weave mats from paper yarn with the appearance of wickerwork. He also developed a process in which these mats were stretched on frames, for example on the chassis of a pram or on the construction of a chair . The strollers developed by Lloyd were a great sales success and made it known nationwide as the "baby carriage king". At the end of his life, his company was the largest manufacturer of strollers in the world.

In addition to his activities in various manufacturing companies he founded, Lloyd initiated a purchasing cooperative and a city ​​theater in Menominee a few years before his death . From 1913 to 1917 he was a candidate of the Republican Party mayor of that city.

There were no children from Lloyd's three marriages. His last wife, Henriette Hammer Pollen from Orange, New Jersey , survived him.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Carl W. Mitman: Marshall B. Lloyd . In: Dumas Malone (Ed.): Dictionary of American Biography . Vol. 6, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1933, 333-32.

Web links

• Biographies about Marshall Burns Lloyd on the mlloyd.org portal
• Marshall Burns Lloyd patents (Google research)