Viscose Spinning Syndicate

In another laboratory at Kew, C. H. Steam and C. E. Topham, who had worked for Sir Joseph Swan on lamp filaments, developed the continuous filament spinning process (8) and the machinery needed to wash and coUect (9,10) the yams. A fibermaking method was outlined in 1898, and the Viscose Spinning Syndicate was formed to develop the concept into a commercial proposition. 

In 1899, Cross and Steam formed the Viscose Spinning Syndicate in Kew, near London, where Topham developed the platinum spinnerettes. 

France. They believed that Cross and Bevan s viscose route could make a similar fiber much more economically. Nevertheless, it took two attempts, the second to a changed Board of Directors after the flotation, before Courtaulds was persuaded to acquire the viscose process rights. On July 14,1904, the Viscose Spinning Syndicate agreed to sell the viscose process rights and patents to Courtaulds for the sum of 25,000. A new factory was bnilt and the first commercial production was started in Coventry, United Kingdom, in November 1905. 

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