A Miscellany of Baker Perkins’ Bits and Pieces

Laundry Equipment

1. A piece of laundry equipment (a shirt press?) is currently to be seen on board the Royal Yacht “Britannia”, presently moored at the Ocean Terminal, Leith, Edinburgh.
   
   
2. The machine has a “Jaxons” nameplate indicating that it was made by William Jack & Sons of Hillington, Glasgow. Baker Perkins acquired this company in 1961 as part of its 1960s’ expansion programme and renamed it Baker Perkins Jaxons Ltd. Jaxons had a long history of supplying laundry presses to the Navy, the order for “Britannia” following one for 200 presses to be installed in HM ships and shore establishments soon after WW2.
   
   
3. A hand-operated mangle for squeezing water from newly washed laundry, thought to have been produced by Taywil (Taylor & Wilson) of Accrington, UK. It is interesting in that it has “Baker Perkins“ cast into the top frame. It is understood that Taywil marketed its mangles around the world, adopting a policy of incorporating the name of significant customers – another machinery supplier or, perhaps, a retail chain - in a strategy of “own label” marketing. It is well known that Joseph Baker & Sons adopted a policy – in the late 1800s - of supplying everything that its customers needed to get into and stay in business and certainly did not itself manufacture all that it sold.
   
   Although this mangle is not of a similar “industrial” design to the rest of the product line marketed by Baker Perkins after its acquisition of Aublet Harry in 1923, it is possible that even a large laundry might require less sophisticated pieces of equipment to handle some parts of its day-to-day activities.
   
   SEE ALSO – Baker Perkins in the Laundry Business – click - here.

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