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Alex I Askaroff Alex has spent a lifetime in the sewing industry and is considered one of the foremost experts of pioneering machines and their inventors. He has written extensively for trade magazines, radio, television, books and publications world wide. Over the last two decades Alex has been painstakingly building this website to encourage enthusiasts around around the Globe.
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Hurtu, Hautin & Diligeon 1867 – 1960 Most enthusiasts of the Hurtu mark know the car not the sewing machine but Hurtu made cars, bicycles, motor cycles, engines, tools and sewing machines. As a self confessed swing machine nerd I just though you may like to know a little of their sewing machine history. Well it is how it all started.
The sewing machines that Auguste Jacques Hurtu made were amongst the most beautiful and collectible of all sewing machines. The sweeping elegant lines, fine castings and stunning decoration just ooze French sophistication and style. Because of this and the fact that they are rare, very rare, Hurtu sewing machines fetch enormous sums of money when they do appear.
L'Abeille, The Bee
In over 30 years of collection I still do not have one in my collection and boy does that niggle me. I miss one after another, always outbid at the last second. However one day I shall catch one of the little beauties.
Although Hurtu of Paris started at the end of 1860 and lasted until around 1932 (possibly much longer) there is hardly any information on the company so I thought to help I would add what I have learnt over the years. Hopefully others will read and add to the Hurtu history so that one day we may have a better picture of the French giant. At one point Hurtu became one of the largest French companies of the late Victorian period employing over 500 workers in several areas of France. Today little is left save a few cars, bicycles, motorcycles and sewing machines to mark such an impressive firm. Luckily they did do a lot of advertising and many posters survive. Some original posters fetching silly money.
The company was originally started by Auguste J Hurtu in late 1860. The 1860’s were perfect for Auguste Hurtu to start his business as supplies from America were having trouble during the American Civil War and British machines were expensive to import. His only real competition was from Germany where manufacturers were coming on fast.
Anyway, Auguste Hurtu had decided to make a French sewing machine for the masses.It was the machine that was to free the masses from the drudgery of labour, well so the ad's said! Later Hurtu also made bicycles and even later moved into cars. I am not sure if French patents can copy American or British ones but the Hurtu Company had dozens of patents covering their sewing machines. They had a spate of patens from April 1867 to November 1868 on the beautiful Hurtu L'Abeille sewing machine. However there is nothing that I can see that is new or revolutionary about the Hurtu sewing machines except for their superb style. Even their industrial machines look stunning. That French flair really paid dividens when it came to design.
Many of the Hurtu sewing machine metal parts were silver-plated and the beds of the machines were often smothered with mother of Pearl. Now I’m dribbling again!
L'Productive.
Their Hurtu L’Productive sewing machine is gorgeous only superseded by the breathtaking engineering and style of the L’Abeille sewing machine. There were other models from 1-12 and L’Modern of the 1890’s. Auguste Hurtu was in partnership with Victor Hautin, Stevens and & Diligeon. In 1895 Diligeon bought out his remaining partners as the firm concentrated on automobiles and bikes.
Hurtu, Hautin & Diligeon were in their sewing machine prime during the 1880’s. Hurtu were said to offer the widest variety of sewing machines on the market for home and industry, from silk to sack cloth. Linen to leather they had it all. This attracted Joseph Banigan an American entrepreneur and successful business man. He was looking for new blood in America and the style of the Hurtu machines could be just what he wanted. He formed a brief partnership with Victor Hautin and the Hautin Sewing Machine Company was formed working out of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, USA.
However poor production in America and other problems saw the shelving of the idea and the American side never came to anything. I can see the problem. How Hurtu managed such beautifully slender castings in iron is mind boggling. Their foundries must have been a sight to behold.
Notice now the Hurtu Company is being advertised as Diligeon & Co. That shows this advert to be after his takeover in 1895. I like the idea of reinforced tyres still popular today. Models such as the L'Productive of 1876 and L'Abeille machines were just gorgeous to look at but supposedly did not sew particularly well! That could account for why there are so few today. Also thin castings are prone to fracture and the superb lines of the L'Abeille came at a cost as they were easily damaged. By 1890 bike and car production was taking precedent. Sewing machines were starting to be of secondary importance even though it was what they first started making in 1861.
With medals from National Exhibitions and massive expansion the early 1880's were the boom years for Hurtu sewing machines.
Around the time Monsieur Diligeon came on board the Hurtu Company built another huge factory in Northern France in the town of Albert to make sewing machines, machine tools and bicycles. I can only surmise that Diligeon may have injected substantial capital into the growing company for automobile manufacture.
In 1897 Hurtu obtained the contract for the mass production of the Léon Bollée car and in 1898 the first four-wheeled Hurtu came onto the market, possibly from Montlucon.
Hurtu Addresses By 1910 Hurtu car manufacture had possibly downsized and moved back to Malmaison on the outskirts of Paris. But many moves had come and gone for the Hurtu company,from Boulevard Sebastopol to 29 Avenue De La Grand Armee, to Lyon and Amiens. They also had premises at 15th arrondissement, Paris and 104 Rue Castagnary, Paris, and finally at 54 Rue St Maur, also in Paris..
Somewhere in the 1930’s the company may have been acquired by Lucien Rochet and with the storm clouds of war fast approaching many metalworking firms moved into the more lucrative manufacture of military goods.
This may have been why Hurtu disappears from our radar in the 1930's. I am only surmising from how other machine companies acted in the same period. But all is not quite finished...
Some say that following the Second World War Hurtu carried on in a small way making 49cc two-stroke engine right up until 1960? They weren’t the ones that were bolted onto the front of bicycles were they? I used to see them everywhere in France as a kid. A simple lump that attached to the front wheel of any bicycle and it thrust you along the road. I seem to remember they were about one horsepower so you still had to pedal like hell to get up a hill. And they smelt terrible with a mix of two-stroke oil. You could always tell an owner of one as he left a trail of oil-smell wherever he walked.
The Hurtu Company is sadly gone but they left behind a legacy of beauty and style in some of the most sought after sewing machines on our planet!
Hurtu L'Abeille sewing machine circa 1880
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Well that's it, I do hope you enjoyed my work.
I have spent a lifetime collecting, researching and writing these pages and I love to hear from
people so drop me a line and let me know what you thought:
alexsussex@aol.com.
Also if you have any information to add I would love to put it on my
site.
Alex's latest Book: Tales from the Coast Fancy a funny read: Ena Wilf & The One-Armed Machinist A brilliant slice of 1940's life: Spies & Spitfires
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CONTACT: alexsussex@aol.com Copyright ©
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