In 1863, a carpet was manufactured at Kidderminster for presentation to the late King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, on the occasion of his marriage. In view of the natural desire to produce an article worthy of the event and of the industry, it was recognised that no trouble and expense should be spared; and a carpet was designed and woven in such a way as to obviate the defects enumerated above. The carpet was exhibited publicly and aroused much admiration.
It is curious, however, to note that it was not until about twenty years later that the new principle began to be generally adopted by carpet manufacturers. The delay in utilising the idea was no doubt due to recognition of the heavy expense involved in additional designing and card stamping, and of the loss of production, and also to the absence of any severe competition from Oriental and other seamless carpets.
The device consisted simply in designing and stamping not two but five parts of the whole carpet: the filling, the border at each side including the corner piece, and the border at top and bottom. When, as is almost invariably the case, the width of the border is less than 27 in., the difference between the width and 27 in. is stamped in body, so that, for example, an outside breadth containing 18 in. of border and 9 in. of body is woven in a 27 in. loom. This breadth, of course, also contains at each end the corner piece, and 9 in. of the end border. The inner breadths of the carpet will have 18 in. of border at each end, and filling in between, woven so as to match on to the filling and border of the breadths on each side. If will be readily seen that in this manner the different breadths of a carpet can be woven consecutively on the same loom, and that a harmonious effect as regards both design and surface can be ensured. (See Figs. 5 and 5A.)
[Illustration: FIG. 5 & 5A CHLIDEMA SQUARE]
The system has one or two minor limitations. The width of the carpet must be some multiple of 2 ft. 3 in., and the matching of the side borders with the corner pieces can only be perfect at certain lengths. Again, the line of the seam is not concealed by coinciding with the inner edge of the border; and, finally, these breadth squares are more troublesome and expensive to make and handle at every stage than piece goods. Indeed, manufacturers would be justified in charging a larger difference of price between squares and pieces of the same quality than many of them do.