COATS, J. & P., Limited. The founder of this business, James Coats (1774–'857), was the son of a weaver in Paisley, Scotland, who in 1826 built a small factory—which still forms a diminutive part of the present Ferguslie works—for the manu facture of sewing cotton. James Coats retired in 183o and gave up his thread business to his sons James and Peter, the firm of J. & P. Coats being then formally constituted, and a third son, Thomas, joined ,soon of ter.
J. & P. Coats and Clark & Company, also located in Paisley, the two largest British manufacturers of sewing cotton, were keen rivals, but both prospered. In 1889, along with Brook, a Yorkshire firm, they formed a company to sell their goods under a joint arrangement whereby economies were effected by concentrating in one depot in each important centre and employing one traveller to visit customers in each district, instead of the three firms as hitherto maintaining separate equipment. For seven years this system continued, the collections being paid over in proper pro portion to the respective firms. The next stage was an amalgama tion of the three, together with a manufacturer in Lancashire named Chadwick, so that since 1896 the parent company of J. & P. Coats Limited—it had become "Limited" in 189o—embraced all four concerns.
Upwards of 8o% of the product of Messrs. Coats's mills in Great Britain was in 1927 sent overseas, the company having agents and connections in every country in the world. In addition, it had interests in mills in the United States and elsewhere.