William Paton Ltd. :: More Info

William Paton Limited was founded at Johnstone in Scotland in 1840 by the twenty-one year old entrepreneur William Paton at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Paton began by meeting the local demand for hemp rope and moved on to the manufacture of cotton rope and a range of tapes. Before laces became the standard shoe fastener, Patons made elastic webbing for boots. Gradually the firm began to concentrate on the manufacture of boot laces before patenting a plaited fabric lace that would ultimately displace the traditional leather product.

The above was taken from www.punch.ie - The Punch group bought Paton's in 1990. Paton's mill incorporates part of the very first mill built in Johnstone in 1782, thought to be the first machine factory in the world, predating the New Lanark cotton mill by four years.

This A-listed building now stands empty and rotting after closing in 2003. There are suggestions that it might become a museum or flats.