Echoes of the Past: Historical changes in the frame industry

An interesting article in the August 1964 edition of Optician’s sister-title, Manufacturing Optician, gives an insight into how frames had changed over the seven decades following Optician’s launch in 1891.

Advances in technical standards, dependency on imported goods after WWI and changes in production methods were just some of the factors that drove the frame industry at the turn of the century.

When Charles Hyatt-Woolf founded Optician, he moved to forge closer links between the trade and the Spectacle Makers’ Company. One of the first fruits of the relationship was the sponsorship of a competition to find spectacle craftsmen, and it was said that the frames entered were ‘first class,’ and could well push foreign goods out of the country. Despite this level of craftsmanship available, the writer of the article believed that it wasn’t long before many of the frames worn in Britain were being made abroad.