Who would have thought that the first international business to operate outside of the US was that of Isaac Merritt Singer’s sewing machine company, and to top it all, the man himself, along with his family, would settle in the small Paignton, described as a ‘watering hole’ in its time.

But without the genius of the man who had started from scratch, earning very little as a machine shop apprentice in his teens, the enormous popularity of the sewing machine would never have taken off in a way that made it all the rage, easy. to operate and affordable.

He patiently worked on a method to make the sewing machine more practical.

I wonder why he’s never been a Hollywood blockbuster. The subject matter was perhaps considered unpopular with the movie turning into frat, but the flamboyant and very loving life of the man would make it for large audiences I’m sure, judging by today’s standards. He is described as one of the most energetic, flamboyant and unscrupulous tycoons in American history.

I remember when I was a child I thought about how smart a man who found a way to sew by machine was. What a revolution it must have been, after years of hand sewing, all the necessary material, for example, to make up those beautiful dresses and wide and flowing designs of the Tudors until the beginning of the 19th century. How did they manage!

But Isaac Merritt was the first to admit that he never invented the sewing machine – in fact, that was attested by a British inventor, Thomas Saint, who patented it in 1790, before Singer was born.

Isaac Merritt Singer, of Jewish descent, was born in the hamlet of Johnsonville, in the town of Pittstown, Rensselaer County, NY, on October 27, 1811.

In 1830 he married for the first time. His wife was Catharine Maria Haley. He died in Paignton on July 23, 1875, at the age of 63, after fathering at least 19 children with his five known “wives”: Catherine bore him a son, William, and a daughter, Lillian.

Mary Ann Sponseler gave birth to him 10, including a son, Isaac. He had five more from Mary McGonigal, a daughter named Alice from Mary Eastwood and at least one, Paris Eugene Singer, from her French lover, Isobelle Boyce.

He was a devoted womanizer and probably fathered at least several more children as well.

He was a tall man for the time, 6ft 4in, which seemed to match his charisma and genius.

Years after the death of their living children, the wives and countless lovers found themselves embroiled in costly litigation. He certainly left his mark, but none of his descendants lived up to his genius.

In the 1940s, when clothes and bedding were worth repairing and making them as well as my mother did, I remember making simple handkerchiefs out of partially worn sheets, simply by seeding seams on each side of a square. Many women made clothes and repairs for money to supplement the low wage earning of bread in those austere days, also in Isaac Singer’s time: before electricity and when investing in one of the last sewing machines of Singer pedal, it was the handy stuff to do.

The original machine, built without the foot pedal, was fine for occasional repairs, but to be more efficient and productive a foot pedal was a must, giving the operator the freedom to work with both hands free. Although expensive for low-income people, his company made it possible to buy a new machine with its newly introduced easy installment purchase scheme and a five dollar (about 25 shillings) down payment, which turned out to be one godsend at a time. when the profit giving hadn’t taken off.

I wonder what Isaac would have thought of current plans to convert his old mansion, purchased by the Paignton Urban District Council in 1946 and used as his offices, into a hotel and to transform some of the grounds into a building.

But of course the world is so different now. Isaac certainly lived life to the fullest from humble beginnings and to say he was a womanizer is probably an understatement. He simply adored women, and of course he had the clout and the money to pamper them to his heart’s content.

There are all kinds of anomalies regarding his private life, like his driver saying he used to make him drive for prostitutes in New York. To be recognized, the girls who advertised businesses wore school bags which apparently got him in a lot of trouble with the local police.

And when he lived in Paignton, he employed a man who looked a lot like him, what was that all about? The mind is stunned. Imagine how the Sunday papers would respond now; pretty bad then, but not many were that literate in those days.

Isaac left an inheritance of about $ 13 million in two wills. When he had the Oldway Mansion built in the French style it was at the persuasion of his last French wife. Isabella was a beautiful woman to behold and, although France had become her adopted country, she decided to flee when the Prussian war threatened their lives, and moved with her new family to a safer London.

One of his early vocations was acting, but he had an inquisitive mind: he was interested in trying new inventions and learning the hard way, like many famous authors with a drawer full of rejections. His first real success came when he obtained a patent for a rock drilling machine, selling it for $ 2,000, more money than he had ever had before. He then opted to return to acting for a five-year tour of the United States forming a group known as the ‘Merritt Players’ calling himself Isaac Merritt.

In 1884 he took a job in a printing company in Fredericksburg Ohio but soon moved to Pittsburgh two years later, he wanted to do something for himself, he had various ideas and notions and he aimed to put them into practice. He set up a workshop for the production of letterpress and wooden signage where he developed and patented a machine for carving wood and metal.

When he was thirty-eight he moved to New York with his two wives and eight children and then to Boston. His fortune was soon on the verge of materializing. He had several problems financing new patents, but an eminent lawyer, Edward Clark, saw fit to secure his patents and advance a large cash advance. He also befriended Orson Phelps, a fellow machine enthusiast. Orson was building Leron and Bludgett sewing machines. Feeling a bit depressed when, after inventing a new woodcutting machine in New York, the steam boiler exploded and destroyed the prototype, his new friend inadvertently came to his rescue when he asked Isaac to look at the sewing machines. .

“They are difficult to use and produce,” Phelps complained, “do you have any ideas?”

After close scrutiny and head scratching and failed sewing of various thicknesses of material. Isaac saw the problem. The current system was clumsy with the shuttle operating in a circle. He thought of a way for the shuttle to work in a straight line. Isaac was able to obtain patent number 8294 on August 12, 1851 and IMSinger & Co. was in business and the rest is history. His first machine was eventually known as the Angle Thread Chain Stitch Machine. As Hoover went to the vacuum cleaner, Singer went to the sewing machine.

His business was piling up in wealth and success, but his personal life and reputation as a bigamist, at least his other relationships, were not going well in America. The newspapers were full of the scandal associated with him and he fled to France in 1860, and then in 1871, after a stint in London, he moved to South Devon with his wife Isabella and their young family.

Isaac bought the Farnham estate in Paignton in 1872, which consisted of two villas, Little Oldway and Fernham, The Rising Sun, some cabins, and a large area of ​​parkland, all demolished to make way for Oldway Mansion. He appointed a local architect, George Bridgman, to build a house, a French-designed building. In 1814, Bridgman, implicitly following Isaacs’s instructions, created the outstanding mansion containing kitchens, offices, service room, wine cellars, many elegant rooms, and a theater that resembles a French Villa.

Sadly, Isaac died before the mansion and adjacent ‘wigwam’, the magnificent circular ballroom, were completed.

But Paris Singer, her son Isabella, was responsible for redesigning Oldway Mansion in the French / Italian splendor of Versailles. Paris had an affair with Isadora Duncan, the American ‘modern’ dancer and had a son with her who died as a child in a car accident. He foolishly spent most of his money on gambling.

Little is known of the silent film studio located beyond the arch near the main entrance.

At the urging of Winston Churchill, Paris offered his residence at Oldway for use as a fully equipped 250-bed hospital for wounded military personnel. Another son, Washington Singer, was the main donor to the University College of the South West of England, which later became the Exeter Universes and one of the buildings was named after him.

American influence had certainly left its mark on South Devon and I think we should be privileged that Isaac Singer chose to be buried in Torquay Cemetery. He wanted Paignton, but the floor wasn’t deep enough for a white marble mausoleum. His hearse consisted of several carriages drawn by black horses and his hearse was drawn by 12 of his black stallions. The funeral was in charge of his three oldest children, Paris, Washington and Mortimer.

I wonder how many women there were that he had been with. Rumor has it that he “entertained” several girls from Paignton. But never confirmed. It was very likely due to Isaac’s reputation. When he lived in New York, he was often seen driving through Central Park in his yellow carriage with his lovers.

It is said that he had been kind and employed many local people, and many were saddened to witness his last trip to the cemetery.

His son Paris had a house built for him next to Paignton Green now transformed into the Palace Hotel and for Mortimer, another son, the building now known as Inn on the Green.

And the company continues to produce the very latest in Singer-labeled sewing machines.

In 2007, Isaac Singer’s great-granddaughter, Rhodanthe Selous, attended a historic gathering at the Palace Hotel, Paignton attracting descendants from around the world.

And in Paignton itself we have the Old Singer Tea Shop and the Witherspoon Isaac Merrit pub / restaurant.