Child's dress made from Terylene

Child's dress made from red and white checked Terylene fabric sample, sewn by Ann Hodson in a school home economics class, late 1950s or early 1960s. Hodson is the daughter of Calico Printers Association employees Margaret Gilmour Schofield and James Stewart Schofield, who acquired the cloth sample from ICI in Harrogate.

Margaret Schofield, a leading research chemist, worked with a team to develop a fibre-forming polymer at Calico Printers Association. In 1941 the team’s research led to the development of a highly innovative synthetic polyester fibre. It was patented under the name Terylene.

Before synthetic fabrics, clothes were made from natural fibres such as cotton, wool and silk. They were generally expensive and lacked versatility. Terylene quickly became popular as it was adaptable, hard-wearing, quick-drying and crease-resistant.

The development of artificial fibres led to a massive change in the textiles industry globally. Britain, once a leader in natural fibre processing, became a significant player in the synthetic fibres industry at a time when there was a need to diversify and remain competitive with other growing centres of textile manufacturing worldwide.

Synthetic fibres, like Terylene, are still widely used in textile production today. Once heralded as wonder materials they have left us with a damaging environmental legacy: polluted water supplies and widely dispersed microplastics.