3 March 2012

Karl Wood and Louis Oram Trivett in Nottingham

My biography of the eccentric artist and unsuccessful writer Karl Salsbury Wood (1888–1958)* is here, and it gives a brief mention of the lace manufacturer Louis Oram Trivett (1864–1933), known as 'The Orchid King' by many because he usually wore the flower in his buttonhole. Wood lived in Nottingham from 1902 to 1914, and spent some time working as a packer for Trivett at his premises in Trivett Square in the Lace Market in Nottingham.

Trivett's tower, the pinnacle of the factory, and still a local landmark.

*Wood wrote many detailed if highly idiosyncratic articles for the Gainsborough News about his cycling trips around the UK, during which he painted many architectural features, and windmills and their remains in particular. His burning ambition was to write a book titled 'The Twilight of the Mills', although I suspect that the (sometimes laughable) zeal with which he promoted this unwritten work made the quality of it a little questionable, and it's perhaps fortunate that the book was never published because some articles of Wood's on the subject render his research rather dubious: his knowledge of the location of the mills was excellent, although his knowledge of a mill's working was distinctly
 less so.

Plus, it may well have developed into a right-wing tract as opposed to a serious study.

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