PPARENTLY, RALPH HALIBURTON LINDSAY HAD FEW PROSPECTS UPON HIS DISCHARGE FROM THE NAVY AFTER WORLD WAR I. He had heard through the grapevine that the wool business could provide a good living for those who were successful. After calling on several firms for a job and finding no prospects, he asked if he could use the men's room at one of the leading wool brokerage houses, Crimmons and Pierce. There he hid until someone senior came in and he made his pitch. Hired on the spot, Ralph worked a manual warehouse job in his Navy uniform until he earned enough cash to buy civilian clothes.

Ralph was following a career path that thousands before and after used to move their way up in the wool trade. From warehouse clerk, to sample boy, to salesman, Ralph parlayed his bathroom meeting to form R.H. Lindsay Company in 1936 when he secured a contract to buy wool for Barre Wool Combing of Barre, Massachusetts.

The company thrived through the industry's heyday after World War II, when thousands of wool companies helped the U.S. government dispose of a huge stockpile gathered during the War. Business was strong enough that Ralph brought his only son, John Davenport (Toppy) Lindsay, into the family business.

Toppy was sent to Australia to learn wool. He trained as a buyer with a leading Australian company, eventually landing a job buying woolen types. He was offered a permanent job, but decided to bring his wife and family back to Boston and work with the family business.

Ralph's fortune and health took a turn in 1954 as Barre closed its doors and Ralph discovered he had cancer. Toppy became head of R.H. Lindsay, which had few assets and had just lost a major customer. Toppy was successful enough to put four children through college and spend time doing business in his favorite venue the golf course.

John Lindsay, Jr. was groomed to succeed Toppy, but his graduation from the Wharton School of Business was ill timed for entry into the wool business. Thanks to the overwhelming popularity of double knit fabric, which sank world wool consumption, John turned to a career in real estate development.

Eventually Toppy developed contacts with a leading English company that wanted to sell carpet wool. Philadelphia, a stronghold of the U.S. carpet industry, beckoned for an agent and John was able to put his training to use. John remains R.H. Lindsay's Philadelphia agent today.

About ten years ago John took on the warehousing and shipping of the handcraft inventory. He owns and maintains the warehouse from which all our handcraft shipments originate.

Younger brother Phil entered the wool trade at a more auspicious time for wool. He spent a summer in Bradford, England working in a wool-sorting house. After college he worked at a wool combing plant in South Carolina and then was sent to Australia and New Zealand. Phil's travels led to study at the Sydney Technical College between various manual wool jobs. Phil eventually traveled to New Zealand where he worked at Hawkes Bay-based W. Tucker Ltd., one of New Zealand's largest wool scouring operations. After a stint there, he headed to Lincoln College and received a Certificate in Wool a requirement for a registered New Zealand wool classer.

Upon his return to the States Phil realized that handcraft applications were making a comeback with wool. His friendship with handcraft innovator Mike Hastie of New Zealand led to R.H. Lindsay's first investment in handcraft specialty wools.

In 1985 Phil led R.H. Lindsay's continued diversification into publishing, composing a weekly newsletter, The Commercial Bulletin's Wool Page that reported on world wool markets. Phil recognized the wool broker/dealer relationship that had defined Boston's Summer Street trading culture was becoming history. This led to the addition of accounts representing most of the primary wool producing countries and sales to leading mills in the United States.

One of the more successful overseas partnerships developed when Phil began working with one of the only women in New Zealand business history to operate and develop a wool exporting operation, Joy Panoho. The partnership between R.H. Lindsay and Joy was an important factor for her then employer, grower-owned CRT's emergence into a leading wool export company in New Zealand during the first half of the 1990s.

While Joy and R.H. Lindsay have moved on from CRT, the personal and business connections still continue. Joy's work developing the farm direct concept that fueled our initial business success led to an extensive knowledge of the New Zealand wool supply. Today R.H. Lindsay still relies on Joy's vast experience to maintain a supply line for its handcraft wool.

The future of the American wool textile business in the 21st century is uncertain many of the country's biggest mills have closed or gone to Chapter 11. But our handcraft customers keep calling and we keep filling orders.

R.H. Lindsay still maintains a presence in the American wool textile industry. Feel free to contact us concerning any interest in industrial-sized orders or applications. Our primary interest is in trading domestic greasy and scoured wool, but three generations of wool experience have developed a capability to source almost any wool or specialty fiber product.