Singer Factories - Floridsdorf, Austria

In 1883 the Singer Company established a small iron foundry and assembly building in Floridsdorf, near Vienna, Austria. This decison was made in response to a tax placed on imported sewing machine stands in 1882. The tax was based on weight, so it made good sense to manufacture the heavy low technology cast iron stands locally, whilst stil importing the lighter more technically challenging parts from the factory in Glasgow.

The Floridsdorf foundry was constructed according to specifications prepared by the Glasgow factory. It was tooled to produce 1200 stands a week. The Austrian iron was initially found to be a bit too soft, so after some development work, they settled on adding a small amount of Glasgow iron to the softer Austrian iron.

The Florisdorf facility was intended to serve the Central European markets of Austria, Bavaria, Bohemia, Hungary and Prussia.

Little is known about the Floridsdorf factory, so if anyone has any more detailed information, we would be pleased to hear about it.