 They did not push for exports.They experienced rapid expansion in the 1880s under the management of Robert Taylor (1823–1912) and production peaked in 1906 when they were employing 3000 men.In the recession of the 1930s, Platt Brothers, Howard and Bullough, Brooks and Doxey, Asa Lees, Dobson and Barlow, Joseph Hibbert, John Hetherington and Tweedales and Smalley merged to become Textile Machinery Makers Ltd., but the individual units continued to trade under their own names until the 1970, when they were rationalised into one company called Platt UK Ltd.