Orkney men's tale of suspense back in news
From The Orcadian dated April 12, 2001)

An exciting chapter in the history of a seductive piece of underwear has flared up again.

The story of the stocking suspender and its link with two Orkney men, which has in past years featured in the Islander, The Orcadian's free newspaper for tourists, and also in The Orcadian Book of the 20th Century, has caught the imagination of, it seems, the world over.

Newspaper cuttings from across Britain and now the States have been landing on editorial desks at The Orcadian over the past few weeks. Each clipping tells the same story of two humble tailors from Orkney who changed women's fashion forever.

For Andrew Thomson and James Drever will go down in history as the men who launched a thousand pin-up pictures and inflamed the passions of even more men - they were the inventors of the stocking suspender.

The pair had emigrated to America and were living in San Francisco at the time when they registered their patent - numbered Cal 567,421, dated September 8, 1896.

To be exact, it was the little clasp fastener, which enabled the stocking to be attached to the suspender, that they can claim as their invention.

Their original idea was apparently for a clip to hold up baggy farming dungarees.

In 1891 both had been recorded as 17-year-old apprentice tailors on the Orkney parish census but by the time the suspender became an accepted part of a woman's attire, they had disappeared into obscurity.

Their association with the suspender came after Peter Leith of Orkney unearthed an old newspaper article mentioning a letter that claimed two Orkney men had invented the suspender.

Subsequent research using America's patent database, found that a "clasp for garment supports" had been registered and that Mr Drever, who had taken up residency, was described as a citizen of the United States.

Mr Thomson, who died 60 years ago, returned to his native Hoy a few years later.