The pages in this section include all known designs registered to or used by Geo Davidson. Although Davidson did not register a vast number of designs, we have split the them over several web pages to minimize the load time as for each design we have included an image.

The first act to grant protection to a design was the Designing and Printing of Linen Act of 1787. This gave limited copyright protection to those producing printed cloth (linen, cotton, calico and muslin) for a period of two months. This was increased to 3 months in 1794. The Copyright of Design Act 1839 increased the protection to include designs in wool, silk or hair or a mixture of these materials. The act also extended protection beyond the textile trade to include every new or original design. It also allowed for the shape and decoration of any article of manufacture to be protected.

The 1839 act introduced a system of registration and responsibility for its administration was give to the Board of Trade. In 1875 the administration of Registered Designs passed to the Patent Office where it has remained ever since.

The Board of Trade introduced the familiar diamond mark in 1842, which was in use until 1883. The diamond mark included the class of material. This caused problems as often designs were placed in the wrong class. From 1883 a Registered design is denoted on an article by the Registration number.

Complete lists of Registered designs are kept at the Public Record Office at Kew, London. Details of how to search the indexes can be found on the PRO web site www.pro.gov.uk.

In the pages in this section we have included an image for each Registered Design. Where possible, the image will be a photograph of an example of that design. If no photograph is available, we have either used an image from a Davidson catalogue or a photocopy of the original design from the PRO records. The PRO requires us to included their reference number with each image. These images may not be copied without the permission of the PRO. When submitting designs Davidson often used photographs of a sample piece in their submission. The quality of these was variable and in some cases difficult to see. This is, unfortunately, reflected in the PRO images used in these pages.