In 1881, the first cigarette making machine was patented in the United States by James Bonsack and by 1883 one of the British manufacturers, W. D. & H. O. Wills, had pioneered the use of the Bonsack in England. Wills joined with twelve other companies to form the Imperial Tobacco Group, from which both Rothmans and Carreras chose to remain independent, and by 1901 the Bonsack machine, making 200 cigarettes a minute, was exclusively available only to members of this Group. However, another of the cigarette machine makers, Bernhard Baron, had returned to London from the United States in 1896 with a patent for a new machine which could make 450 cigarettes a minute, and his progress was watched with interest by Mr Yapp who was by then running the Carreras business but who was keen to make cigarettes a paying venture.