in the direction of feed of the conveyor belt 6 said photocells registering or detecting the position of the rear edge 24 of the laundry article 2 when it passes by following which the rollers 27 are activated according to the invention by means of the electric actuators to engage the transverse conveyor belt 23 so that the rear edge of the laundry article 2 is grouped and retained against movement the continued forward movement of the conveyor 6 thereby aligning the article as shown in fig5 shows how the rear edge 24 of the laundry article is braked locally from one corner 25 of the article towards the other corner 25a as the rollers 27 are sequentially activated by the actuators 28 after the entire laundry article 2 has been aligned the electric motor provided for the gear wheel 22 is activated following which the laundry article 2 may be displaced laterally thus the laundry article is gripped solely at its edge and is transversely displaced solely by transverse displacement of the rear edge which allows a particularly simple and thereby inexpensive structure further by performing the alignment and the transverse displacement with the same gripper device this increases the efficiency of the feeder since the laundry article does not have to be stopped more than once in the feeder to achieve.