Manchester
Industry, Commerce &Business Entrepreneurs
(5 of 6)

John Whittaker
Ashton Cotton Spinner & Industrialist

(1776-1840)
John Whittaker was an Oldham born cotton spinner and became an important and influential local industrialist, noted for his great sense of paternalism to his workers. In 1860 he acquired the Hurst Mills in Ashton, and with the help of his two sons, John and Oldham, saw the massive expansion of his holdings and the profitability of his company. He became a major employer in Ashton-under-Lyne in the early part of the 19th century.
He also held interests in the local Hurst Knowl Colliery, which supplied coal to his factories to drive its steam engines. His sons went on to create housing for their workers as well as schools and libraries, and even during the so-called "Cotton Famine" of 1861 to 1865, they kept their mills open and running to sustain their employees, having laid out a small fortune of their own money to sustain working families in the region. Later, their finance was to be instrumental in the establishment of the Ashton Infirmary.
The Hurst Mills Company Limited continued its operations until its closure in 1931.

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John Whittaker

John Mayall
Saddleworth Cotton Spinner

(1803-1876)
John Mayall was born on 31st December 1803 in Saddleworth and ended up owning what was to become probably the largest cotton spinning company in the world. By 7 years of age he was already working in at a woollen mill in Uppermill. Sometime between 1815 and 1823 he had set up his own business at Quick Mill, in partnership with his brother George, his brother-in-law Robert Barton and one Thomas Atherton - but by 1828 he and George had broken away to create their own company based at Nicholson's Mill in Lees, Oldham.
He had moved to the Mossley district in 1831 and by 1846 had established the company of John Mayall & Sons which was to oversee the massive expansion of industry in what had been hitherto a rather run down region.
Mayall's ascendancy began when the newly formed London & North Western Railway (the LNWR) planned to lay its line across Mayall's property and paid him compensation of £1600, (then a small fortune in itself). This provided Mayall with the capital needed to launch a period of rapid expansion in his business interests and to establish his enormous Britannia Mill in Mossley. The proximity of the railway enabled him to receive raw materials directly from Liverpool Docks, significantly reducing his transportation costs.
The Britannia Mill was extended several times, as well as suffering several disastrous fires, as did Mayall's other Scout Mill. Wise insurance provision enabled rebuilding and continued growth and the building of Britannia New Mill soon after 1860, and the South End Mill No. 1, completed in 1859. This latter mill had over 100,000 spindles in operation at the height of its production.
John Mayall was to build up a considerable personal fortune during his lifetime, much of which was invested in successful business concerns, including the District Bank, the National Newspaper League Company, the Midland Railway and the Thames and Mersey Harbour Boards.
Mayall had a keen eye for turning a good profit, though he seems not to have taken much interest in the welfare of his workforce. So far as is known, he built no schools or hospitals. By 1863 it is estimated that 40% of the population of Mossley was in the Mayall employ. Mayall did create a good deal of new housing in Mossley, but as sole owner and landlord, this was almost certainly prompted by business and profit considerations rather than philanthropy or paternalism. Many of these workers houses still survive in Mossley today.
John Mayall retired in 1872 and passed on his properties to his sons.

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Hugh Mason
Ashton Mill Owner & Politician

(1817-1886)
A philanthropic and paternalistic mill owner and Ashton politician, Hugh Mason had been born on 30th January 1817, the youngest son of Thomas Mason, a former textile manager in Stalybridge. Notably, he was the only local industrialist to have a public monument, paid for by public subscription, erected in his honour in the town.
His philanthropy and radical approach to the care and welfare of his workers earned him respect amongst the working classes but considerable opposition from other mill-owners who saw his "charitable extravagances" as a threat. He was to become an instrumental supporter of factory reform and was actively involved in politics and social affairs, having served as Mayor of Ashton-under-Lyne fro m 1857-1860 and its Liberal MP from 1880 to 1885.
In 1815, Hugh's father had set up in a business partnership with James Booth and Edward Hulton at Currier Slacks Mill in Ashton. The firms early success saw its expansion into the Bank Mill and Royal George Mills in the 1820s. Hugh was eventually employed in the company and soon rose up through the ranks and was recognised as a capable manager with a keen business sense. Under his management the company saw rapid expansion and greatly improved profitability from the manufacture of sewing threads. With the eventual retirement of his brothers and his father in 1860, Hugh Mason became sole proprietor, and also was elected as Chairman of the Manchester Cotton Company. By 1871 Mason was President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. He was eventually to hold interests in The Bridgwater Canal Navigation Company, the Midland Railway and the Mersey Dock Board, as well as having interests in coal and iron companies.
Between 1845 and 1851 he oversaw the erection of the two Oxford Mills. He was also responsible for the creation of the nearby associated workers' colony of quality housing for his workforce - these were in Ann Street, Hamilton Street, Bright Terrace, Gibson Terrace and Trafalgar Square. His gifts to the working class also included a library, a reading room, a swimming pool, a recreation ground and a gymnasium.
During the Cotton Famine of 1861-1865 he refused to cut workers' wages, despite it being common practice in all other mills in the district - he also contributed £500 to the Ashton Borough Cotton Famine Relief Fund. He continued to improve working conditions in his mills, raising wages at the same time as cutting hours, which brought him into conflict with many of his mill-owning colleagues.
In 1857 he was made a local magistrate and in 1871 Mason was a founder member of the Manchester Reform Club. His election to Parliament as a reforming Liberal politician saw him promoting Womens' Suffrage and a number of other reformist bills.
Hugh Mason died on 2nd February 1886 in Ashton.

Sir William Pickles Hartley
Founder of Hartley's Jams

[1846-1922]
Born in Colne, Lancashire, Sir William Pickles Hartley is probably best remembered as the founder of the Hartley’s jam empire. The Hartley family hailed from Yorkshire, where Sir William's grandfather had been borrn, and had probably moved to live near Pendle sometime after that. Here they began as fairly modest local grocers in the district.
Hartley married Martha Horsfield, and as the business grew the family moved into the wholesale trade, and a chance event in 1871 started the Hartley ball rolling, (so to speak) as, so it is said, a supplier failed to deliver a batch of jam and William was forced to make his own. His jam, marmalade and jelly sold so well that he continued to make it. Hartley began to develop his business by producing his own fruit and packaging it in his own distinctive earthenware pots.
In 1880 he moved his family to Southport, where he emerged as an influential local benefactor and entrepreneur, as well being a regular active member of the local Methodist Church, as were all the members of the Hartley family. He sired eight daugters and a son, and one of his daughters, Christiana, became Southport's first woman Mayor in 1921.
In 1885 Hartley moved the business to Aintree in Liverpool, where he built Hartley Village for his workers.
Throughout his life, he donated money for religious or philanthropic causes in Colne, Liverpool and in London. Many buildings in Colne, built in 1911 still stand today and are known locally as Hartley homes.
In 1902 Hartley opened a jam factory in Bermondsey, south-east London and employed over 2,000 people. By 1908 he had been knighted by King Edward VII for his many charitable acts and funding to Sunday Schools and for the establishment of hospitals.
The village of Trawden, near Colne, still boasts what is thought to be a rare monument to jam manufacturing in the area. An industrial jam pan, found in a farmer’s field in the village of Wycoller nearby was brought back to Trawden where it remains today.

We are indebted to Gordon Hartley for allowing us to reproduce the image of Willam Hartley (above). Details of Gordon Hartley's booklet: "The Man Who Made Hartley's Jam", and a series of wall charts on William Pickles Hartley can be obtained by emailing Gordon Hartley directly.

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Sir Henry Tate
Tate & Lyle Sugar Refinining & National Philanthropist

(1819-1899)
Born in Chorley, Lancashire in 1819, Henry Tate was to eventually make his name and fortune as a sugar magnate and multi-millionaire, and the donor of the celebrated Tate Gallery London to the nation. He first went to work in Liverpool as an apprentice grocer in 1832. In 1839 he opened first shop in Old Haymarket, Liverpool and by 1855 had at least seven shops, in Liverpool, Ormskirk and Birkenhead.
In 1859 he formed a partnership of the sugar refining company, John Wright & Co., but by 1869 he had dissolved the partnership and started sugar refining company named Henry Tate located at Love Lane in Liverpool. By 1878 he had opened a major new sugar cube-making factory beside the Thames in London, and moved to live there, leaving his Liverpool interests in the hands of his sons. In the first year the Thames Refinery processed 214 tonnes of raw sugar.
In 1881 Tate contributed £42,000 to the University College London and made other donations to the Hahnemann Hospital and the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. In 1891 he was made an honorary Freeman of the City of Liverpool. An inveterate and committed philanthropist, he had built the free libraries for the London Boroughs of Brixton, Streatham and Lambert in 1893, and in 1897 he built the National Gallery of British Art in Millbank beside the Thames - later to become known as the Tate Gallery (and subsequently Tate London). Tate had amassed a sizeable collection of British paintings at his home in Park Hill and decided to give them to the nation, to be housed in the New Tate gallery on the Millbank site, which had been donated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In 1921, he formed the Tate & Lyle partnership with the Lyle Company, which specialised in manufacturing Golden Syrup, while Tate's refineries concentrated on sugar cube production. The two company's refineries were only one mile apart in London.
Sir Henry Tate died on Saturday 5th December 1899 at Park Hill aged 80 years.

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Robert Gillow
Waring & Gillows, Furniture Makers

Robert Gillow, the originator of the Gillow furniture making company, was born in Singleton in the Fylde region of Lancashire in 1704. Working out of Lancaster, Robert was known for his use of mahogany, a popular wood imported from the West Indies - Robert's clever use of this material turned a hitherto small and unknown local cabinet-making company to a world famous enterprise, whose work is still widely collected, copied and admired today.
When Robert Gillow died in 1772, the business passed to his two sons, Richard and Robert. While Robert managed the London branch, and was thereby familiar with all the latest London fashions, Richard ran the Lancashire base. It was between 1750 and 1811 that some of the best English furniture ever was being fabricated by the Gillow company in Lancaster.
Richard was also a respected and popular figure in Lancaster and attracted many skilled craftsmen to work with him.
Richard had also a trained architect and several important buildings in Lancaster are to his credit, including the Custom House on St George's Quay, which now houses the Maritime Museum.
Richard died in 1811 and his son, another Richard, born in 1772, succeeded him in the family company. In 1827, he purchased Leighton Hall near Carnforth, where he lived until his death in 1849.
The company name soon became associated with honest quality and value for money.
Gillows continued to expand, and beside their traditional furniture-making they began to specialise in fitting out luxury yachts and liners. The Royal Yacht 'Victoria and Albert', Tsar Alexander III's yacht 'Livadia' and the ocean liners 'Lusitania', 'Heliopolis' and 'Cairo' were all fitted out by the Gillow company.
In 1903, following a collaboration for the 1900 Paris Exhibition Pavilion contract, Gillows merged with S J Waring to form the company of Waring and Gillow. Their final ship fitting contract was with the Cunard liner 'Queen Elizabeth'.
Many examples of their work can be found around Lancashire, and there is a Gillow Museum in Lancaster. Other examples can be seen in the Lancaster City Museum; Lancaster Town Hall, and Leighton Hall.

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Charles Mackintosh
Inventor - the waterproofing process, the Mackintosh Raincoat

(1766-1843)
Manchester mill-owner and inventor, Charles Mackintosh was born on 29 December 1766 in Glasgow, the son of a well-known dyer, he took an early interest in science. In 1786 he started work in a chemical factory and in 1797 he opened the first alum works in Scotland.
Two men, Thomas Hancok and James Syme, had quite independently of each other, been experimenting in waterproofing fabrics using rubber, but had failed to develop any viable commercial product from their researches. Hancock had begun experimenting with natural rubber in 1819, and in the following year rented a factory in Goswell Road, London working raw rubber with machinery of his own invention - machines which may be regarded as the prototype of the rubber mill and mixer. In 1826 made a working agreement with Charles Mackintosh and Company for the manufacture of waterproof garments in Manchester. Mackintosh, became the inventor of waterproof products, and also had a factory in Wellpark.
Glasgow born, Charles Mackintosh, took out a patent in 1825 for practical waterproof fabric using India rubber. He gave his name to the raincoat, the mackintosh raincoat (or simply, "the mac"), which he had probably developed while working in his father's chemical works in Dennistoun.
Meantime, James Syme (1799-1870) another Scot, born in Edinburgh in 1799 and had an interest in chemistry. He discovered that clothing could be made waterproof by application of a solution of india-rubber dissolved in coal-tar. But, being a medical practitioner, he had scruples about patenting the process and it was taken up by Charles Mackintosh. Mackintosh was trying to find uses for waste products generated by gasworks, he used naptha, a by-product of the distillation of coal-tar, as a solvent for rubber. He then made a rubber solution that enabled him to make a sandwich of rubber between two layers of cloth and made the first mackintoshes.
Macintosh was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823 and he died on 25 July 1843.

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