Thirteenth Generation

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Messrs. J., T. & W. Hornby established themselves in Bentham about 1795, and at first operated from Low Mill. They imported Baltic Flax into a warehouse on St. George's quay, Lancaster, and transported it by four horse wagons to Bentham. Initially, the brothers spun yarn at Bentham for their sailcloth factories in Kirkham, and later they built premises for weavers in Bentham, some of whom came from Kirkham. The Bentham operations were managed after about 1814 by Tony Roughsedge Esq., who continued to trade under the name of Hornby & Co., but who extended the Hornby interests there. In 1814, Mr. Hornby Roughsedge - who had formerly managed the Hornby factories in Kirkham - purchased High Hill and the residence known as Bentham House in Bentham from Charkes Oarker Esq. He also acquired the manorial rights of Ingleton, and became the leading gentleman of the district. He was a great benefactor of St. Margaret's Church, Bentham, which contains several memorials to him. In the 1830's, the sailcloth industry began to decline in Bentham, and the mills went over to the production of finer yarns by wet spinning. In 1850, Mr. Hornby Roughsedge sold the Bentham mills and Bentham House to Messrs. Waithman & Co., and retired to Foxghyll, near Ambleside. He died in September, 1859, and was buried at Grasmere. (Mr. Hornby Roughsedge was the son of Rev. Thomas Hankinson Roughsedge, Rector of Liverpool, and was a kinsman of the Hornbys through his grandmother (nee Hankinson) - see Mr. Hugh Hornby, of Kirkham (above). See also Rev. Edward James Geoffrey Hornby, M.A. Rector of Bury (below), who married Elizabeth, only daughter of Mr. Hornby Roughsedge).

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Industrial enterprise and endeavour

We have already seen that, by the time Charles Tiplady began recording events in his diary, Blackburn had become a thriving industrial centre. But who were the driving forces behind this success story? It was often the ambition of individual men that shaped the town's commercial and physical growth, establishing family dynasties that were to dominate cotton, engineering and brewing. The lives of three of these men will serve to illustrate that it was personalities, rather than companies, who gave Blackburn's industry that first vital spark.

Hornby is a name synonymous with Blackburn. The family not only produced the first mayor and several Members of Parliament, but also employed a huge workforce at their Brookhouse Mills. But before the industrial revolution, there were no Hornby's in Blackburn - they were a classic 'industrial family' who arrived and thrived with cotton, and John Hornby (1763-1841), as the founding father of the dynasty, was one of the town's first textile entrepreneurs. John's story is not a tale of 'rags to riches', but rather that of a determined young man from a good family of Kirkham merchants. The following extract from the Blackburn Times, chronicles his arrival:

'…he came to Blackburn as a boy of 16 to learn the business of a merchant with Richard Birley [his brother-in-law]'his capital consisted of exactly £25, invested at 5% in the family business. Arrangements were made for him to live with his sister and brother-in-law. He saved £10 out of his first year's allowance and, with gifts and earnings, immediately began to build up his little capital.'

One of the first things he invested in was a local gazetteer, familiarising himself with the area and the arrangement of the cotton trade which, at that time, was still based on the domestic system of handloom weavers producing cloth in their own cottages. Merchants such as John Hornby were essentially middle-men, known as 'putters-out'. They travelled out to the handloom weaver's colonies, providing them with spun cotton (usually on credit), returning later in the month to collect the finished cloth which was then stored or sold on from a warehouse in town. It is important to remember that while the skills of the handloom weaver were in high demand, the relationship between merchant and weaver was an unequal one - the roles of employer and employee were gradually adopted, to the extent that some merchants used their warehouses as handloom 'factories', centralizing production and paying their weavers a wage.

The introduction of mechanised spinning techniques based on the inventions of Hargreaves and Crompton saw the first textile mills constructed in Blackburn. From the profits made as a merchant, John Hornby built one of the earliest spinning mills at Brookhouse in 1828, which initially took its power from the River Blakewater. Powerloom weaving began on the site in 1830. By the time of Hornby's death in 1841, Brookhouse had been transformed into a thriving industrial village, the mills surrounded by streets of cottages built to house the mill workers. Unlike some self-made men of the period, Hornby's benevolence towards his employees and the poor in general seems to have been genuine. Whittle, in Blackburn As It Is (1852) notes:

'He was very charitable to the poor, and he invariably found out where poverty was deserving of assistance - he made a point of upholding and maintaining the wages of the weavers in times of adversity, when the state of trade rendered such protection a temporary loss to the employers.'

Of course, Hornby could afford to be generous. Since 1796 he had lived in a luxurious house on King Street, from where he watched his fortune increase year by year. He died worth a staggering £200,000, having established his family as the premier employer in Blackburn.

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