Oldham Historical Research Group

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Historical Sketches of Oldham by Edwin Butterworth
Pub. 1856
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Historical Sketches of Oldham by Edwin Butterworth

that occasion. The agitation became so great that in May, 1785, the odious tax was repealed, and so extreme was the joy created by the event that the Oldham delegate was carried aloft on the shoulders of the people through the principal streets of the village. Mr. Taylor died before 1796. Mr. Joseph Dunkerlcy, the representative of an ancient Oldham yeomanry family, entered into the cotton trade, and erected Rhodes mill about 1783 - 1785. He died in 1790, and was father of John Dunkerley, Esq., an extensive manufacturer, who erected the elegant mansion of Pit bank. Messrs. Jonathan Ogden, machine maker, Thomas Kay, fustian manufacturer, and John Travis, grocer, formed a partnership, and erected Lower Sheepwashes mill, about 1784. Mr. Daniel Knott, of Fog lane, appears to have commenced the first cotton manufactory in that locality between 1785 and 1790. All these new manufactories were moved by horse power, with one partial exception, Lower Sheepwashes mill, which was worked by both horse and water power. Several other small spinning concerns moved by horse power rapidly started into existence, and as rapidly became extinct, owing in a great measure to the ruinous consequences arising to small speculators from the perpetual alterations taking place in the sizes of spinning machines. Amongst these short lived concerns was one at Harry fold, near the present Shudehill, another at Glodwick, a third in Goldbourn, a fourth in Maygate lane, and a fifth in School croft.

"The mule twist now coming into vogue for the warp as well as weft, added te the water frame twist and common jenny yarns, with an increasing demand for every fabric the loom could produce, put all hands in request of every age and description. The fabrics made from wool and linen vanished, while the old loom shops being insufficient, every lumber room, even old barns, cart houses, and outbuildings of any description were repaired, windows broke through the old blank walls, and all fitted up for loom shops. This source of

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