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

the Higher Hurst mills have been greatly extended by his sons, Mr. John Whittaker and brothers. The late Mr. Whittaker afforded a remarkable instance, amongst numerous others which are to be met with in the manufacturing districts, of the results of self progression, when accompanied by prudence and perseverance. In less than forty years he became the opulent possessor of an immense manufactory, which at the present period employs about 1500 operatives, produces 40,000lbs. of yarn, and 8000 pieces of power loom cloth weekly, and pays in wages a sum of £2500 monthly. Mr. John Hague, once an inhabitant of Mossley or its vicinity, commenced the cotton business at Acre mill in 1798. He extended the original manufactory considerably, and was father ofthe present possessors, Messrs. John and Jonathan Hague. Although the steam engine was beginning to be generally used as the moving power of almost all cotton mills, there were several small mills for carding cotton moved by horse power as late as 1807, and one at Glodwick as late as 1815. The small carding mills worked by horse power in 1800 were, Bent hall mill, Mr. John Henthorn; Blomeley mill, near Count hill, Messrs. John Widdall and Co.; Glodwick mill, Mr. Benjamin Clegg; and Fog lane old mill, Daniel Knott. In 1805 there was an additional mill of this description in Bent, belonging to Messrs. Milne and Shaw. In 1800 a Mr. Samuel Haigh and a Mr. Ogden established small warehouses at Hollinwood, as store places for cotton goods which were woven on their account in the neighbourhood. In the latter part of the last and the beginning of the present century, a large number of weavers in Oldham and the neighbourhood, particularly at Heyside, possessed spacious loom shops, where they not only employed many journeymen weavers, but a considerable proportion of apprentice children, procured from the parish workhouses of the metropolis, and other equally distant populous places. Hundreds of these poor children, from the age of seven to fourteen, were sent down into the north, and the utmost possible quan-


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