Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

in Britain furnish like

examples of energetic men of business, the source of much benefit

to the neighbourhoods in which they have laboured, and of increased

power and wealth to the community at large. Amongst such might be

cited the Strutts of Belper; the Tennants of Glasgow; the Marshalls

and Gotts of Leeds; the Peels, Ashworths, Birleys, Fieldens,

Ashtons, Heywoods, and Ainsworths of South Lancashire, some of

whose descendants have since become distinguished in connection

with the political history of England. Such pre-eminently were the

Peels of South Lancashire.

 

The founder of the Peel family, about the middle of last century,

was a small yeoman, occupying the Hole House Farm, near Blackburn,

from which he afterwards removed to a house situated in Fish Lane

in that town. Robert Peel, as he advanced in life, saw a large

family of sons and daughters growing up about him; but the land

about Blackburn being somewhat barren, it did not appear to him

that agricultural pursuits offered a very encouraging prospect for

their industry. The place had, however, long been the seat of a

domestic manufacture—the fabric called “Blackburn greys,”

consisting of linen weft and cotton warp, being chiefly made in

that town and its neighbourhood. It was then customary—previous

to the introduction of the factory system—for industrious yeomen

with families to employ the time not occupied in the fields in

weaving at home; and Robert Peel accordingly began the domestic

trade of calico-making. He was honest, and made an honest article;

thrifty and hardworking, and his trade prospered. He was also

enterprising, and was one of the first to adopt the carding

cylinder, then recently invented.

 

But Robert Peel’s attention was principally directed to the

PRINTING of calico—then a comparatively unknown art—and for some

time he carried on a series of experiments with the object of

printing by machinery. The experiments were secretly conducted in

his own house, the cloth being ironed for the purpose by one of the

women of the family. It was then customary, in such houses as the

Peels, to use pewter plates at dinner. Having sketched a figure or

pattern on one of the plates, the thought struck him that an

impression might be got from it in reverse, and printed on calico

with colour. In a cottage at the end of the farmhouse lived a

woman who kept a calendering machine, and going into her cottage,

he put the plate with colour rubbed into the figured part and some

calico over it, through the machine, when it was found to leave a

satisfactory impression. Such is said to have been the origin of

roller printing on calico. Robert Peel shortly perfected his

process, and the first pattern he brought out was a parsley leaf;

hence he is spoken of in the neighbourhood of Blackburn to this day

as “Parsley Peel.” The process of calico printing by what is

called the mule machine—that is, by means of a wooden cylinder in

relief, with an engraved copper cylinder—was afterwards brought to

perfection by one of his sons, the head of the firm of Messrs. Peel

and Co., of Church. Stimulated by his success, Robert Peel shortly

gave up farming, and removing to Brookside, a village about two

miles from Blackburn, he devoted himself exclusively to the

printing business. There, with the aid of his sons, who were as

energetic as himself, he successfully carried on the trade for

several years; and as the young men grew up towards manhood, the

concern branched out into various firms of Peels, each of which

became a centre of industrial activity and a source of remunerative

employment to large numbers of people.

 

From what can now be learnt of the character of the original and

untitled Robert Peel, he must have been a remarkable man—shrewd,

sagacious, and far-seeing. But little is known of him excepting

from traditions and the sons of those who knew him are fast passing

away. His son, Sir Robert, thus modestly spoke of him:- “My father

may be truly said to have been the founder of our family; and he so

accurately appreciated the importance of commercial wealth in a

national point of view, that he was often heard to say that the

gains to individuals were small compared with the national gains

arising from trade.”

 

Sir Robert Peel, the first baronet and the second manufacturer of

the name, inherited all his father’s enterprise, ability, and

industry. His position, at starting in life, was little above that

of an ordinary working man; for his father, though laying the

foundations of future prosperity, was still struggling with the

difficulties arising from insufficient capital. When Robert was

only twenty years of age, he determined to begin the business of

cotton-printing, which he had by this time learnt from his father,

on his own account. His uncle, James Haworth, and William Yates of

Blackburn, joined him in his enterprise; the whole capital which

they could raise amongst them amounting to only about 500l., the

principal part of which was supplied by William Yates. The father

of the latter was a householder in Blackburn, where he was well

known and much respected; and having saved money by his business,

he was willing to advance sufficient to give his son a start in the

lucrative trade of cotton-printing, then in its infancy. Robert

Peel, though comparatively a mere youth, supplied the practical

knowledge of the business; but it was said of him, and proved true,

that he “carried an old head on young shoulders.” A ruined corn-mill, with its adjoining fields, was purchased for a comparatively

small sum, near the then insignificant town of Bury, where the

works long after continued to be known as “The Ground;” and a few

wooden sheds having been run up, the firm commenced their cotton-printing business in a very humble way in the year 1770, adding to

it that of cotton-spinning a few years later. The frugal style in

which the partners lived may be inferred from the following

incident in their early career. William Yates, being a married man

with a family, commenced housekeeping on a small scale, and, to

oblige Peel, who was single, he agreed to take him as a lodger.

The sum which the latter first paid for board and lodging was only

8s. a week; but Yates, considering this too little, insisted on the

weekly payment being increased a shilling, to which Peel at first

demurred, and a difference between the partners took place, which

was eventually compromised by the lodger paying an advance of

sixpence a week. William Yates’s eldest child was a girl named

Ellen, and she very soon became an especial favourite with the

young lodger. On returning from his hard day’s work at “The

Ground,” he would take the little girl upon his knee, and say to

her, “Nelly, thou bonny little dear, wilt be my wife?” to which the

child would readily answer “Yes,” as any child would do. “Then

I’ll wait for thee, Nelly; I’ll wed thee, and none else.” And

Robert Peel did wait. As the girl grew in beauty towards

womanhood, his determination to wait for her was strengthened; and

after the lapse of ten years—years of close application to

business and rapidly increasing prosperity—Robert Peel married

Ellen Yates when she had completed her seventeenth year; and the

pretty child, whom her mother’s lodger and father’s partner had

nursed upon his knee, became Mrs. Peel, and eventually Lady Peel,

the mother of the future Prime Minister of England. Lady Peel was

a noble and beautiful woman, fitted to grace any station in life.

She possessed rare powers of mind, and was, on every emergency, the

high-souled and faithful counsellor of her husband. For many years

after their marriage, she acted as his amanuensis, conducting the

principal part of his business correspondence, for Mr. Peel himself

was an indifferent and almost unintelligible writer. She died in

1803, only three years after the Baronetcy had been conferred upon

her husband. It is said that London fashionable life—so unlike

what she had been accustomed to at home—proved injurious to her

health; and old Mr. Yates afterwards used to say, “if Robert hadn’t

made our Nelly a ‘Lady,’ she might ha’ been living yet.”

 

The career of Yates, Peel, & Co., was throughout one of great and

uninterrupted prosperity. Sir Robert Peel himself was the soul of

the firm; to great energy and application uniting much practical

sagacity, and first-rate mercantile abilities—qualities in which

many of the early cotton-spinners were exceedingly deficient. He

was a man of iron mind and frame, and toiled unceasingly. In

short, he was to cotton printing what Arkwright was to cotton-spinning, and his success was equally great. The excellence of the

articles produced by the firm secured the command of the market,

and the character of the firm stood pre-eminent in Lancashire.

Besides greatly benefiting Bury, the partnership planted similar

extensive works in the neighbourhood, on the Irwell and the Roch;

and it was cited to their honour, that, while they sought to raise

to the highest perfection the quality of their manufactures, they

also endeavoured, in all ways, to promote the well-being and

comfort of their workpeople; for whom they contrived to provide

remunerative employment even in the least prosperous times.

 

Sir Robert Peel readily appreciated the value of all new processes

and inventions; in illustration of which we may allude to his

adoption of the process for producing what is called RESIST WORK in

calico printing. This is accomplished by the use of a paste, or

resist, on such parts of the cloth as were intended to remain

white. The person who discovered the paste was a traveller for a

London house, who sold it to Mr. Peel for an inconsiderable sum.

It required the experience of a year or two to perfect the system

and make it practically useful; but the beauty of its effect, and

the extreme precision of outline in the pattern produced, at once

placed the Bury establishment at the head of all the factories for

calico printing in the country. Other firms, conducted with like

spirit, were established by members of the same family at Burnley,

Foxhill bank, and Altham, in Lancashire; Salley Abbey, in

Yorkshire; and afterwards at Burton-on-Trent, in Staffordshire;

these various establishments, whilst they brought wealth to their

proprietors, setting an example to the whole cotton trade, and

training up many of the most successful printers and manufacturers

in Lancashire.

 

Among other distinguished founders of industry, the Rev. William

Lee, inventor of the Stocking Frame, and John Heathcoat, inventor

of the Bobbin-net Machine, are worthy of notice, as men of great

mechanical skill and perseverance, through whose labours a vast

amount of remunerative employment has been provided for the

labouring population of Nottingham and the adjacent districts. The

accounts which have been preserved of the circumstances connected

with the invention of the Stocking Frame are very confused, and in

many respects contradictory, though there is no doubt as to the

name of the inventor. This was William Lee, born at Woodborough, a

village some seven miles from Nottingham, about the year 1563.

According to some accounts, he was the heir to a small freehold,

while according to others he was a poor scholar, {6} and had to

struggle with poverty from his earliest years. He entered as a

sizar at Christ College, Cambridge, in May, 1579, and subsequently

removed to St. John’s, taking his degree of B.A. in 1582-3. It is

believed that he commenced M.A. in 1586; but on this point there

appears to be some confusion in the records of the University. The

statement usually made that he was expelled for marrying contrary

to the statutes, is incorrect, as he was never a Fellow of the

University, and therefore could not be prejudiced by taking such a

step.

 

At the time when Lee invented the Stocking Frame he was officiating

as curate of