The Ossett Mill Company

Abstract

The history of Joint-Stock Company Woollen Mills exhibits a singular instance of energy amongst the smaller capitalists of the manufacturing districts…. the clothiers of certain country districts, such as Farsley, Idle, Eccleshill, Batley, Dewsbury, etc, put their heads together, and subsequently their purses…by erecting mills at home, to scribble their own wool and full their own cloth …. In the formation of a company mill a number of clothiers (for they must be clothiers to be partners) of small capital meet together and determine to become a company of so many partners, from ten to fifty, in shares generally of £25 each, each person taking as many shares as his capital will enable him…. With this subscribed capital deeds of partnership are drawn, land is bought, a mill erected, and machinery put up …. The processes which are carried on in these company mills are scribbling, carding, slubbing, and fulling cloth, which are the preparatory processes of the cloth manufacture, and the remaining processes—viz, spinning, warping, weaving, and burling—are done at home by members of the family or by persons employed for that purpose.