Ashworth Cotton Enterprise. The rise and fall of a family firm, 1818-1880

Notes:

Early scholarly account of a business and businessman. See the writer's doctoral thesis 'Ashworth Cotton Factories and the Life of Henry Ashworth, 1794-1880', London, 1967. The first part provides a chronological account of the firm's development supported by substantial financial analysis. The second part focuses on Henry Ashworth's ideas re his employees, their working conditions and welfare, their education, organised labour, politics, etc. Chapters include: 'The Ashworths' early connections with cotton and the building of New Eagley Mill, 1720-1817'; 'Expansion of New Eagley Mill and the acquisition and equipment of Egerton Mill, 1818-31'; 'The years of vicissitude, 1831-54'; 'The organization of the Ashworth firm, 1831-54'; 'New Eagley Factory, 1854-80'; 'Henry Ashworth's philospophy as an employer of labour and the conditions of his operatives'; 'The mill villages and schools and the educational and social ideas of Henry Ashworth'; 'The 1830 mill strike and the subsequent Ashworth attitude to trade unions'; 'Factory legislation and the continued conflict with the Factory Inspector and Lord Ashley [ie Lord Shaftesbury]'; 'The Poor Law and the movements of southern agricultural labourers'; 'Free trade and the Anti-Corn Law League'; 'The other political activities and ideas of Henry Ashworth'; 'Henry Ashworth's religious and social background'. Includes family tree