Catalogue description John Barraclough, Silk Spinner, Records.

Barraclough, John, 1811-1895, silk spinner of Sowerby

• Textile industry

As a young man, John Barraclough (1811-1895) from Triangle, Sowerby, learned how to spin waste silk, a process for which inventors like Peter Fairburn, mechanic at Marshall's mill in Leeds devised machines. Some machines were exported but European firms needed expertise as well and they recruited Britons to put in the new machines, keep them running and teach the locals how they worked. After spending time in Europe already - he married in Paris in 1833 - Barraclough joined this foreign legion of workers for the first time in the 1840s, taking his family to France. The job turned out disastrously and he returned home almost penniless. He tried again c1846 when he was sought out by the owner of a mill at Amilly, south of Paris. This time he initially left his family at home. In c1853 he quarrelled with his French employer and returned home. Since early 1852, his brothers Joseph and William had been consulting him about starting up a silk business. A small factory called Swamp Mill was vacant and could be rented for £40 a year. From France, Barraclough lined up his brothers and 2 others as partners, signed the lease in August 1853 and returned home as manager. This venture subsided with heavy losses the following year.

Barraclough and his brother, Thomas, then accepted positions ion a mill at Fourmies. Barraclough soon accepted an offer to tour France, Switzerland and Italy as waste silk buyer for Edward Briggs, a Rochdale manufacturer, making 3 tours in 15 months. From November 1854-January 1855 he was in Milan learning the language and becoming acquainted with John Dean form the West Riding who was installing machines at a silk mill at Meina on Lake Maggiore, the managing partner of which was a man called Magistrini. Barraclough returned to England but after months of negotiations he arrived back in Meina in October 1855 to start work at the mill, which was struggling. Barraclough was an ingenious man and whilst working there he adapted a wool-combing machine to such good effect that his employers offered him a better contract to build more. After he returned home in April 1859, his expertise was recognised by Samuel Cunliffe Lister who in 1860 recruited him to help convert Manningham Mill at Bradford to spinning waste silk. Wealth eluded him and when he broke away from Lister to set up another partnership - Jessen, Barraclough and Company - financial disaster again ensued and the partnership was dissolved in 1863. He returned to work for Lister as a travelling waste-silk buyer and seller of silk products until 1868. In 1870-1871 he took parties around France, Italy and Germany and Scotland. There is some doubt about his later years, but it would appear from information supplied by his family that he died in 1875 and was buried at Sowerby St Peter's. His son John was born in 1844 and it appears that he died in 1895 at Lark Hill Terrace, Brighouse aged 52.

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