Skip to main content

Isaac Holden and Sons Limited, Business Archive

Archive Collection: BUS/Holden

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: Isaac Holden and Sons Limited, Business Archive

Level: Collection

Classmark: BUS/Holden

Creator(s): Isaac Holden and Sons Limited(); Holden, Sir Isaac (1807-1897)()

Date(s): c.1830-1910

Language: English; French

Size and medium: 15 boxes

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/6939

Collection group(s): Business Archives

Description

Summary of Contents by Box No.

I. Papers referring to patents and other business affairs. 1830s-50s.

II. Journals and notebooks. 1844-88.

III. Newspaper cuttings, parliamentary bills, addresses and pamphlets. 1868-83.

IV. Cuttings, pamphlets and other papers - mainly political and religious. 1872 and 1897.

V. Varied social and business correspondence. 1827-52.

VI. Letters and papers, business and social. 1840-9.

VII. Letters and papers, business and social. 1850-80s.

VIII. Letters and papers, business and social. 1860-72.

IX. Miscellaneous correspondence. 1873-90s.

X. Political, religious and miscellaneous papers. 1840s-70s.

XI. Personal family papers, mainly 1890s-1910s.

XII. Miscellaneous and undated papers (includes notes on combing by Holden).

XIII. Miscellaneous papers including account of ‘Isaac Holden with Townends’. 1830-45.

XIV. Illingworth papers. 1880s-1910s.

XV. Will and executorship papers of Miles Illingworth, Esq. c. 1859-87.


J. Hodgson, Textile Manufacture, and other Industries, in Keighley (1879) pp. 111-18; ‘Wool trade story of idealism and humanity’, Bradford Telegraph and Argus, 7 May 1957; Fortunes Made in Business, Vol. 1 (1884), pp. 1-44; Fortunes Made in Business, edited by J. Hogg, new edition, first series (1891), pp. 15-38; Holden-Illingworth Letters (1927), 830 pp.; ‘Pioneers of the Wool Textile Industry’, Wool Record, Vol. 23 (1923), pp. 1229-32; W. R. Millmore, ‘Isaac Holden and Sons Ltd. Bradford: links with the beginning of machine woolcombing’, ibid., Vol. 80 (1951), 307-9; E. M. Sigsworth, ‘Isaac Holden Bart: First Woolcomber in Europe’, in Textile History and Economic History, Essays in honour of Miss J. de L. Mam (1973).

Biography or history

Isaac Holden and Sons Limited, of Pitt Lane Mill, Bradford (1846-1849), St Denis, Croix, and Rheims, France, were woolcombers, established in 1846. Sir Isaac Holden (1807-1897) had a varied and interesting career. Born in humble circumstances, in his early life he invented, but failed to patent, the lucifer match. He was in partnership with S. C. Lister and later on his own in wool combing mills both in Bradford and in France. Holden was Liberal Member of Parliament for Knaresborough, 1865-1868, when he was described as one of the richest men in the House. Holden supported electoral reform, the disestablishment of the Church and Irish Home Rule. Throughout his life he was a staunch Wesleyan, and in later years he was an active philanthropist. The Holden family were closely associated with the City of Bradford, Sir Isaac Holden's eldest son, Angus, being Lord Mayor in 1878, 1879, 1880 and 1886.

Access and usage

Access

Access to this material is unrestricted.

Collection hierarchy

Visitor Basket

Ref No. Item Ref Title