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William Ackroyd, Otley Mills, Business Archive

Archive Collection: BUS/Ackroyd Contains digital media

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: William Ackroyd, Otley Mills, Business Archive

Level: Collection

Classmark: BUS/Ackroyd

Creator(s): William Ackroyd Limited()

Date(s): 1817-1963

Language: English

Size and medium: 57 volumes

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/3341

Collection group(s): Business Archives

Description

Comprises various ledgers, notebooks, legal documents, cash and wages books, and books concerning stock balances.


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Please see the attached concordance to view the relationship between the numeration of the records in 'The West Riding wool textile industry: a catalogue of business records from the sixteenth to the twentieth century' by Patricia Hudson (1975) and the shelf numbers used by Special Collections.

Biography or history

William Ackroyd Limited, were worsted spinners of Otley Mills, Otley, West Yorkshire, established in 1815. William Ackroyd was an entrepreneur who set up a worsted spinning business in a mill in Otley in 1815. Worsted is a woollen yarn woven into a fabric typically used to make tailored clothing such as suits.


Up until the late 18th century the wool textile industry had been mainly home based. Ackroyd took advantage of advances in technology to produce yarn in bulk using machinery. He helped to make worsted spinning the major industry that it became during the 19th and early 20th centuries in Yorkshire. By the 1830s William Ackroyd had acquired a partner, Thomas Duncan, who took over the business after Ackroyd's death in 1865.

Provenance

This collection was deposited in four separate batches. Items 4-15 as the second deposit in 1974, items 16-56 as the third deposit in 1980 and item 57 as the fourth in 2015.

Access and usage

Access

This collection is subject to various access conditions. Please see individual catalogue descriptions for further details on access.

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