THOMAS BONSOR CROMPTON

Thomas Bonsor Crompton was well known in commercial circles by the great extent of his transactions as a paper manufacturer and cotton spinner, as well as by his vast engagements in other departments of business, by the ability and success with which he conducted his numerous and complicated undertakings, and the large fortune he so acquired. He was born May 20, 1792, at Farnworth, a place which owes its rise from the obscurity of a rural to its present populous and prosperous condition in great part to the enterprise of Mr. Crompton's family. His grandfather had a paper mill and bleach works at Great Lever, about half a mile distant from the existing Farnworth mills. Perceiving what an eligible site Farnworth presented for manufacturing purposes, he obtained a lease of the property from the late Duke of Bridgewater, and built a paper mill and bleach works upon it. His son John, the father of the subject of the present memoir, succeeded to these works, and built Rock-hall as a residence. He was not, however, permitted to occupy it, having died at the very period of its completion, leaving three sons, John, Robert and Thomas Bonsor. The eldest and youngest became partners in the Farnworth mills. John, the eldest brother, died in 1834, leaving a widow, without issue. From that period to the time of his own death, last week, Mr. T. B. Crompton was the sole proprietor of that extensive concern.

The second brother, Robert, carried on extensive paper mills at Worthington, near Wigan. This gentleman ( who lived unmarried, and died in 1855 ) retired from business in 1840, and Mr. T. B. Crompton became the sole proprietor of the Worthington Mills also. Here he greatly enlarged the business, and almost entirely rebuilt the extensive premises.

In the conduct of these two large establishments he exhibited great inventive skill and knowledge of business, and great fertility of mechanical application. Owing to the superiority of his manufacture of printing and packing papers, he supplied the principal newspapers and merchants both in London and the provinces. Soon after the "Fourdrinier machine" for making the paper web in continuous lengths was introduced, the quick perception of Mr. Crompton foresaw that unless a better mode of drying could be discovered that machine would be comparatively valueless. He therefore invented the continuous-drying apparatus, now in general operation. For this invention he took out a patent; but such was the then imperfect state of the law of patents, that after several days' trial at Lancaster he was deprived of the exclusive benefit of this valuable discovery upon a mere technical point in the specification. Lord Brougham afterwards commented upon this state of the law, and, in consequence of this decision, introduced a clause giving patentees power to amend a specification and to disclaim.

Mr. Crompton was one of those influential manufacturers who induced Government to abandon the classification of paper for excise duty. Indeed, he lost no opportunity of impressing upon public men the impolicy of the paper duty altogether, whether differential or uniform - not as a political question or "as a tax upon knowledge," but as opening a door to fraud and an injury to the honest trader. Great loss and inconvenience had been felt by the conductors of newspapers published in the north of England from the obligation to send all their paper to Somerset House, London, to be impressed with the penny stamp then required by law. Upon the urgent representations of Mr. Crompton, who largely supplied the provincial journals with paper, the Government was induced to establish an office in Manchester for the impression of the obnoxious stamp, without transmission to London, to the great relief of the press in all that part of the country.

From his many transactions with the metropolitan and provincial press, Mr. Crompton became an extensive newspaper proprietor. There are, indeed, very few of the established London papers that have not at some time or other been wholly or in part his property. Some years since he became proprietor of the Morning Post, which shared in the benefits of his great experience, and became, under his protection, the flourishing property that it now is.

But the extensive transactions of Mr. Crompton were not confined to paper making; he was also a large manufacturer of cotton. About 25 years ago he erected at Prestolee, about two miles from Farnworth, a very extensive cotton mill, giving employment to upwards of 800 hands. This mill is well known in the neighbourhood for the completeness of its machinery and arrangements, and the enterprising scale on which it has always been conducted. It forms a conspicious object of interest to the Yorkshire line of railway between Manchester and Bolton. Besides the manufacture of cotton and paper, Mr. Crompton was connected with many other markets for capital, and was known throughout the commercial world for the untiring peresverance and enviable skill by which he won the position which he occupaied at the time of his decease, with so much credit to himself and usefulness to his fellow-creatures.

It remains to trace the personal qualities of the man who engaged in all this work and discharged these arduous responsibilities. It will readily be understood that only a man with a strong decision of character, persistency of purpose, self-reliance, and ability to command could successfully hold the reins where the transactions were so extensive and the interests so complicated. The mental and moral qualities of Mr. Crompton were essentially masculine, strong in their development, and vigorous in their exercise. Hence he would reprove with an unflinching sternness where he had good reason to complain. But the capability of exercising the severer virtues when occasionally required did not hinder the more general prevalence of kindly and generous feelings. He despised indolence, and pitied incapacity; but he respected industry and persevering effort wherever he found them, and was ever ready to help forward with capital and advice those in whom he discovered these admirable qualities. Many now wealthy concerns can bear testimony to his past kindness to them in this way. Mr. Crompton was ever ready to help those who strove to help themselves, while towards those who were unable to strive - especially the widow and the orphan - his charity was bountiful and openhanded. It was hardly possible that a man conducting such vast and varied concerns should altogether escape being misunderstood by those who were not capable, either from their own deficiency or insufficient knowledge of him, to appreciate his commanding powers and thoroughness of character; but no man was ever more above the reach of malevolence or accidental misrepresentation. What merely occasioned annoyance he was too much occupied not to forget; what really pained him he had greatness enough to forgive. He was not insensible to the responsibilities of wealth and the claim of his workmen upon his liberality. Having created by his mills the populations of Farnworth and Prestolee, he did not leave them without the means of moral and religious impression. To his munificence Farnworth and Prestolee owe the erection of their churches, their schools, and the benefits of additional pastoral superintendence. He took great interest in the cleanliness and sanitary condition of his workpeople, who in return regarded him with a respectful and grateful loyalty. He had a high opinion of the advantages to society of providing a sufficiency of employment for the working classes. Plentiful work and full wages entered largely into his theory of social improvement. If he worked hard to the close of his life, long after he had amassed princely wealth, it was not from the vulgar vanity of being known as a millionaire, but because he felt of how large a circle he was the centre, how many interests must be broken up, and how many thousands of hands be, temporarily at least, deprived of employment by his retirement from the arduous toils of business to the calm delights of a country life. Yet he was not indifferent to rural pleasures. He was an ardent sportsman; he held extensive moors in the Highlands, and was one of the best shots of the day. His hospitality was bountiful, without ostentation, and he never was seen to more advantage than when living at home in the very heart of his extensive concerns, receiving his friends, and presiding over the plentiful board that gave them welcome to his hearth. In politics he was a Conservative, but he had a thorough respect for honest convictions, and numbered many warm friends amongst those opposed to him in political sentiments. As a churchman, he was a staunch upholder of the principles of the Reformation, and took great interest, as we have said, in providing for the religious wants of his people. Hence, those in his employ were sincerely attached to him, and served him with fidelity; and in return their services have been bountifully acknowledged by legacies. Thus lived, and on the 8th instant, after half a century of work, died, one of the most industrious, influential, and useful of our merchant princes, whose name will long be pleasurably associated with the many vast concerns of which he was the head. Few men have worked as hard and achieved as much; and few can, in our humble judgement, give a more faithful account of the discharge, often under very trying circumstances, of an unusually extensive and arduous stewardship. He leaves a widow, but no children. The male branch of the family is now extinct, and the founder of Farnworth, and the creator of Prestolee, the renovator of Worthington, and the informing soul of many a great commercial undertaking which in its operation conduced to the material welfare of the country, rests from his busy labours, in peace, as we trust, with God and all mankind, and was followed to the grave on Monday last amidst the silent tears and outspoken grief of the thousands of hands amongst whom he had gone in and out as a father and a friend. ( From the "Morning Post" reprinted in the "Liverpool Mercury" )

Sources:

Farnworth Paper Mills ( Ancestry Images )
"The Gentleman's Magazine" ( November 1858 ) ( pp.534-5 )
"Liverpool Mercury" ( 17 September 1858 )
"Morning Post"
"Paper in Bolton" Denis Lyddon and Peter Marshall ( John Sherratt and Son Ltd., Altrincham, Lancashire, 1975 )
Thomas Bonsor Crompton photograph from the collections of Science Museum, London.
Thomas Bonsor Crompton portrait from the collections of Bolton Library and Museum Services.

Acknowledgements:

Baillieu Library, Melbourne University
Bolton Library and Museum Services
Fairclough, William
Lyddon, Stephen
Oliver, Richard
State Library of Victoria.

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