Hope
Hill Mill
I came across your website purely by accident when googling
for Hope Hill Mill. I am interested in this cotton mill
because in about 1809 my great x3 grandfather William Drabble
brought his family from rural Derbyshire to live in Hope
Hill and presumably to work in the mill. Because of this
I have done a little research into the mill, and who owned
it.
The mill was built probably in the latter part of the
eighteenth century and was originally powered by a water
wheel. On old maps you can see the reservoirs nearby on
higher ground. At that time the owner was a Jeremiah Bury
and he employed around 300 workers. He was responsible
for bringing young orphaned children from London parishes
to work in the mill. They stayed in the Prentice House
nearby. He was also responsible for converting the mill
to steam power; he bought and had installed Boulton and
Watt engines in 1791 and 1801.
In 1803 Bury was in partnership with Alexander Rooth,
John Middleton and Joseph Mayer. In 1811 Bury left the
partnership and the remaining three partners ran the mill
until 1831 when the partnership was dissolved. Two streets
near the mill (Bury Street and Rooth Street) are named
after the owners. These streets had rows of terraced 2-up
2-down houses for the mill workers and allotments facing
on which they could grow their own produce (see 1851 OS
map). Mr Bury lived farther up the hill in a house called
Bower House.
Bury, Rooth, Middleton and Mayer were all staunch Methodists
and were founding fathers of the huge Stockport Sunday
School built in 1805 (Bury laid the foundation stone).
Bury died in 1839, Rooth died in 1837, Middleton died
in 1855, and Mayer died in 1857,
In the early 1850s the mill was run by John Taylor (he
appears on the 1848 tithe map of Heaton Norris), John
Cope Burgess and James Burton and then later, as you have
discovered, by Isaiah
Molesdale and John Crompton, followed by Joseph Yetlow.
Ownership was transferred to Henry Pearson and Edwin Cheetham
through to the 1860s. The 1861 census for Heaton Norris
has both Henry Pearson (master cotton spinner and manufacturer
employing 416? persons of both sexes) and Edwin Cheetham
(cotton manufacturer employing 80 workpeople).
The Mill would have been demolished in the early to mid
1860s to make way for the Cheshire Lines railway running
through Stockport to Liverpool which opened in 1865. The
site of the mill became part of the Club House Sidings
for the railway. This railway was closed in 1967 to be
replaced by a section of the M60 Motorway.
I can't imagine that Hope Hill Mill did very good business
towards the middle years of the century, hence its frequent
change of ownership. Also it would be in competition with
newer and much larger mills such as the nearby Orrells
Mill opened in 1838, one of the largest establishments
of its time.
Terry Drabble
March 2009
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