Biography

From the Dictionary of National Biography, "CROSSLEY, Sir FRANCIS (1817–1872), carpet manufacturer and philanthropist, was born at Halifax on 26 Oct. 1817. His father, John Crossley, a carpet manufacturer at the Dean Clough Mills, Halifax, died 17 Jan. 1837, having had by his wife Martha, daughter of Abram Turner of Scout Farm, Yorkshire, a numerous family. Mrs. John Crossley died 26 Nov. 1854. The fifth and youngest son, Francis, was from the earliest age trained to habits of industry. He was sent to school at Halifax, but while still a schoolboy his pocket money was made dependent on his own work. A loom was set up for him in his father's mill, in which he wrought in the time not spent at school, and thus learnt the value of money. The carpet manufactory at Dean Clough was commenced by John Crossley in a very humble fashion, but it became, under the management of John Crossley, jun., Joseph Crossley, and Francis Crossley, who constituted the firm of J. Crossley & Sons, the largest concern of its kind in the world. Its buildings covered an area of twenty acres, and the firm gave employment to between five and six thousand persons. Its rapid growth takes its date from the application of steam power and machinery to the production of carpets. These had already been used somewhat extensively in the manufacture of other textile fabrics, and the Crossley firm saw at once the immense advantage that would accrue to them from their use in their own business. They acquired patents and then devised and patented improvements which placed them at once far in advance of the whole trade, and gave them for a length of time the absolute command of a description of carpet which has since been more extensively manufactured than any other. One loom, the patent of which became their property, was found capable of weaving about six times as much as could be produced by the old hand loom. The possession of this loom and the acquisition of other patents compelled the manufacturers of tapestry and Brussels carpets to throw their hand looms aside, and to apply to Messrs. Crossley for licenses to work their patents." William Seward visited the carpet manufactory and wrote of it in a letter to his daughter Fanny on July 10, 1859.