Drive & Stroll, with Ron Freethy: HYNDBURN

I HAVE been interested in the history of Lancashire's textile industry for many years.

We should be proud of men like Hargreaves, Arkwright and Crompton but there is one man and - one East Lancashire family - who tend to be forgotten.

Only the Hargreaves family can claim a continual link with cotton from the time that James invented the Spinning Jenny in the 18th century.

The family still owns the Oswaldtwistle Mill complex, including the splendid Time Tunnel Museum which traces the proud history.

But what about the forgotten man of Great Harwood? John Mercer was an intelligent lad who first became a textile labourer, then a chemist and then a textile manufacturer thanks to his own inventive skills. He actually invented red ink and sold the formula for £10,000 before 1844. His reputation was said to be worldwide.

In 1850 he patented the process which we now know as Mercerising. This involved treating the cotton fibres with caustic soda so that they swelled and developed a lustre. Mercer was offered £40,000 by a French company but he preferred to keep his formula in Lancashire. He had a factory on Dean Brook, Great Harwood, which was initially only a converted barn. An attached cottage is also said to have been his birthplace.

John Mercer made lots of brass but he was generous and tangible and signs of this can be seen at Mercer Hall in Great Harwood and the colourful Mercer Park in Clayton-le-Moors, both of which he or his family funded. There is also a splendid memorial clock erected to his memory in Great Harwood. A glance at a book on English politics till tell you that Robert Peel was Prime Minister in the mid-19th century and was instrumental in setting up the penny post (the first stamps) and initiating the police force. Officers became known as the Peelers and then as the Bobbies.

Books say that Peel was born in Bury and this is true but the family fortune was made in East Lancashire. The Peel family originated from Peel Fold, near Oswaldtwistle.

Robert Peel (1788-1850) was a great man. In 1858 the good people of Accrington built the Peel Institute by public subscription in memory of the man whose fortune was made from cotton. The magnificent building still stands next to the equally impressive market but the Peel Institute is now the town hall. At the head of the staircase is a marble bust of the ex-Prime Minister.

Whenever we think of tourism we in East Lancashire are often our own worst enemies. We underrate our countryside and too often describe the buildings in our towns as ugly. If you want to prove how silly this is just take a look at the Mercer Hall in Great Harwood and the town hall in Accrington.

The first public park was set up in Birkenhead and it was the businessmen of northern England who realised the value of providing the workers with somewhere pleasant to enjoy their leisure.

Mercer was one of many wealthy men who gave generously to these projects, which have survived splendidly to the present day.

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