VII The fortunes of a Leeds merchant house 1780–1820

Abstract

Where any historian brave enough to compile a biographical dictionary of “The makers of the industrial revolution” on the basis of existing published material it would be roughly divided between long notices of the great “captains”, Arkwright, Peel, Gott and their like, and copious entries for the “inventors”. The general impression it created would be largely false. However significant the lead they gave, the course of the country's industrial evolution in the hundred years after 1760 was not determined solely by a score of giants. There were thousands of men, important in their day, who directed the processes of change. Yet they escaped the attention of Victorian enquirers, who held up the select band of pioneering millionaires as shining examples that late nineteenth-century industrialists might emulate. But the cumulative effect of their ambitions, enterprise and innovations was of key significance in launching Britain into its first phase of industrialism. For a study of a family that have hitherto failed to secure a single mention in any of the books, and yet whose impact and example were notable in one of the main centres of activity, the Rhodes in Leeds provide a good illustration.

Reprinted with permission from Business History, 9, 1967. This article is largely based upon a box of unsorted papers in the Leeds Central Library Archives department, DB/39 Armitage Rhodes MSS. The collection is wrongly labelled: the family discussed in this paper had no close connection with the Armitage Rhodes's. They derived a fortune from James Armitage, a wealthy Leeds merchant and Peter Rhodes, a large scale soap manufacturer. Oates MSS (Leeds) and Burke's Landed Gentry, 1952 edition, “Armitage of Farnley Hall”.

Reprinted with permission from Business History, 9, 1967. This article is largely based upon a box of unsorted papers in the Leeds Central Library Archives department, DB/39 Armitage Rhodes MSS. The collection is wrongly labelled: the family discussed in this paper had no close connection with the Armitage Rhodes's. They derived a fortune from James Armitage, a wealthy Leeds merchant and Peter Rhodes, a large scale soap manufacturer. Oates MSS (Leeds) and Burke's Landed Gentry, 1952 edition, “Armitage of Farnley Hall”.

Notes

Reprinted with permission from Business History, 9, 1967. This article is largely based upon a box of unsorted papers in the Leeds Central Library Archives department, DB/39 Armitage Rhodes MSS. The collection is wrongly labelled: the family discussed in this paper had no close connection with the Armitage Rhodes's. They derived a fortune from James Armitage, a wealthy Leeds merchant and Peter Rhodes, a large scale soap manufacturer. Oates MSS (Leeds) and Burke's Landed Gentry, 1952 edition, “Armitage of Farnley Hall”.