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Preston Guardian

Saturday 26 May 1855

Death Of An Old Inhabitant

Died, on Wednesday last, aged 98 years, Mr. Henry Hargreaves, of Shorey-street, Burnley. The deceased was the first hand-loom weaver in Burnley, and when he commenced that handicraft he had to fetch the materials - the warp and weft - from Padiham, which was then a more important town than Burnley. He subsequently began business as a cotton manufacturer, but lost his money, the proceeds of hard-earned savings, by the failure of a firm at Toddington, near Bury, the principal having fled to America. In his advanced years he has had numerous kind friends, having had a cottage rent free, granted him by the executors of the late Colonel Hargreaves; and Lawrence Hitchon, Esq., of the Grangem near Wakefield (a native of Burnley), having allowed him half-a-crown per week for many years. Would that there were more Hitchons in the world | for then many a poor, unfortunate individual might be saved from the degradations of becoming a burden on the parish, so inimical to the feelings of a free-born Englishman.

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Mel

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Good age !

There were of course handloom weavers in and around Burnley practically from time immemorial.

I doubt too whether Padiham was to be regarded as more important than Burnley (unless of course you were from Padiham !). Colne was though.

Rex