Councillor James Sutcliffe

Mayor of Burnley from 1925-1927

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Councillor James Sutcliffe was born at Lane Head in 1868 and as a boy attended Lane Head School. When ten years of age he started work as a half timer at Barden Mill, belonging to the firm of Messrs. R. Stuttard. He worked there for twenty years, after which he, along with several others, formed the George Street Manufacturing Company. The partnership continued for 23 years until 1911, when Mr Sutcliffe took over Wiseman Street Mill, where under the style of Sutcliffe and Clarkson, he carried on business until his death. In addition to the Wiseman Street Shed where there are about one thousand looms, the firm also carried on the business of spinners at Whittlefield Mill.
Councillor Sutcliffe entered the Town Council in 1915 as a Conservative representative for Fulledge Ward. At the first municipal election after the war he was beaten by the Labour candidate, Mr. J.T. Howson. The following November he was asked to stand for Stoneyholme Ward, and he was returned by a substantial majority. He represented Stoneyholme Ward for nine years and his third term of office would have expired at the end of the present month. In this connection it is a pathetic coincidence that Councillor Sutcliffe should have been removed to the nursing home on the same day that he was unanimously adopted Conservative candidate for Stoneyholme Ward at the coming November election.
Since being elected on the Council, Councillor Sutcliffe has served on the following committees – Markets, Highways Improvement, Education, Electricity, Finance, Gas and Tramways. He had been chairman of the Improvement Committee for several years and at different periods had been vice-chairman of the Tramways and Electricity committees. During his chairmanship of the Improvement Committee many important schemes were inaugurated and successfully completed. The construction of the new aqueduct in Yorkshire Street stands out as the most important and valuable improvement carried out in Burnley for many years and Councillor Sutcliffe was justifiably proud of the fact that the work was completed during his chairmanship of the Improvement Committee, a tablet in Yorkshire Street bears Councillor Sutcliffe’s name as chairman of the Committee responsible for carrying out the work.
Other schemes in which he took a great interest and rendered good service to the town included the acquisition and demolition of property in connection with the widening of St James Street and the construction of arterial roads both inside and outside the borough. When he was a member of the Education Committee councillor Sutcliffe was a staunch advocate of a system under which children were enabled to pass by stages from the elementary schools to the higher education centres.
Councillor Sutcliffe was Mayor of the Borough from 1925 to 1927, and discharged the duties attaching thereto with characteristic thoroughness. Soon after his election to the Mayoral chair he announced his intention of inaugurating a ‘mills and workshops’ scheme in support of the Victoria Hospital and other charitable institutions in the town. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the project and addressed numerous meetings at mills and workshops in the town appealing to workpeople to organise weekly collections for the hospital. Councillor Sutcliffe’s efforts in this connection were crowned with success and the establishment of this fund will be a lasting monument to his memory.