Taylor, Wordsworth and Co

Taylor Wordsworth and Co was one of the leading producers of machinery for the flax, wool and worsted industries in Leeds, Yorkshire during the British Industrial Revolution. It was established in 1812 and survived until it was taken over in the 1930s.

The company was established in 1812, by Joseph Taylor, Joshua Wordsworth and Nathaniel Marshall. They had previously been employed by the brothers, Joseph and William Drabble, as workmen at a machine-making factory, Midland Mills, in Water Lane, Leeds. Midland Mills had originally been built for John Jubb, probably the same as the John Jubb who had married a Sarah Drabble in Doncaster in 1774. On 7 November 1812 a notice in the local paper, the Leeds Mercury, announced that ‘Messrs Taylor, Wordsworth and Marshall, Flax Tow and Worsted Machine-Makers (late Workmen to Mr William Drabble) … have engaged a Commodious Place in Holbeck, where they intend carrying on the above business in all its branches’. On 19 December 1812 the Mercury reported that William Drabble had been declared bankrupt, and advertised all his factory machinery and household furniture for sale by auction. In May 1813 his premises in Water Lane - a factory three stories high, a warehouse and a building used as a saw pit - were up for sale. In June 1814, ‘Messrs Taylor, Wordsworth and Marshall’ placed an announcement in the Mercury, announcing that they were moving into the Drabbles’ former premises and advertising for workers.

Taylor and Wordsworth both married Drabble girls – Wordsworth had married a Martha Drabble in Tankersley, near Barnsley, in 1803 while Taylor had married a Hannah Drabble in Leeds in 1805; then, following the death of the first Martha in 1810, Wordsworth had married another Martha Drabble in Leeds in 1811.

The early 1800s were an important time for the company. The industrialisation of the cotton industry had begun in the eighteenth century, but in the cloth industry it was only just getting under way. Most cloth was still produced in the workers' own homes. Most machinery was still made of wood, and was hand-operated and clumsy. While Taylor’s marriage entry from 1805 gave his occupation as ‘Mechanic’, Wordsworth’s, from 1811, showed him as ‘Carpenter’. It was the advent of steam power that would transform the prospects of machine makers such as Taylor and Wordsworth.

...
Wikipedia