John Horrocks

John Horrocks (27 March 1768 – 1 March 1804) was an English cotton manufacturer and Member of Parliament for Preston. Early life He was born in Bradshaw, Lancashire, the son of John Horrocks, owner of a stone quarry, and his wife Jane Booth, the younger of two surviving sons in a family of 18 children. His father, a Quaker, was a manufacturer of stone printing tables for textiles in Edgworth. David Hunt in his 1992 History of Preston comments that many details of his early life are confused. While still young Horrocks worked in Edgworth for Thomas Thomasson, in the cotton trade, who sent him to school in central Manchester but died in 1782. Business career The Lancashire cotton industry was then in its infancy. Horrocks, impressed with its potential, set up spinning-frames in a corner of his father's premises. For a time he combined cotton-spinning on a small scale with stone-working, but eventually concentrated on cotton. About 1791 he moved to Preston, where he began to manufacture cotton shirtings and long-cloths in addition to spinning cotton yarn.