Edmund Potter (1802–1883) was a

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

industrialist and MP and grandfather to

Beatrix Potter Helen Beatrix Potter (, 28 July 186622 December 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit'', which was he ...

. He was a unitarian and, from 1861 to 1874,

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

MP for

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

. Potter moved his business to

Glossop Glossop is a market town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is located east of Manchester, north-west of Sheffield and north of the county town, Matlock. Glossop lies near Derbyshire's borders with Cheshire, Greater Manches ...

in 1825, he rebuilt Joseph Lyne's Boggart Mill, and converted it to a printworks. He moved his family to Dinting Lodge in 1842. Originally

calico Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...

printing was done by hand, but Potter introduced precision machine printing. By 1883, the mill employed 350, and had printed 1 million pieces on 42 machines. It was the world's largest calico printing factory.

Family

James Potter (1710–1770) of Hindley was a

flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...

merchant. He moved to New Market Place,

. His son John Potter lived at rural

Ardwick Green Ardwick Green is a public space in Ardwick, Manchester, England. It began as a private park for the residents of houses surrounding it before Manchester acquired it in 1867 and turned it into a public park with an ornamental pond and a bandstand ...

, Manchester, He married Catherine Eccles of Macclesfield. He visited America in 1794. They had three sons and two daughters. John, the first son, was a calico printer; James (2) was the third son. They lived in Ardwick Green. Edmund Potter was the son of James (2). He lived with his wife Jessica Crompton of Lancaster, in

Greenheys, Manchester Greenheys is an inner-city area of south Manchester, England, lying between Hulme to the north and west, Chorlton-on-Medlock to the east and Moss Side to the south. Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, ''Mary Barton'', published in 1848, opens wi ...

. In 1842 they moved to Dinting Lodge,

. He was the first Edmund Potter of the Dinting Vale Printworks, which he ran with Charles Potter, the son of his uncle John. Later the partnership was dissolved and Charles moved to

Darwen Darwen is a market town and civil parish in the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The residents of the town are known as "Darreners". The A666 road passes through Darwen towards Blackburn to the north, Bolton to the sout ...

where he became a printer of wallpaper. Edmund had seven children and two are of note. Edmund (2) succeeded his father in the business in 1862, and Rupert became a barrister. Rupert's two children, Walter Bertram Potter and

were both artists of some renown. Glossop & District Heritage Trust, Glossop Heritage Centre, Bank House, Henry Street, Glossop in August 2002.

Calico printing

Calico Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...

used to be printed from wooden blocks, was heavily taxed and suffered from labour relation problems. Potter mechanised the process. He became the largest printer of calico in the world. The firm merged with other rival companies to form the

Calico Printers' Association The Calico Printers' Association Ltd was a British textile company founded in 1899, from the amalgamation of 46 textile printing companies and 13 textile merchants. The industry had prospered in the latter half of the 19th century but the fierce ...

in 1899, which in 1948 printed of calico.

Benevolence

Edmund Potter was a very strong believer that everyone should receive an education. In 1885 he built a reading room and library, well stocked with books and papers in his work's yard for his workers. When he bought the nearby Dinting Mill from the Wagstaffes, he used the upper floor as a dayschool for both boys and girls and for some of his young part-time workers. The lower floor was used to extract the black dye from

logwood ''Haematoxylum campechianum'' (blackwood, bloodwood tree, bluewood, campeachy tree, campeachy wood, campeche logwood, campeche wood, Jamaica wood, logwood or logwood tree) is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is na ...

, and the mill subsequently became known as Logwood mill.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Potter, Edmund English industrialists British textile industry businesspeople Mill owners in Glossop 1802 births 1883 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1859–1865 UK MPs 1865–1868 UK MPs 1868–1874 English Unitarians Cotton industry in England 19th-century English businesspeople