John Grubb Richardson (13 November 1813 – 1891) was an Irish linen merchant, industrialist and philanthropist who founded the
model village
A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally phys ...
of
Bessbrook
Bessbrook is a village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It lies about three miles (5 km) northwest of Newry and near the Newry bypass on the main A1 Belfast-Dublin road and Belfast-Dublin railway line. Today the village of Bessbrook str ...
near
Newry
Newry (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland, divided by the Clanrye river in counties Armagh and Down, from Belfast and from Dublin. It had a population of 26,967 in 2011.
Newry was founded in 1144 alongside a Cistercian monastery, althoug ...
in 1845, in what is now
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
.
Five years later he founded a major Atlantic steamship line that significantly improved conditions for immigrant passengers fleeing Ireland after the
Great Famine.
He also founded Richardson Fertilizer Limited that remained in business under its original name until 2002.
Richardson was the second of ten children of James Nicholson Richardson (1782–1847), a wealthy
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
merchant, and Anna Grubb, from a large Quaker family in
Clonmel
Clonmel () is the county town and largest settlement of County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is noted in Irish history for its resistance to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Cromwellian army which sacked the towns of Dro ...
.
The Richardson family originally came to Ireland from England in 1622
and the Grubb family also came from England in 1656.
John Richardson was raised at Glenmore House, outside
Lisburn
Lisburn (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with ...
,
County Antrim
County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...
. At the age of eleven, he boarded for three years at
Ballitore
Ballitore () is a village in County Kildare, Ireland, sometimes spelt as Ballytore. It is noted for its historical Quaker associations. It was the first planned Quaker village in either England or Ireland - and remains the only one in Europe.
...
,
County Kildare
County Kildare ( ga, Contae Chill Dara) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county, ...
(the same Quaker school attended by
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_ NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style"> ...
) before attending another Quaker school at
Frenchay
Frenchay is a village in the County of South Gloucestershire, England, and the Civil Parish of Winterbourne. It is on the outskirts to the north east of the city of Bristol.
Frenchay was first recorded in 1257 as ''Fromscawe'' and later as '' ...
, Gloucestershire.
In 1844, Richardson married Helena Grubb (27 March 1819 – 7 December 1849) of Cahir Abbey, Co. Tipperary,
who was his second cousin, his mother, Anne Grubb, and her father, Richard Grubb, were first cousins. John and Helena's shared second cousin once removed was
Thomas Grubb
Thomas Grubb (4 August 1800 – 19 September 1878) was an Irish optician and founder of the Grubb Telescope Company.
He was born near Portlaw, County Waterford, Ireland, the son of William Grubb Junior, a prosperous Quaker farmer and his secon ...
, founder of the
Grubb Telescope Company
Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co. Ltd. was a telescope manufacturer, more commonly known as Grubb Parsons. It was based in Newcastle upon Tyne, in England.
They were a noted telescope maker throughout the 19th and 20th century, making telescope th ...
.
John and Helena had a son,
James Nicholson Richardson
James Nicholson Richardson (7 February 1846 – 11 October 1921) was an Irish Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 to 1885.
Richardson was the son of John Grubb Richardson of Lisburn, County Antrim and Bessbrook, County ...
before she died giving birth to a daughter, named Helena. In 1853, Richardson married Jane Marion Wakefield, of Moyallon House, Co. Down.
A Quaker, John declined the offer of a
baronetcy
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
. With Jane, he had one son, Thomas Wakefield Richardson and seven daughters.
He died at Moyallon House, an estate inherited through his second wife's family, near
Gilford,
County Down
County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...
. His estate surrounding his Bessbrook home at The Wood House and
Derrymore House
Derrymore House ( ga, Teach Dhoire Mhóir) is a National Trust property in Bessbrook, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The grounds are open to the public most of the year round and the drawing room or "Treaty Room" in the house itself on select ...
(now a National Trust property) is a designated historic park.
Business career
![Bessbrook Mill](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Bessbrook_Mill.jpg)
In 1830, John Grubb Richardson entered the family linen export firm, JN Richardson Sons and Owden. In 1841, one of his younger brothers, Thomas Richardson was sent to New York as agent for the family's business.
In 1845, John, along with his father and older brother Jonathan, decided to manufacture linen products and purchased a burned-out mill in Bessbrook, then a small village.
This project coincided with the beginning of the famine and farmers needed work to buy food.
John, the second eldest son in the firm, was the driving force behind the manufacturing venture. Bessbrook was selected for the new business because of the availability of water power and the large amount of flax grown in the area. John expanded the site with new manufacturing buildings constructed with local Mourne granite and dedicated housing for the workforce built to a high standard for the period. In planning the community, John refused to allow a
public house
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
,
pawn brokers
A pawnbroker is an individual or business (pawnshop or pawn shop) that offers secured loans to people, with items of personal property used as Collateral (finance), collateral. The items having been ''pawned'' to the broker are themselves c ...
or a police station. He famously stated that a police station was unnecessary if there were no public houses or pawn brokers.
In 1852, the firm became one of the first in Ireland to install steam-powered looms.
![SS City of Glasgow 1850](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/SS_City_of_Glasgow_1850.jpg)
John also hired a young business partner,
William Inman
William Inman (6 April 1825 in Leicester – 3 July 1881 in Upton, Wirral) was the owner of the Liverpool, New York and Philadelphia Steamship Company. Also known as the Inman Line, it ran services from Liverpool to New York and Philadelphia, ...
, to operate the linen shipping business. In 1850, Inman persuaded John and his brothers to form the
Liverpool and Philadelphia Steamship Company and buy an advanced new ship, the . She proved profitable because her iron hull required less repair and her screw propulsion system left more room for passengers and freight. The ship's moderate speed also considerably reduced coal consumption.
In 1852, Richardson's steamship line broke new ground by transporting
steerage
Steerage is a term for the lowest category of passenger accommodation in a ship. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North America ...
passengers under steam. Richardson was concerned about the poor conditions experienced by immigrants travelling to America after the famine. From the beginning, he provided better steerage quarters and adopted the recommendations of a Parliamentary Committee to provide cooked meals to immigrants. Because of his opposition to war, in 1855 Richardson sold his interest in the firm to Inman after Inman chartered ships to the French during the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...
. The Inman line emerged after the war as one of the major steamship firms on the Atlantic and ultimately became a part of the
American Line
The American Line was a shipping company founded in 1871 and based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It began as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, although the railroad got out of the shipping business soon after founding the company. In 1902, it ...
.
Richardson was also in the chemical fertiliser business. In 1855, he took over a bone-crushing business in Belfast and converted it to produce chemical fertiliser. By the 1880s, the firm manufactured over 6,000 toms annually. The company was sold after Richardson's death,
but retained his name until the company closed in 2002.
In 1863, John purchased his brothers' interests in the linen manufacturing business and reorganised the firm as the Bessbrook Spinning Company.
At that time, the production of linen was booming because the American Civil War cut off cotton supplies to British manufacturers. In the first two years, the company's annual profits rose from just over 8,000 pounds to over 41,000 pounds. Eventually 3,000 people worked for Richardson in Bessbrook and its satellite factory at Craigmore.
Later life
Richardson was a strong advocate for public education. At his insistence, a public school was established in Bessbrook that educated children of all religions together. In 1861, John testified before the Clarendon Commission on this issue which ultimately resulted in the adoption of the Public Schools Act in 1868.
John Richardson turned down a
Baronetcy
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
, a reward for his good works, due to his belief in equality.
Richardsons in Scotland and Ireland
/ref> His eldest son by Helena Grubb, J. Nicholson Richardson, was Liberal Member of Parliament for Armagh. His great-nephew was Sir Joseph Barcroft, whose family home, The Glen, Newry, was purchased by Richardson for the Barcrofts.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richardson, John Grubb
1891 deaths
Linen industry in Ireland
British Quakers
Irish Quakers
1813 births
People from Bessbrook