JOHN LEADBETTER 1788-1865
Scots linen merchant & railway
developer
Born in Penicuik in 1788, John Leadbetter made
his way in the linen trade, starting his own company John Leadbetter
& Co as a young man around 1815. With the advent of new power-looms, this business grew and he opened
branches in Dundee and Belfast. From
1832-1846 John Leadbetter sat on the Glasgow Town Council, and was Lord Dean of Guild in 1844 and 1845. He was eager to see railways built in Scotland, and become the driving force in creating the new
Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, which opened in 1842. He resigned from the E&G soon
after it began operations, unhappy at proposals to run trains on Sundays. He was a director of the Ayrshire
Railway Company and chairman of the Dumfries
Railway in jointly promoting an ambitious new southwestern route from Glasgow to England, but in 1848 when progress was well under way his
health failed and he retired. He died in Torquay in
1865.
Text from Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men, James MacLehose,
1886:
John Leadbetter was born in Penicuik on the 2nd of
May, 1788. His parents
shortly afterwards settled in Lanark, where he spent his early days. His father
was a wright by trade, but his son, having developed
a taste for study and books rather than handicraft, was sent early in the
present century to push his way in the then rising city of Glasgow. The only
regular mode of communication at that time with Glasgow was twice a week by covered carrier's cart, without
springs, and in visiting his family he frequently preferred to walk the
twenty-four miles.
Glasgow was then a comparatively small city, but its trade with America and the West Indies was rapidly
developing. There he succeeded in obtaining a situation as clerk, and was not
content with mastering the duties of his situation, but in his spare time, as
the manuscripts he has left behind show, he assiduously cultivated his
intellect by attending evening classes, studying French, taking an active part
in debating societies, and writing essays on various social and scientific
subjects, and this training no doubt fitted him for the active part he
afterwards took in public affairs. His guiding principle in performing his
duties as a clerk, as he afterwards told his workpeople at one of their social
gatherings, was to make his services indispensable to his employers. So well
did he carry out this principle that he was ultimately admitted as a partner,
and he was afterwards able to start a business of his own in his own name, the
firm of John Leadbetter & Co. appearing in the
"Glasgow Directory" of 1815. It so happened
that his early employment was in connection with the linen trade,
and this determined the character of his business career.
The linen
trade had a very early existence in the country, probably from the time of the
Romans. The lint was grown by the farmers, spun in the winter months into yarn
by their families and servants, and woven into cloth by the weaver in the
nearest village. Out of this grew the manufacturers in the larger centres of population, who bought the yarn from the farmers
and had it woven into cloth suitable for the wants of the town or for export.
In Glasgow this trade was a small one, and up to 1725 it had not
greatly increased. In 1735 additional manufactories were started, making
improved fabrics, and an Act of 1748 prohibiting the importing and wearing of
French cambrics gave an impetus to the manufacture of
linen in Glasgow. It was in this year also that the British Linen Company
was established by Royal Charter, with a capital of £100,000, to promote the
linen trade in Scotland. It traded for a short time, but the directors found they could best
promote the object in view by granting manufacturers of approved ability and integrity
financial assistance, and in this way this company developed into The British
Linen Bank, now one of the most prosperous of the Scotch banks, with a capital
of £1,000,000. It was further sought to stimulate the linen trade by a bounty
of ½d. to 1½d. per yard,
according to quality, on all goods exported. The cost to the country of this
mode of stimulating production led to its gradual extinction, and it finally
ceased in 1832.
The manufacture of linen did not, however, take permanent root in Glasgow, as the introduction of the cotton manufacture in
1775 supplanted it, and it gradually dwindled away. Large quantities of linens,
however, continued to be imported into Glasgow from Germany and Ireland and the East of Scotland, to supply the city and the travelling merchants or pedlars
and the large export demand for America and the West Indies. Towards the
close of last century there were several large linen houses in Glasgow - Smith
Hutchison & Co., founded by Archibald Smith of Jordanhill,
being one of them.
It was into
this trade the subject of the present memoir threw himself with much energy,
and succeeded in establishing one of the most important linen businesses in the
city. The circumstances surrounding the trade were very different then from
what they are now. There were no railways, no steamers, no power-looms, no telegraphs. The process of manufacture,
was slow - the weavers scattered about in villages, and often working only as
it suited them - and the means of communication difficult. To meet, therefore,
the convenience of the American and West India merchants, it was necessary to
anticipate their wants and have a large stock of suitable goods ready for them
to select from when their orders to ship arrived. The Irish linens had to be bought
in the Irish country markets from the weavers, afterwards bleached and
finished, and sent over in smacks to Glasgow for sale. The Scotch linens were made by small
manufacturers in the villages of Fifeshire and
Forfarshire, and sent on by sea and canal or by cart to Glasgow.
Mr. Leadbetter used sometimes to describe his early experiences
in these journeys to Ireland. He had to sail from the Clyde or Portpatrick in a small sailing vessel for Belfast. There he hired a horse, and having secured a quantity
of gold about his person would ride round the weaving districts, travelling by day for safety, and paying in gold for his
purchases. He would thus visit Ballymena, Cookstoun, Armagh, Dublin, Drogheda, and some smaller towns, returning to Belfast, where he gave up his horse and again sought a
sailing vessel in which to return to Scotland.
The linen
trade in Ireland is now very much confined to Belfast and its neighbourhood, and
in Scotland, to Dundee and its neighbourhood. The finer qualities are made in Ireland, owing to the quality of flax grown there being
suitable for such goods, and the coarser in Dundee, owing to
its proximity to the Baltic, where the coarser quality of flax is extensively
grown. There is now a large production of jute goods in Dundee, and these are often classed as linens, as they take the place of
coarse linens and are similar in appearance. The trade has centred
in Dundee on this account, but again the proximity of the
source of supply of the raw material is determining the locality of the
manufacture. A large number of mills have been erected in Bengal, where the jute is grown, and are beginning to challenge the supremacy
of Dundee in the production of jute fabrics, and in, at least,
the heavier makes bid fair to make good their position.
Glasgow has now ceased to a large extent to be a centre for the sale of linen
goods required for shipment. The quick production of power-looms, the rapid
conveyance by railway, and the telegraph have brought shippers into direct
contact with the manufacturers in the Dundee and Belfast districts, and goods
now pass direct from the factories to the ship. This change in the course of
trade was early foreseen by Mr. Leadbetter's firm,
and it was met by establishing branch houses in Dundee and Belfast, and erecting power-looms in these districts, and
then allowing the trade to pass over in great measure to these branches.
Various attempts have been made to re-establish the manufacture of linen in Glasgow, but without conspicuous success. Very extensive spinning
mills were erected at St. Rollox by Alex. Fletcher
& Co., and latterly a large jute work was
established by the Glasgow Jute Co. in the east end of the city, but after many
years of struggle both works have ceased to exist.
John Miller’s Garnkirk
& Glasgow railway was approved 1826 and opened in 1831
In 1832 Mr. Leadbetter found himself established in a good and
profitable business, and his active mind being interested in the public
questions of the day he was induced to enter the Town Council, and took for
fourteen years a keen and active interest in all municipal matters, both as councillor and magistrate. He also filled, as head of the
Merchants' House, the honourable position of Lord
Dean of Guild for two years, 1844-45. He took a very warm interest in the
establishment of the Glasgow Mechanics' Institution, was president for many
years, and when the difficulty of finding suitable premises occurred he erected
a building specially suited for the Institution. The Clyde Trust, the Houses of
Refuge, the Church Extension Scheme, and the Normal School all received a large
share of his time and exertions.
Sir Robert Peel
Mr. Leadbetter was a Conservative in politics and a great
admirer of Sir Robert Peel. He took an active part in arranging the great banquet
given to that distinguished statesman in January, 1837, when a large pavilion
was erected on what is now Princes Square, Buchanan Street. On that occasion upwards of 3,500 citizens dined
together to welcome their distinguished visitor. Mr. Leadbetter was
a member of the Established Church, sympathizing with the movement that led up
to the Disruption, but disapproving of the course the non-intrusion party took
in leaving the Church. Though much pressed to go out with the friends he
usually acted with, he remained firmly attached to the Church, as he considered
he could best serve the cause he had at heart from within its pale.
Sankey viaduct built 1828-30 for the Manchester & Liverpool Railway
This was the first
line to link two great cities when it opened in 1832.
The opening
of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway in 1832 greatly interested him,
and exerted a powerful influence on the following years of his life. Having travelled
over it he became keenly alive to the importance to the country of extending
this mode of communication, and he strove with enthusiasm to have it introduced
in his own neighbourhood. When the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was
proposed he was the first to subscribe for its promotion, and soon afterwards,
becoming chairman of the directors, he devoted much of his time and energy to
carrying on this project to a successful issue.
It met with much opposition, and for three sessions the Bill was
contested in Parliament before the royal assent was obtained. In furthering
this scheme he made nine journeys to London, spent six months away from his
family and business, and attended about two hundred committee meetings, at most
of which he presided, and the journey to London in those days, and often on the
outside of the coach, was a fatiguing and tedious ordeal to face. The shareholders, on the passing of the Bill,
were so impressed with the value of the services he had rendered that they
presented him with a service of plate of the value of £500. The original prospectus of 1835 is a very
modest document. The probable cost is
put down at £550,000, and the traffic is calculated on the very moderate
assumption that the then existing passenger and parcel traffic would be
doubled. Of course the cost was largely
in excess of this, but fortunately the traffic also far exceeded expectations. Mr. Leadbetter
continued to give much attention to the interests of the railway during its
construction, and, all difficulties having been surmounted, it was formally
opened on the 18th February, 1842, when a party from Glasgow travelled to Edinburgh, were there joined by a party of
Edinburgh citizens, and returned to a banquet in the station at Queen
Street.
Ticket from the
Edinburgh & Glasgow railway’s opening in 1842 (actual size) by MacLure & MacDonald of Glasgow.
The firm had established branches in Manchester and Liverpool and were to install Britain’s first steam press in 1851.
On that
occasion Mr. Leadbetter, as chairman, in the course
of his remarks said - "When I look back upon the past and trace the
various fortunes which marked the progress of this great undertaking, its
germination in the autumn of 1835, its struggles for existence during an unexampled
parliamentary contest of three sessions, its receiving the royal assent in July
1838, the subsequent expenditure in a period of three years of a million and a
quarter of money on the formation of the line, requiring much care and anxiety;
I say, when I glance at these things I trust you will regard it as a pardonable
pride in those who have been connected from the beginning in this work to look
upon this day with self-complacency and ask your recognition of it as the
crowning triumph of our labours. But the directors
have another source of satisfaction, one that may be considered as more pure
and elevated - they know that this national work will add greatly to the
prosperity of Scotland. It forms part of the great
railways' system which the genius of Britain has raised as a monument of her science, her
enterprise, and her wealth. As Scotchmen, therefore, we rejoice that our
country shall share in the advantages of this great improvement in national
communication."
The Edinburgh & Glasgow railway’s Edinburgh General station.
The E&G opening
from Glasgow in February 1842 was only as far as Edinburgh Haymarket. Tunnelling and cutting from Haymarket to the new General
Station at today’s Waverley site took another four years –years in which Scottish civic life felt
the huge seismic effects of the Disruption of the Church of
Scotland. The E&G’s
General station was to link with the North British lines to Berwick and
Carlisle (the NB’s chairman Learmonth was Leadbetter’s deputy on the E&G) and with the rails of
the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee. All three companies later amalgamated as the
North British.
The working
of the railway proved very successful, as it is one of the most level lines in
the kingdom. It was the first great railway work undertaken in Scotland, as prior to 1835 only some short lines existed. The Dundee and Newtyle was opened in 1830, but it was a
small line over steep gradients, worked chiefly by ropes and fixed engines, and
some local mineral railways, such as the Garnkirk,
were in existence, but this line, specially constructed for passenger traffic,
proved what could be done in Scotland in developing traffic. Its success changed public
opinion, and from holding back and shaking their heads people soon rushed to
the opposite extreme, and were ready to support even the most visionary
schemes. This led to the railway mania
of 1846-47, which did much harm in the too hasty development of new railway works.
Mr. Leadbetter retired from the chairmanship of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway soon after it was opened, as the
English shareholders insisted on trains being run on Sunday. This he disapproved of, as uncalled for by
the public, unprofitable to the railway, and offending the religious feeling of
the country. Mr. Leadbetter
was also a director of the Ayrshire Railway Company
and chairman of the Dumfries Railway, these being afterwards amalgamated as the
Glasgow and South-Western Railway. The
shareholders of the Dumfries Railway Company also recognized the value of his
services by presenting him with a service of gold plate of the value of
£500. All these labours
were not, however, borne without serious strain on the system, and in 1848, in
his sixtieth year, his health gave way, and he was forced to retire from his
active public life and to winter either in the south of England or abroad.
Ballochmyle Viaduct
(1846-7) on the Ayrshire-Dumfries railway, the ambitious new
southwestern route from Glasgow to England promoted by
John Leadbetter.
Designed by John Miller (1805–1883) this was the largest railway
arch in the world
He retained a
keen interest to the end of his life in Glasgow and all its institutions, and to the last his desire to
add to his information remained unabated. He died at Glenallon,
Torquay, on the 17th March, 1865, in his seventy-seventh year. He was survived by his
widow, two sons, and three daughters. His sons continue the business he
established.
MORE LIVES& fragments
PenicuikGREATS
RAILWAYS
Robert Skeldan, Sunday
operations & the railway emigrants
Thomas
Bouch, railway engineer
Scots
who found the money to connect the West
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