Robert Scott (businessman, born 1822)

For other people named Robert Scott, see Robert Scott (disambiguation).

Robert Scott (1822 – 2 February 1904[1]) was a Manchester businessman who was one of the founders of the Tootal Broadhurst Lee cotton company.[2]

Scott was an early example of a successful manager in the textile industry, achieving significant wealth within the largest company of the time, despite being neither self-made nor from a textile family.[3] Born the son of a farmer at Abbey Holm in Cumbria, he was working as a salesman by the time of his 1845 marriage to Maria in Cheetham Hill, north Manchester.[2] He later became a business partner of Henry Tootal Broadhurst, Henry Lee, and Joseph Lee, who together subsequently formed Tootal Broadhurst Lee—a vertically integrated firm that was unusual for its time in combining weaving and spinning[4] and which, by the 1880s, had become the largest cotton manufacturer in Lancashire.[5] Henry Tootal Broadhurst's son, Edward Tootal Broadhurst, would go on to become company chairman. Scott became 'cashier', or finance director, of Tootal Broadhurst Lee in 1854[3] and also served as deputy chairman of the Equitable Fire and Accident Office insurance company.[6] By the 1881 census, he was described a spinning manufacturer.[3]

In 1874 Scott bought 10 acres (4 ha) of land in Bowdon, Cheshire, from the Earl of Stamford at a cost of £7,075[3] and built a large villa, Denzell,[7] to the designs of the architects Clegg & Knowles.[8] The house cost £18,000[2] to build, with a reported total expenditure of £30,000.[9] Scott was recorded in the 1881 census as living at Denzell with his wife and a staff of nine.[2] The building is now known as Denzell House and is Grade II* listed as a notable example of a specifically commissioned late 19th-century house for a wealthy patron, with a high degree of craftsmanship and quality of materials.[8] The listing cites the design as inventive and eclectic, produced by a noted Manchester architectural practice;[8] the architectural critic Pevsner described it as a luscious but "very bad" mixture of debased Jacobean, Gothic, and Italianate styles.[10] Scott's son Henry predeceased him, and at Scott's death in 1904, the house was sold to the Lamb family.[9]

References

  1. ^ "Re Robert Scott, Deceased" (PDF). The London Gazette (27657): 1718. 15 March 1904. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d Marjorie Cox (October 1986). "Denzell Owners & Occupiers" (PDF). Bowdon Sheaf. 20. Bowdon History Society: 3–4. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d Bamford, Frank (1991). Mansions and Men of Dunham Massey. Altrincham: Frank Bamford. ISBN 0-9517225-0-6.
  4. ^ "Broadhurst, Sir Edward Tootal". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/46780. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ The Lancashire Cotton Industry. 1996. ISBN 187123638X.
  6. ^ "The Equitable Fire and Accident Office, limited". The Times. No. 33272. London. 14 March 1891. col. 3, p. 3.
  7. ^ Valerie Trenbath (April 1986). "Denzell" (PDF). Bowdon Sheaf. 7. Bowdon History Society: 7–8. ISSN 0265-816X. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  8. ^ a b c "English Heritage listing criteria for Denzell Hall".
  9. ^ a b A. H. N. (3 April 1959). "Mansion that became a home of healing". Altrincham, Hale and Bowdon Guardian. p. 10.
  10. ^ Pevsner, Nikolaus (March 1971). Cheshire. ISBN 0300095880.
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