Hugh Mason - Early Life and Business Career

Early Life and Business Career

Hugh Mason was born in Stalybridge on 11 May 1817 and christened there. He was the youngest of four children of Thomas Mason, a former textile manager, and Mary Mason. The family had moved to Stalybridge from Derbyshire in 1776. After working as the manager of a mill in Ashton-under-Lyne, Thomas established his own business in 1815 in partnership with James Booth and Edward Hulton at Currier Slacks Mill in the town. Rapid growth in their enterprise saw them expand into the Bank Mill and Royal George Mills in the 1820s and Albion Mill in the 1830s. At the age of 10, Hugh was working in the mill, and his education consisted of attending Methodist Sunday schools in Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge and spending three years at a private school in Ashton-under-Lyne.

After leaving school at the age of 14, Mason got a job with the district bank while he attended night school in his spare time. He worked there until 1838, when he left at the age of 21 to join the family's cotton business. He became the driving force behind the business. The business thrived: by the early 1850s the Mason family had built two state-of-the-art cotton mills in the Ryecroft area of Ashton-under-Lyne, known as the Oxford Mills. In 1845, to house the workers for the mills, Mason began construction of a "workers' colony". The colony not only provided 150 terrace houses (housing an estimated 691 people in 1872) but also leisure facilities such as a library, a swimming pool, a gymnasium, and a reading room. Mason built up what he saw as a model industrial community, and according to Mason himself, the annual death rate was significantly lower than in the rest of Ashton-under-Lyne. Residents were expected to adhere to his strict moral code and he discouraged the use of public houses. He estimated that establishing the settlement cost him around £10,000 and a further £1,000 per year to maintain (about £600,000 today and a further £60,000 to maintain).

Under Hugh Mason's leadership, the company prospered. The number of mule spindles in use at the mills increased from 20,000 in 1846 to 75,000 in 1887. His two brothers, Henry and Booth, also worked in the company until retired in 1848 and 1853 respectively. Their father remained active in the company until 1860 when he retired, leaving Hugh as the sole owner. The Manchester Cotton Company was set up in 1860 and Mason's success in the cotton industry led him to become its chairman from the beginning until its winding up, which began in 1864, but was not concluded until 1867. The purpose of the company was to increase the number of producers of cotton; this was important as the American market was closed off during the American Civil War, causing the Lancashire Cotton Famine. Mason served as President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce from 1871 to 1874, and came to hold interests in the Bridgewater Canal Navigation Company, the Midland Railway Company, the Mersey Dock Board, and various other coal and iron companies.

Having initially opposed trade unions and factory legislation, Mason changed his mind around the 1850s regarding how workers should be treated, believing that the welfare of the employees impacted on the welfare of the employer. He became popular among workers for such things as becoming the first local employer to give his workers Saturday afternoons off. During the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861–1865 he refused to cut workers' wages as was common during the period. He stated:

I will keep my work people employed, and if there is no work, lend them money from my own pocket rather than have them apply for relief. The poor rate is only 1s 6d in the pound. I will pay as high a poor rate as the Poor Law Guardians deem necessary.

As well as this, he contributed £500 (about the equivalent of £30,000 today) to the Ashton borough cotton famine relief. During the tumultuous 1870s and 1880s, Mason kept his workforce fully employed and continued to invest in his mills. By 1884, wages in his mills were 25% higher than they had been in 1870 even though his employees were working fewer hours. The Manchester Guardian noted:

Hugh Mason is one of the first amongst those wealthy manufacturers of Lancashire who devote the hours which are not occupied by business to the service of their fellow men. He has been accustomed to take a leading part in the various public improvements, and he has long been a political chief. At Ashton he is unpopular: the ruggedness which mars his virtues, and the self assertion which stamps his conduct, do not invite the affection of his fellow. Although he has done more than any other millowner on securing the physical and social well-being of his employees, he is not highly esteemed. He has built for his workpeople admirable cottages, swimming baths, gymnasiums and lecture halls, but beneficent acts do not suffice to secure popularity unless there is a suavity of manner and sympathy of nature in the benefactor, and these are qualities which Mr Mason lacks. Mr Mason is a staunch liberal, and is reckoned to be one of the oracles of the local party. His figure is a familiar one at free trade meetings where the citizens of Manchester never fail to receive him with the utmost enthusiasm. The working men hail his appearance with tempestuous applause, and invariable reward his rhetorical efforts with frequent and deafening cheers.