Life
Houldsworth bought farmland by the Stockport Branch Canal in Reddish in the 1860s and built Reddish Mill, then the largest cotton-spinning mill in the world (started 1863, completed 1865). Four members of the Houldsworth family were 60% shareholders in the Reddish Spinning Company Limited which built the North Mill (started 1870) and the Middle Mill (started 1874). An Institute (now Houldsworth working men's club) was completed in 1874. All the above were designed by the architect Abraham Stott. Houldsworth commissioned the architect Alfred Waterhouse to design St. Elisabeth's church, rectory and school. All the above buildings are still standing.
The start of a model village was also laid out, with a variety of houses built in front of the mill. Some of the houses have been demolished, but those in Houldsworth Street and Liverpool Street remain.
The City of Manchester made him a freeman in 1905, and the Victoria University of Manchester awarded him an honorary LLD. In later life, Houldsworth moved away from Reddish and Manchester, and concentrated on his estate at Kilmarnock, Scotland.
Read more about this topic: William Houldsworth
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“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life ... for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,—some of its virus mingled with my blood.”
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