A Wonderful Life.
In John Rylands, head of the famous firm of Rylands'and Suns (Limited), there passed away in the early hours of Tuesday morning the chief of probably the largest manufacturing and mercantile concern in the entire world, and a man whose own history forms a most interesting chapter in the romance of trade. Not only many a monarch but many a State has an income which, compared with the annual receipts of John Rylands, would fab almost into insignificance. The trans-actions-of the firm run into no only hundreds of thousands, but millions. The chief offices and warehouses iu Manchester occupy the greate» part of four streets, the various blocks being connected by means of bridges ; there are extensive branch establishments in other parts of the city, while no fewer than seventeen cotton mills and factoiies in different t'.iwna in Lane shire have been brough into the gigantic concern. All this, too, has been practically the work of John Rylands, and has grown out of the smallest of beginnings. He was a born business man as shown by an incident which occurred in his schoolboy days. He went to a sale one day, aud, see ing that a bundle of trinkets was going cheap, bought it with the pence he had in his pocket. No sooner had he got the trinkets than he to dispose of them to his schoolmates and others, - realising from them a larger sum than he had ever possessed before This Was the first stroke of business done by the man who, at the age of eighty one, has left behind the biggest undertaking that any one * house ’ has ever got together. But the boy was not content with his first pr fits. On the advice of an old nurse of the family he engaged her and her husband to do
weaving for him, paying him out of the funds he had in hand aud the result was the realisation of still further substantial profits.
There are surely not many men who can boast that they are manufacturers while they w« re still at school ! A few years after wards John Rylands took a step further, for at eighteen he entered into partnership with his eldest brother Joseph, and took possession of a small cotton mill at Wigan. Here the manufacturing business was carried on under the superinteudanoe of Joseph Rylands, while John, with his bags full <>f samples, went about on horse back, after the manner of * commercials ’ of those times, from town to town for a wide circle, embracing not only Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire, but North Wa es as well, in order to obtain customers for the gods hie brother was making at home So we’l did the business succeed that the father, Joseph Rylands, senior, offered to become a partner in the concern, and put m »re aipital in o it This was done, and the greitflrm of ’Joseph Rylands and Sous ’ was thus fa rly floated, In 1822 a branch establishment was op« ed in New High street, Manchester, at the back of Ma’ket-street, and close to Picoadply, but, singularly enough, an entire week elapsed before the first custom-r put in an appearance. As time went on the one house swallowed up other houses, the i the whole street, and then two or three more btn'eta ad, joining. In the meantime* J ’hn Rylands succeeded to the sole control of the concern by the retirement of his brother in 1840 and the death of his faihet in 1847, and he threw himself with grvatei zeal than ever into the expansion of the concern. Mill after mill was erected or bought, and one branch or one industrial estab ishment was added to another, so that the firm were able to make and supply in the largest quantities anything into the manufacture of which cotton, calicos, or woollens entered, from oil cloths to window curtains, reels of thread to umbrellas, and eider downs to cor-e s. So vast did the con, cern bec< me in course of time that it seemed almost incredible that one man could acquit himself of ths responsibility of managing it. This fact impressed itself mure and mnre upon Mr John Rylands as he found he wa« growing older, and accordingly, some fourteen years ago, the undertaking wan converted into a limited liability company, with a capita! nl no lees than £2,000,0 H). Since th it time the developments have been, it p ’ssible, s’ ill more rapid than before, until now no fewer than 12,000 persons are employed, and a degree of expansion has been attained which is without parallel in the manufacturing and mercantile world,—Pall Man Budget.
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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 272, 12 March 1889, Page 3
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781A Wonderful Life. Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 272, 12 March 1889, Page 3
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