John Lees of Turf Lane, Royton

Royton

Royton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies by the source of the River Irk, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines, north-northwest of Oldham, south-southeast of Rochdale and northeast of the city of Manchester.Historically a...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

 was an inventor who made a substantial improvement to machine

Machine

A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...

ry for carding

Carding

Carding is a mechanical process that breaks up locks and unorganised clumps of fibre and then aligns the individual fibres so that they are more or less parallel with each other. The word is derived from the Latin carduus meaning teasel, as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool...

 cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

.

He improved the carding machine in 1772 by adding a feeder to it. On 25 June 1785, he proved this in the course of the trial concerning the validity of Richard Arkwright

Richard Arkwright

Sir Richard Arkwright , was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited for inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn...

's second patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 (dated 1775) for his cotton-spinning water frame

Water frame

The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...

.

John Lees was the father of James Lees. He was one of the carding mill owners sued by Arkwright in 1781, having built a cotton mill

Cotton mill

A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....

 at Fowleach at Greenacres Moor

Greenacres, Greater Manchester

Greenacres , or archaically Greenacres Moor, is an area of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the west side of the River Medlock opposite the village of Lees....

, in Oldham

Oldham

Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...

. He began by working a horsemill-powered cotton mill in 1776-8 but "raised himself from the extremest drudgery of the spinning room to the position of one of the most opulent
inhabitants" of Oldham, with a mill and stock insured for over £2000 in 1795.

Further reading

• E. Butterworth, Historical Sketches of Oldham (2nd edn, Oldham 1856), 116.
• S. D. Chapman, 'Fixed Capital Formation in the British Cotton Industry, 1770-1815' Economic History Review, New Series, 23(2) (1970), 244.