John Wood (1783-1871)

John Wood (1793–1871), also referred to as John Wood Jr., was a Bradford worsted manufacturer. One of his mills was Old Mill in Bradford.

He is remembered as a factory reformer, associated with Richard Oastler and other prominent reformers.

The son of John Wood senior (who died in 1832), he was apprenticed at age 15 to Richard Smith, a local worsted spinner.

Wood finaced Michael Thomas Sadler, an MP who backed a Ten Hours Bill.

In 1835 Wood brought in William Walker as a business partner, and began to withdraw from the worsted trade. He removed to Hampshire, where he settled at Thedden Grange.

The above information is condensed from the Wikipedia entry.

'John Wood, was a Tory, evangelical Anglican and a supporter of factory legislation, John Clark, an employee, described his mill with its exemplary working conditions as "a blessing". When Wood entered a workroom "all seemed glad to see him, as if it were felt and fully recognized that his was the grateful task to watch over them and promote their general good and that only one common interest existed between them". Wood retired to be a Hampshire squire and took on a partner, William Walker, to attend to the running of the mill. Clark describes Walker as "an unjust and tyrannical man, his actions mean and treats the work people with all the austerity and harshness of a despotic ruler; he excites the envy and increases the malice of the poor against him; his life has sometimes been placed in jeopardy & mobs has (sic) assembled and broke the lamps and windows of his own house.' However, a footnote states that 'Clark was actually unjust. Walker also was Tory factory reformer and the mobs in question were employed by masters opposed to his beliefs.'

1829 ' White Infant Slavery.
Yesterday week, a meeting of the worsted spinners of Bradford and the neighbourhood, was held at the Sun Inn. in that town, to petition Parliament for an act to regulate the hours of labour in worsted Mills. This meeting was called on the requisition of the following gentlemen, themselves being worsted spinners : Matthew Thompson ; John Wood, jun. John Rand and Sons ; Illingworth, Murgatroyd and Co.; Hollings and Stansfield ; R. J. and W. Garnett; and Richard Fawcett and Son.
Mr. John Rand was called to the chair, and after some discussion it was resolved:-
That the present hours of labour in Worsted Manufactories with only half an hour for meals and recreation are unreasonable particularly as regards persons under 16 years of age.
That it is desirable to apply to Parliament for an Act to regulate the hours, &c.
That the hours appointed by the Cotton Act, both as regards labour and time for meals, &c. will be quite sufficient, viz. 12 hours labour, exclusive of half an hour for breaklast, and one hour for dinner in the first five days, and nine hours of labour on Saturday, with the same time allowed for meals.
That a petition to the House of Commons, grounded on the above resolutions, be forthwith prepared, and that it be presented to that House by Lord Milton.
The above resolutions are recommended as much by their policy as by their humanity; and our readers will recollect, that in October last, we called the attention of the public to the grievous hardships inflicted on the children of the poor in this neighbourhood, hy the practises so justly reprobated at the above meeting. We did not wait till tbe Question had been considered by the puhiic, and then come out to hold up the skirts of opinion, as others have now done. We felt the treatment of Children in our Mills, &c a disgrace to the age and nation, and we exposed the inconsistency of those who, while they make a fuss about Negro Slavery, of which they can know next to nothing, are themselves content to inflict a slavery of a more odious nature, upon the tender offspring of the working classes in this country. But as Campbell the Poet observes, "distance lends enchantment to the view ;" and persons of both sexes, scruple not to profit by a system of horror at home, which, were any thing like it Reported from abroad, would extract tears from their eyes as well as money from their hearts. So universally true is it, that man who is quickest see the mote in his brother's eye, cannot discover the beam in his own. We sincerely hope thst the Manufacturers of Leeds and other places in the West-Riding, will co-operate with those of Bradford to amend the law respecting the labour of Children in Woollen as well as Worsted Mills ; and that even the present Session will not pass without a discussion at least of the subject in Parliament.'

1841 'EVILS OF THE FACTORY SYSTEM. Lord Ashley's ten hours' bill. At a large public meeting of the Operatives, held at Leeds, a few days since, several resolutions were passed in favour of Lord Ashley's Ten Hours' Bill, &c, after which that Noble Lord, in the course of a very able address, said he had asked them for information, and he had not been disappointed .... He then called attention to the friends by whom he had been assisted in his endeavours, and enumerated Mr. Sadler, Mr. Oastler, Mr. B. Jowett, the Rev. G. S. Bull, Mr. John Wood, of Bradford, and Mr. Wm. Walker, of the same place ; and amongst those members of parliament whom he had ever found sincere friends of the working classes he mentioned the names of Mr. John Fielden of Oldham [Todmorden, presumably], Mr. Brotherton of Salford, and Mr. Hindley of Ashton, men who, though differing with him in politics, he admired and respected. His lordship concluded by expressing his most ardent wish that the time would speedily arrive when the mutual interests of master and man should be fully recognised. ....'

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