Woven in cotton, how Billy Birtwistle's legacy looms large

In Preston we are well aware of Richard Arkwright and John Horrocks who were instrumental in setting up great cotton dynasty and creating fortunes, yet there was another mill owner who eventually based in Preston would follow in their footsteps and reputedly became fabulously rich from the cotton trade, writes Keith Johnson.

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That man was Blackburn-born William Birtwistle who took control of a business started by his grandfather William Birtwistle, a handloom weaver, and developed by his son Micah. However, it was Micah's son William who created the Allied Mills group in 1881 originally in partnership with Richard Thompson. The partnership was dissolved in 1895 and as the sole proprietor of the business William Birtwistle added over a dozen other mills to his Blackburn portfolio. The success of Birtwistle's enterprise was reflected in his social statues as he moved from the family's modest terraced home in Stanley Street, Blackburn to a large detached property at Samlesbury and then at the dawn of the twentieth century to Billinge Scar the fabulous mansion previously owned by brewer Daniel Thwaites.

The 'William Birtwistle Allied Mills Ltd' was a business well established by the 1920s and amongst the firm's assets were the Greenbank and Hartford Mills in Preston. He clearly had a liking for Preston and the surrounding district as he successfully bid for the entire Alston Hall estate in July 1917. He topped the auction bids with a £23,600 offer, that's £1.4m in today's money, for the mansion, two cottages, stables, stock and dairy farms within 550 acres of land in the townships of Alston, Barton and Grimsargh. After the purchase he lived for a little while at Alston Hall and added other farms to his portfolio creating the Alston Property and Investment Company in 1925.