Edward Akroyd

Who was Edward Akroyd?

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Akroyd, English manufacturer, was born into a textile manufacturing family in 1810, and when he died in 1887, he still owned the family firm. He inherited "James Akroyd & Sons Ltd." from his father in 1847, and he became the owner of one of the country's largest worsted manufacturers.

He established mills at Haley Hill in Halifax and then at Copley, two miles or so to the south. He proved to be a very successful businessman, and his firm made him very prosperous. At Haley Hill, not far from his mills, he extended a large mansion, Bankfield, and then went to live there.

Akroyd was well read and concerned about the fortunes of Halifax and the terrible social conditions that grew out of the industrial revolution. He funded and supported a local allotment society and many institutions for the working classes, a school for child labourers, a workers' pension scheme, several churches and a cemetery. He founded a Working Men's College, the first outside London.

In the mid-1850s, he helped found the Yorkshire Penny Bank, and he worked closely with the Halifax Permanent Building Society to promote home ownership through his model village Akroydon.