John Marshall

Who was John Marshall?

John Marshall was a British businessman and politician from Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.

Marshall was born at 1, Briggate, Leeds, the son of Jeremiah, a linen draper, and his wife Mary, whose father was John Cowper of Yeadon. He was their only child who survived infancy.

Marshall joined the family business when he was seventeen. Five years later his father died and Marshall became the controlling partner in the company. He inherited a new house, a warehouse, and £7,500. Shortly before his father's death, Marshall heard that two men from Darlington, John Kendrew, a glass-grinder, and Thomas Porthouse, a watchmaker, had registered a patent for a new flax spinning machine. Marshall visited the men and purchased the right to make copies of their invention. He spent much of the next decade trying to improve the performance of the machines but found little success until he recruited engineer Matthew Murray.

In 1790, he bought the freehold of an acre of land on Water Lane in Holbeck near Leeds. This was an ideal location for a mill because of its proximity to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the Aire and Calder Navigation. Here, between 1791 and 1792, he constructed Marshall's Mill, a six-storey water-powered mill using water drawn from the nearby Hol Beck to spin yarn. Marshall was able to create enough power to run 7,000 spindles employing 2,000 factory workers. Only a generation earlier, the making of hand-spun yarn had been a traditional Yorkshire cottage industry.