#15157, William Bullough GRAY

William was the eldest child of James and Bessie Gray. Bessie’s father, James Bullough, was a remarkable man, an inventor, and set the scene for William, his grandson, in the manufacture of machinery for spinning and weaving cotton. On his marriage in 1892, aged thirty three, William’s occupation was given as ‘Machinist’. He sadly died two years later from an abscess leaving his wife Mary Boothroyd expecting their first child. He worked at the ‘Globe Works’ of Howard and Bullough, Accrington which manufactured the looms that had been invented by his grandfather and was extremely successful. His uncle John, who had taken over from his father in 1866, left over a million pounds on his death in 1891.

Nicky Hibbin