Draft:Anne Gadd

Anne Hill (Pendleton, 19 February 1811 – Barton upon Irwell, 5 February 1878), also known as Anne Gadd, was an English entrepreneur. She is most well known for her involvement in the machine construction company "Gadd & Hill", which she eventually also ended up running, and for her correspondence with the Belgian poet Guido Gezelle.

Life and family
Anne Hill was born on 19 February 1811 in Pendleton. At the age of 24 she married Thomas Gadd, an engineer, with whom she had nine children; they also adopted a son named Michael. Her third son, George William Gadd, spent a couple of years at the Klein Seminarie in the Belgian town of Roeselare, where he was taught by the priest-poet Guido Gezelle. Between the years 1857 and 1862 Hill maintained a regular correspondence with Gezelle. The letters were mainly about her son, her family life, and Gezelle's own family. These letters are now kept in the Gezelle-archives (Dt. Het Gezellearchief). She even made an effort to find work for Gezelle's sister, Louise, in England. Hill passed away in 1879 in Barton upon Irwell, two weeks before her 68th birthday, in the home of her son Michael.

Entrepreneurship
The "Gadd & Hill" company was founded by her brother Charles Hill and her husband Thomas Gadd. The firm specialised in building heavy machinery. After her brother died in 1857, Anne became a fellow shareholder in the company. However, only two years later, in 1859, she also lost her husband, leading to her becoming head of the company. Until 1865 she shared the firm's management with her brother's brother-in-law, but after that she continued under the company name "Thomas Gadd". She involved her sons George William and Edward Thomas in the firm's management, eventually handing it over to them.

Literature

 * B. De Leeuw, P. De Wilde, K. Verbeke, onder leiding van A. Deprez (ed.), De briefwisseling van Guido Gezelle met de Engelsen 1854-1899, Gent, Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandsche Taal- en Letterkunde, 1991, 3 delen.
 * Johan Van Iseghem, Kroniek van de jonge Gezelle. 1854-1858. Tielt: Lannoo, 1993, p.157, 122, 183, 187, 195, 198-200, 203, 205, 206, 209, 210, 215, 217, 218, 221, 226, 228, 248, 269,    280.
 * Philip A. Sykas, Pathways in the Nineteenth-Century British Textile Industry. Routledge, Abingdon, 2022.