User:Rmhamer/Richard Hamer I

The river Irwell flows south through the villages of Summerset and Bury, some 40 miles to the NW of Manchester. In the late 18th and 19th centuries it was the center of a large cotton manufacturing area. One of the first developers of the area was Robert Peel who established a number of machine operated cotton mills powered by water from the Irwell. By the late 1780s he had left operations under ‘the management of Methodists and they serve me excellently well’.

Richard Hamer was the epitome of Sir Robert Peel’s astuteness in the selection of his managers, putting the mills ‘under the direction of one who has as inherent interest in the success of the business and who has been appointed as the crowning achievement of a system of promotion by merit”, as he himself said. Hamer began his working life, possibly at the age of 6 as a tier boy at the Bury Ground print works, working 14 to 16 hours a day and at night, spreading liquid color evenly with a small hand brush for block printing. Later, as one of Peel’s most trusted managers, Hamer traveled regularly to Liverpool to buy cotton from the rising class of brokers, and even sailed as far as way as Portugal to buy chemicals for use in the mills. In 1812 Peel sold his mills to a consortium, including Richard Hamer. They took over the mills and began the ‘philanthropic’ era of mill and land owners both living and working in the area. In 1824 Richard bought out his partners’ interests for himself and his son Daniel, for the sum of £7,010. In 1831 he bought more land and had a large mansion built for himself in Higher Summerseat in 1836. Summerseat House is still in existence and became a special school for boys in 1912. The Hamers Arms pub is still a reminder of the family’s association with the Higher Summerseat area.