Biography

Joseph and his brothers Francis and John "took over the Dean Clough carpet mills after the death of their father, John Crossley, and spent many busy years building up the business until it was a huge concern, employing some 4,000 workers in its heyday and sending large quantities of carpets overseas as well as across the length and breadth of Britain. Each of the brothers saw to a different aspect of the business and they employed a talented designer and inventor, George Collier, who spent some years on research and trials before finally producing his new power loom for weaving carpets which was to revolutionise carpet manufacture. It was largely the patent rights accruing from this invention, which was owned by the Crossleys, which earned the family's great income. Frank Crossley, now a very wealthy man, built a mansion, Belle Vue, on the outskirts of Halifax, and his brothers took up residence in equally splendid houses, John at Manor Heath and Joseph at Broomfield, these two standing to the south of Halifax. Sir Francis received his baronetage in 1863 and he became a Liberal Member of Parliament for Halifax in 1852." From JosephCrossleyHomes.com Seward visited Crossley Carpet works in 1859, writing his daughter Fanny on July 10, Leaving Leeds at ten oclock ^yesterday^ I came ten miles to Bradford when I stopped to examine Crossleys Carpet works. Two young men of low and humble life have built up a manufactory in which they are making three hundred pieces for 150,000 yards of costly carpeting a day and employing besides vast engines and various machines four thousand persons. And these too enterprising men too are humanitarians. "