Lister, Samuel Cunliffe

This item is active and ready to use

Watercolour portrait of Lord Masham, Samuel Cunliffe Lister DL JP High Sheriff of Yorkshire

from John Sowden's notebooks:

"Lord Masham was born at Calverly Hall in 1815. He was the fourth son of Mr Ellis Cunliffe Lister, one of the representatives of an old county family, the Cunliffe Listers of Manningham Hall. Only two or three years of his life was spent at Calverly Hall, after which time his parents removed to the family seat at Manningham, where he was destined to spend some half century of his life. At that time Manningham Lane was merely a rural highway and Manningham an insignificant hamlet. He was intended for the church, but instead of passing to the University at the close of his school career he took up a position in the counting house of Messrs Sands, Turner & Co at Liverpool. His grandmother bequeathed to him rectory of Addingham in the anticipation that he would take up holy orders, but this did not change the current of his determination.

After his useful apprenticeship with the Liverpool firm Mr SC Lister came back to Bradford and entered into partnership with his brother Mr John Cunliffe Lister as a spinner and manufacturer in Manchester Road and afterwards the new mill at Manningham was built for them by their father in 1839. After two years of difficulties his brother retired, but possibly the main reason was that by early death of the eldest brother Mr William Cunliffe Lister, who had about three months previously been elected member for Bradford, he became heir to the family properties and was suddenly made a wealthy man. Mr John who adhered to the family name Kay, which had been assumed on the Kay estates devolving upon Mr Lister's father, went to live at Fairfield Hall, Addingham. Shortly afterwards Mr James and Blair was taken into the business, which steadily advanced.

In those days everybody desired to see hand combing superseded by machinery and to Mr Lister must be given the credit(?) for bringing in the combing machine to its greatest perfection after year upon year of difficult experimenting. But Mr Lister, after having made an ample fortune by his wool combing ventures, was not satisfied to rest on his oars, but went in quest for new ventures and found them in the guise of silk waste. During the course of his never resting endeavors to surmount all the difficulties of changing a pile of rubbish as by a magic wand, into the most lustrous and richest textures Lord Masham declared that before he made a penny by the new process he had written off a quarter of a million as entirely lost.

He bought an estate of 1000 acres in Assam and a second extensive estate in the Punjab and Dehra Dun where the Italian and Japanese worms large were largely cultivated. Lord Masham has been well rewarded for all his trouble in his enterprises and wealth has flowed in such continuous streams as to enable him to purchase two vast estates of not less in value than £780,000.

Amongst his 107 patents, there were naturally many that proved unproductive. He was a member of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce. On the formation of a Volunteer Corps for Bradford he was appointed Lieutenant Colonel, and held the position for many years. Lord Masham was on the Commission of the Peace for the borough of Bradford and the West Riding and in 1887 he had the honour of being appointed High Sheriff of Yorkshire.

In the same year, being jubilee year, her Majesty the Queen was graciously pleased to offer Mr Lister a baronetcy, but this distinction he declined. At the general elections in 1880 and 1885 Mr Lister was a candidate for Parliamentary honours, but he was defeated each time. In 1875 a statue of Mr Lister, the work of Matthew Noble of London, the cost being raised by public subscription, was erected in Lister Park near the entrance and was unveiled by the Right Honourable WE Forster. The Cartwright Hall emanated from Mr Lister, who offered (£40,000) and offer afterwards increased to £47,500 to the Bradford corporation, which they gladly accepted. The building cost on completion something over £60,000 and was built on the site of Lord Masham's old home, Birmingham Hall, in commemoration of the inventions of Dr (Edmund) Cartwright. The building was opened by Lord Masham in 1904. In 1854 Mr Lister married Anne, daughter of the late John Dearden of Halifax and had issue two sons and seven (written in pencil then five in brackets underneath) daughters. He died in 1906."

Image filename

sowden-172