Dobson, Sir Benjamin Alfred (1847-1898), textile machinery manufacturer
by D. A. Farnie

New machinery and business expansion

Benjamin Alfred Dobson began the task of creative innovation by improving the performance of the Heilmann comber, which the firm had manufactured since 1871: he succeeded in enhancing its productivity by one half. Between 1878 and 1886 local mills replaced their hand mules with the perfected self-acting mule, so generating orders for the firm. Bolton however enjoyed no joint-stock boom comparable to that which made Oldham in 1873–5 the spinning centre of the cotton universe, although Dobson did invest £500 in 1874 in the borough's first limited company, the Bolton Union Spinning Co. Ltd. The firm supplied a large market in France with its machines after the Franco-Prussian War which had transferred Alsace, with its flourishing textile trade, to Germany. Those machines won a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and earned for B. A. Dobson enrolment in the Légion d'honneur. When France introduced a protective tariff in 1891, Dobsons equipped a mill in Lille, financed by Lancashire, to supply fine yarns to the French market. Dobsons then undertook the systematic extension of its operations into the markets of its Oldham rival, improving the mule for spinning coarse counts, and bringing out, in 1887, a mule designed for the high-speed spinning of Oldham counts, and more significantly, investing in the manufacture of ring spinning frames, the spinning machine of the future, invented in the USA. From 1874 Dobsons manufactured ring frames, using the American Rabbeth spindle from 1879, the Dobson–Marsh cork-cushioned spindle patented in 1880, and William Dobson's improved flexible spindle patented in 1884. From 1887 it supplied ring frames to the new mills of Japan in direct competition with Platts. In 1896 B. A. Dobson, while on a round-the-world trip, lectured on the subject of the cotton industry in Japan, and was presented by the Japan Cotton Spinners' Association with a magnificent lacquered cabinet as a memento of his visit. From 1891 the firm equipped the new mills of China and there achieved a success denied to Platts: by 1895 it had supplied 77 per cent of the 180,000 spindles operating in Shanghai. It further equipped the first spinning mills to be established in Ceylon in 1889, in Turkey in 1890, and in Peru in 1897. It also realized the full potential capacity of the ring frame. By 1888 it was supplying to Bolton firms frames capable of spinning up to counts of 160. From 1891 it introduced the technique of electric welding in order to impart a perfect finish to its ring spindles. By 1898, 38 per cent of the firm's production of spindles were designed for ring frames, or almost as much as the proportion of 42 per cent of Platts', while its production of ring frames amounted to four-fifths of the total made by Platts.

Capturing overseas markets

Dobson gave a marked impetus to technical innovation: he established an experiment room, and presented in 1886 Crompton's original mule to the Bolton Museum. Between 1869 and 1898 the firm took out 128 patents in England and 50 abroad, in the USA and Germany from 1878, in Belgium and France from 1880, in Austria from 1886 and in Switzerland from 1889. Dobson himself patented twenty-two inventions between 1877 and 1897. The patent machines were promoted by all the means available. An extensive network of foreign agents was employed. Dobson, an accomplished linguist, travelled widely in order to meet potential customers. He toured the continent, the USA and Canada, Egypt and India, as well as Japan. Foreign-language catalogues were published from 1883. Awards were won at four international exhibitions (1878–88). The new textile trade press spoke well of his machines, as did the textbooks on spinning written by R. Marsden in 1883, H. E. Walmsley in 1883, and J. Nasmith in 1890.

From 1884 the firm embarked on an era of sustained innovation. It devised the Simplex Revolving Flat Card in 1886, and further improved it in 1890, raising its productivity some 35 per cent above that of any rival. Dobson also elucidated the theory of carding, and lectured upon it in Massachusetts in 1888, devoting his first two books to the subject. Thereby he opened a large market for the products of the firm because the preparatory processes played a vital role in determining the quality of the yarn spun. In 1890 the firm celebrated its centenary by financing a trip to the seaside for its 3700 hands, who filled six trains. In return they presented the partners with an illuminated address testifying to the ‘excellent relations’ between principals and employees. Since at least 1820 Dobsons had accepted loans from its own workfolk: in 1890 it introduced a profit-sharing scheme whereby loanholders secured a share in profits as well as interest. In 1891 it became a limited company, with a capital of £750,000 or one-fifth the capital of Platts in 1898. Under the regime of the two partners the workforce had doubled in size, from 2000 in 1873 to 4000 in 1897, while the proportion of the population of Bolton supported by the firm had risen from 14 per cent in 1871 to 20 per cent in 1898. ‘Its success since 1871 has been conspicuous and its development phenomenal’ reported the Textile Mercury (12 March 1898, 210). The range of products had been enlarged to include machinery for wool, worsted, silk, vigogne (vicuña), and waste yarns, and a pattern of continuous innovation had been established.

Professional and political achievements

In 1876 Benjamin Dobson married Coralie Palin (1853–1904), daughter of William Thomas Palin, a railway engineer serving in India. They had six sons and three daughters. In 1886 Dobson bought the Doffcockers estate, and later another estate at Haverthwaite in Westmorland. His talents were widely recognized within his own profession. He became a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1872: he served as a member of its council from 1885 to 1891 and again from 1893 to 1894. The firm overcame opposition from its workmen to the introduction of improved methods of working. It emerged victorious from local strikes in 1875 and 1887 as well as from a national strike in 1897–8. Dobson was elected chairman of the Bolton Engineering Employers' Association, and president of the Bolton Iron Trades Employers' Association as well as, in 1893, an honorary member of the Manchester Association of Engineers. He was chosen by the Engineering Employers' Federation as a representative at the conferences which ended the strike of 1897–8. He entered the Bolton town council in 1874 as a Conservative, and was elected an alderman and borough magistrate in 1880. He took a prominent part in the formation of Bolton Conservative council in 1884, and became the leader of the local Conservative Party. He was an enthusiastic churchman as well as a freemason. He was especially proud of his service as a rifle volunteer with the Loyal North Lancashire regiment, wherein he rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and earned the Volunteer Decoration for twenty years of service. As a town councillor he worked steadily from 1887 for the improvement in the facilities available for technical education, endowing scholarships for his workmen, but always viewing education as a lifelong process. As chairman of the council's Technical Instruction committee, he helped to transform the mechanics' institute into a new technical school, which was opened in 1892 and was equipped free of charge with machinery from his firm's own workshops.

In 1894 a new phase in his life began when Dobson was elected mayor of Bolton, having earlier declined the honour. The appointment was an inspired one, for Dobson had become the borough's senior magistrate as well as its leading businessman, and had been elected president of Bolton's chamber of commerce in 1893. Dobson proved to be an outstanding success as mayor and more popular than any of his predecessors. His personal qualities served him as well in public life as they had in the conduct of business. He was a born leader of men, with a commanding presence, and a pronounced capacity for persuasive speech. Those qualities were reinforced by his keen insight, his sure grasp of detail, his immense tact, and his great determination. He succeeded where two previous mayors had failed, in conciliating the opposition of the out-townships to incorporation in a ‘Greater Bolton’. As mayor he accepted office in a dozen associations established for charitable purposes. He had been a governor of Bolton School since 1882. He became vice-president of Bolton Infirmary and president of Bolton Humane Society. As the first citizen of the borough he held official functions for his fellow Boltonians, a ball for children in the town hall, a garden party at Doffcockers, and an autumn conversazione and a Christmas party for the aged poor. Three times he was re-elected to office, in 1895, in 1896, and in 1897, becoming the first mayor of Bolton to hold office for a fourth term. In recognition of his civic services he was knighted in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee honours of 1897, a dignity never conferred upon any member of the Platt family.

In his fifty-first year, and apparently still in the prime of life, Dobson died at Doffcockers on 4 March 1898. The military funeral was attended by some 20,000 people, by mourners occupying 300 carriages, and by 33 clergymen: it became the occasion for an unprecedented display of public sympathy, and for heart-felt allusions from some 31 pulpits. Dobson was buried on 7 March at St Peter's Church, Smithills, Bolton. He left an estate of £240,134 where his uncle had left one of £140,000 in 1874. His eldest son, Benjamin Palin Dobson (1878–1936) left only £37,646. The profits generated by the firm were apparently reaped by the Rushton family. Dobson's death preceded the year of peak demand for the firm's machines in 1906. Dobson and Barlow had, however, continued to look to the future and manufactured in 1901–3 the first rayon spinning machine, for a Zürich firm. The works lost the name of its founders in 1975 and were closed in 1984. Bolton retained however a permanent memorial of Benjamin Alfred Dobson in the form of a 20 feet tall statue in Victoria Square, outside the town's magnificent town hall. The statue was sculpted by John Cassidy (1860–1939) and was unveiled on 17 February 1900 in the presence of 20,000 spectators. It bore the inscription ‘erected by public subscription to commemorate a useful life and service to the town of Bolton’. The statue was never moved from its site, unlike the statue of John Platt erected in Oldham in 1878.

D. A. FARNIE

Wealth at death  

£240,134 9s. 10d.: probate, 9 Aug 1898