James Locke

James Locke (c. 1800 - 5 February 1867) was a Scottish-born 19th Century London draper who is attributed with the creating the name Tweed for the rough woollen cloth, which he was largely responsible for popularising amongst fashionable Victorian society.

Career James Locke was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1800 and was brought up the Edinburgh suburb of Lochend. In the early 1820s he moved to the Covent Garden area of London and set up in business as an intermediary between Scottish woollen cloth manufacturers and London tailors and consumers. Locke's fortunes were transformed when around 1830 he moved his business premises to 119 Regent Street, London's prestigious shopping street. It was not long before the members of the nobility and fashionable West End society were regular frequenters of his shop. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were customers of Locke,

In common with many successful Victorians, Locke was a supporter of various philanthropic causes, including being on the committees of the Ragged School Union and the Scottish Hospital Charity.

Fishing Locke's passion was fly fishing for Salmon and Trout. As a boy he fished the rivers round his Edinburgh home and in later life wrote a book for his sons entitled Tweed and Don, or Recollections and Reflections of an Angler, which he had published in Edinburgh in 1860. and they had eight children between 1838 and 1854: John, Elizabeth, Thomas, James, Jenny, Daniel, Kathy and Agnes.

Amongst his friends were the sculptor Thomas Campbell (1790–1858)

He died at his home in Addison Road, Kensington on the 5th February 1867 and is buried in a family grave on the west side of Highgate Cemetery with his wife Catherine, eldest son John and daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie).