John Horrocks

John Horrocks (27 March 1768 – 1 March 1804) was an English cotton manufacturer and Member of Parliament for Preston.

Early life He was born in Bradshaw, Lancashire, the son of John Horrocks, owner of a stone quarry, and his wife Jane Booth, the younger of two surviving sons in a family of 18 children. His father, a Quaker, was a manufacturer of stone printing tables for textiles in Edgworth. David Hunt in his 1992 History of Preston comments that many details of his early life are confused. While still young Horrocks worked in Edgworth for Thomas Thomasson, in the cotton trade, who sent him to school in central Manchester but died in 1782. Within a year of his arrival in Preston he built his first large mill. Shortly after he obtained a monopoly of the manufacture of cottons and muslins for the Indian market from the British East India Company. He took on first his elder brother Samuel Horrocks, and in 1801 John Whitehead and Thomas Miller into partnership.

In 1802, Horrocks entered parliament as Tory member for Preston. Stanley then tried to undermine his economic base, by investing in Preston rivals Watson, Myers Co. After his death less than two years later, his brother Samuel Horrocks took over his seat in an uncontested by-election, Sir Thomas Dalrymple Hesketh, 3rd Baronet having held back. He died in 1804 and was buried at St Mary's Church, Penwortham. John Horrocks Way, part of the Penwortham bypass, is named after him. He was the grandfather of explorer John Horrocks.