Major figures and leading businesses

William and Joseph Drabble

Occupied the Silver Street works in Holbeck after Jubb left in 1796, and before Taylor and Wordsworth. The brothers were not especially important technically, but very significant as their extensive clan connected leading textile engineers, then and later. Through a series of marriages, Drabbles were linked to Jubb, Taylor, Wordsworth and John Pollard in Leeds, and Hattersley in Keighley.

Connections are not fully established but the weight of evidence is compelling, centring upon descendants of Joseph Drabble of Wortley by Penistone, his sons William (b. 1743) and John (dates unconfirmed); and daughter Sarah (b. 1752). William was father of William (b. 1769) and Joseph (b. 1773) Drabble of Silver Street. Sarah was the first wife of John Jubb the elder. John Drabble apparently married Hannah Parkin (b. 1743), seemingly aunt of Richard Hattersley (q.v.). Daughters of John and Hannah married Samuel Pollard, Joshua Wordsworth and Joseph Taylor. The elder John Jubb seems to have been uncle by marriage not only to the Drabbles of Silver Street, but also to Mary Pollard, Martha Wordsworth and Hannah Taylor, and great uncle of the second Martha Wordsworth.

William and Joseph Drabble established their Silver Street business probably in 1796, certainly by 1798, while still in their 20s. Conceivably they had been Jubb's apprentices, so versed in woollen, cotton and worsted machinery. Their main business became flax and hemp machine-making. They employed both Wordsworth (after he married their cousin Martha) and Taylor (who later married Martha's sister).

In 1800 the brothers bought neighbouring land to expand Jubb's workshops. Wordsworth in 1834 noted that the oldest Silver Street buildings were erected ‘nearly 40 years since’. But Joseph pulled out of the partnership in 1806, advertising the following year a modern ‘extensive manufactory’ at the Steander, producing flax, tow and hemp machinery. From 1809, he struck a deal with William Farmery (q.v.) to make new and adapt old machinery on Farmery's patented system. Soon afterwards he became insolvent, and the Steander works and its stock of flax-spinning, roving and carding machinery were sold.