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6 unusual facts about Mortimer Grimshaw


Great Harwood

Mortimer Grimshaw (1824/5–1869), strike leader and political activist

Mortimer Grimshaw

The son of a radical public speaker and orator, Grimshaw's early campaigns were centred around the improvement of working conditions for the mill-workers in the village of Royton and enforcement of the Factory Acts.

He first came to prominence in the village of Royton, near Oldham, in 1852 as a campaigner for the improvement and enforcement of the Factory Acts, to improve the working conditions of those employed in the cotton mills.

In 1861, he and Cowell attempted to intervene in a strike in Clitheroe but were branded "notorious scoundrels" by the weavers there for their parts in the Preston strike.

Grimshaw was born in or around Great Harwood, Lancashire, in 1824 or 1825 and was one of six children brought up in a working-class family.

Upon his return to England, Grimshaw, Cowell and two other weavers were involved in a dispute between mill-owners and workers in Clitheroe, Lancashire, in 1861.



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