Edmund Potter

He was a businessman in Manchester, a Member of Parliament (MP) and a grandfather of the author Beatrix Potter.

[1][2] Potter moved his business to Glossop in 1825, he rebuilt Joseph Lyne's Boggart Mill, and converted it to a printworks.

His son John Potter lived at rural Ardwick Green, Manchester, He married Catherine Eccles of Macclesfield.

[4] Calico used to be printed from wooden blocks, was heavily taxed and suffered from labour relation problems.

In 1885 he built a reading room and library, well stocked with books and papers in his work's yard for his workers.

When he bought the nearby Dinting Mill from the Wagstaffes, he used the upper floor as a dayschool for both boys and girls and for some of his young part-time workers.