Joseph Ashby Gillett

Joseph Ashby Gillett (1795–1853) was an English industrialist, as a textile manufacturer, and banker in Banbury.

[1] He was the eldest son of William Gillett and his wife Martha Ashby of Brailes in Warwickshire, where he was born on 4 September 1795.

Joseph Gillett himself became secretary to the Banbury Monthly Meeting, and a Quaker minister in 1841.

[6] Gillett was a manufacturer at Neithrop, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, of textiles such as shalloon and shag.

The speciality of the North Oxfordshire weavers was fine plush made of either an intermixture of worsted warp and silk or hair weft or purely of one of the three fibres.

"[12] That information referred to the situation a generation earlier, and in fact plush manufacture in Banbury was in serious decline by 1850.

[15] A few years later Gillett & Lees bought in the innovative technology of Henry Bessemer, a process for the manufacture of "imitation Utrecht velvet".

There was a market for this type of embossed velvet used for upholstery, and a chance to replace imports from France.

[22] Jessel, Toynbee & Gillett was then bought by the money broker Mercantile House.