The family had lived near Pendle since c. 1620 and worked as grocers, building Wycoller Hall towards the end of the 16th century.

In 1888 he built a model village at Aintree (since named by the Victorian Society as a set of heritage buildings at risk of disrepair[1]).

He claimed that the wages he paid to women and girls – four-fifths of the workforce – were appreciably higher than those of his competitors; he also provided free medical treatment.

Equally generous to Primitive Methodism, he supported an organization for building chapels, acted as treasurer of its missionary society, and converted the old Holborn Town Hall into its national headquarters.

His relative Cephas Hartley was instrumental in reviving Elmfield, the Primitive Methodist college in 1906 (see picture in Booth 1990: 52C).

He became a Primitive Methodist minister at an early age, and after spending a quarter of a century in England, went to Australia and laboured for thirty-two years in Queensland.

He was apparently too much occupied to send home reports of his work; so Dr Samuel Antliff, when he was sent to visit Australia, was instructed to make investigations.

His fellow-citizens celebrated his ministerial Jubilee and presented him with a purse of gold; and after his death dedicated a public fountain to his memory.

"Mr Hartley was in Southampton during several years of my pastorate there, when I learned to esteem him very highly for his earnestness, warmth of heart, bright temperament, diligence and self-forgetfulness.

I share with your denomination the sense of loss by his death, and should be glad if you would tell Mr Hartley of Aintree how truly I esteemed and honoured his uncle."