Robert Scott (1822 – 2 February 1904 [1]) was a Manchester businessman who was one of the founders of the Tootal Broadhurst Lee cotton company. [2]
Scott was a notable early example of a successful manager in the textile industry, achieving significant wealth within the largest company of the time whilst being neither self-made nor from a textile family. [3] Born the son of a farmer at Abbey Holm in Cumbria, he was a salesman by the time of his 1845 marriage to Maria in Cheetham Hill, north Manchester. [2] He became a business partner of Henry Tootal Broadhurst, Henry Lee and Joseph Lee who together subsequently formed the company Tootal Broadhurst Lee, a vertically integrated firm that was unusual for its time in combining weaving and spinning [4] and was to become by the 1880s the largest cotton manufacturer in Lancashire. [5] Henry Tootal Broadhurst's son, Edward Tootal Broadhurst would go on to become company chairman. Scott became 'cashier', or finance director, of Tootal Broadhurst Lee in 1854 [3] and was deputy chairman of the Equitable Fire and Accident Office insurance company; [6] by the 1881 census he was described a spinning manufacturer. [3]
In 1874 Scott bought ten acres of land in Bowdon, south Manchester, from the Earl of Stamford at a cost of £7075 [3] and built a large villa, Denzell, [7] to the designs of the architects Clegg and Knowles. [8] The house cost £18,000 [2] to build and a reported £30,000 in all. [9] Scott was recorded in the 1881 census as living at Denzell with his wife and a staff of nine. [2] The building is now known as Denzell Hall and is Grade II* listed as a notable example of a specifically commissioned late nineteenth century house for a wealthy patron with a high degree of craftsmanship and quality of materials. [8] The listing cites the design as inventive and eclectic and by a noted Manchester architects' practice; [8] the architectural critic Pevsner described it as a luscious but 'very bad' mixture of debased Jacobean, Gothic and Italianate. [10] Scott's son Henry predeceased him and at his death in 1904 the house was sold to the Lamb family. [9]