A merchanting and dyeing centre

Originally most of the pieces produced in Bradford were bought by merchants in Leeds, Wakefield or Halifax, and dyed and finished there. When George Ripley set up business in Bowling he had only three competitors. Beginning in the 1830s there was a mass migration of merchants from other West Riding towns and from Manchester to Bradford. In 1830 Bradford had 24 merchants, of whom three were foreigners; by 1860 the number had reached 157, of whom 65 were foreign, mostly German. Over the same period the number of worsted merchants in Halifax fell from twelve to none, and in Leeds from 42 to 17. A trend associated with the shift of merchanting to Bradford was the increasing importance of piece-goods dyeing in the town, for it was the merchant rather than the manufacturer who arranged for the cloth to be dyed on a commission basis.