Background
Greg was born in Belfast, then part of Ireland, the second son of a successful merchant.
Greg was born in Belfast, then part of Ireland, the second son of a successful merchant.
Robert Hyde"s death in 1782. His brother"s alcoholism rendered him incapable of running the business. Greg took over the enterprise.
Seeing opportunities for manufacturing opened up by the Industrial Revolution, Greg founded Quarry Bank Mill, a cotton spinning mill in Styal on the bank of the River Bollin in Cheshire.
In 1796, he built Quarry Bank House in Styal while retaining his town house. Greg built up a model village of modest but salubrious housing on the Styal estate, not for philanthropic reasons but as an essential element in his vision of the efficient factory system.
In 1832, Greg was attacked by a stag in the grounds of Quarry Bank Mill. The injury led to his retirement.
By this time, Quarry Bank had become the largest spinning and weaving business in the United Kingdom.
Greg never recovered from the attack and died two years later. The Gregs had mills in Reddish, Calver, Bollington, Lancaster and Caton. In the Escowbeck Estate, in Caton they built their own observatory.
Of Hannah and Samuel"s thirteen children Robert (1795-1875), John (1801-1882), Samuel Junior.
(1804-1876) and William Rathbone (1809-1881) entered the business. Robert Hyde Greg was interested in astronomy and politics and was elected Member of Parliament for Manchester in 1839.
John was responsible for the Lancaster and Caton mills and eventually the Bollington mill. He was alderman and mayor of Lancaster.
Samuel Junior. took charge of the Bollington mill and unsuccessfully experimented with profit sharingdisillusioned he became a preacher.
William was responsible for Hudcar Mill in Bury and then took over the troubled Bollington Mill, retiring from the business in 1850 he became Controller of Her Majesty"s Stationery Office, and an avid essayist and pamphleteer. Elizabeth Greg (1790-1882) married William Rathbone V, of the Liverpool merchantile family. She founded the first public wash-houses in the United Kingdom in the wake of the 1832 Liverpool Cholera epidemic.
Later she helped William Forster in formulating the 1870 Education Acting.
Greg was active in Manchester"s cultural life as a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and he too was a Unitarian.