Our Heritage

William Thomson, originally operating out of Woodhouse Mills, Deighton, was run by George Thomson (1842-1920) after inheriting the business from his father, William.

Thomson’s father had risen significantly in the cloth trade to allow for George to be educated at Old Tattersfield School and Bramham College.

The young Thomson was described as a ‘dreamer’, and ‘the ways of modern commerce gave his ideals a severe shock’. From this he resolved that

‘if his life must be spent in making cloth, he would make the best cloth, and put the best work into it’.

Drawn in his twenties towards Plato, Carlyle, and Ruskin, and associating with design legends such as William Morris, George transformed the William Thomson mill into a profit-sharing business, one of the first of its kind - whose values we uphold to this day.