S. & J. Watts, Manchester
S. J. Watts & Co was a wholesale drapery business in Manchester established by brothers Samuel and James Watts. Its prominence in the trade was signalled by its huge multi-storey warehouse on Portland Street – described by Dickens as the ‘merchant palace of Europe’ – which was opened in 1858. The leading light in the business was Sir James Watts (1804-1878), who became mayor of Manchester. Successive generations of James Watts took the business into the twentieth century, when the building became ....
