Giles Atherton

Virginia Mills, Higher Hillgate, Stockport.

This property is sometimes said to be a former cotton mill but it was actually built in the 1890s by Giles Atherton as a hat factory and possibly for the manufacture of hat-making machinery. The initials G A can be seen in the etched glass of some of the ground floor windows.

Giles Atherton was born in 1852. He started off as a hatter and by 1881 was manufacturing hats and employed 30 women and 10 men at premises on Adswood Lane. He became an agent for Yule’s American hat manufacturing machinery. He visited America a number of times and during a visit to New York in the 1890’s, he was offered the patent rights to hat leather stitching machines. He became a J. P., a magistrate and the mayor in 1896, 1897 and 1903. He laid the foundation stone for the Town Hall and also for the north wing of the Infirmary. He was a property owner, with 12 houses on Charles Street, Hillgate and lived at Virginia Villa, Mile End. He died in 1931.