Peter Drinkwater

Peter Drinkwater was an English cotton manufacturer and merchant. Born in Whalley, Lancashire, he had a successful career as a fustian manufacturer using the domestic putting-out system, and as a merchant based in Bolton and Manchester, before he turned to large-scale factory production in the 1780s.

During the late 1780s he began investing some of the capital he had accumulated in cotton spinning mills; first in a water-powered mill in Northwich, and then in 1789 in Manchester with the construction of his four storey, brick-built, Piccadilly Mill on Auburn Street, which by the early 1790s was employing around 500 people.

He died on a journey to London on the 15th November 1801.