Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/151

 , brother of Sir James, a man of notoriously abandoned life, who died when staying with Sussex at Newhall in 1608, and was buried in the earl's family tomb at Boreham. Before 1602 she, with her children, separated from Sussex, who thenceforth allowed her 1,700l. a year (, Diary, pp. 60-61). She died in December 1623. She bore Sussex four children, who all predeceased him: Henry, who married, in February 1613-14, Jane, daughter of Sir Michael Stanhope; Thomas; Elizabeth, who married Sir John Ramsay, earl of Holderness [q. v.]; and Honora. Sussex's second wife was Frances, widow of Francis Shute, daughter of Hercules Meautas, of West Ham. She died on 18 Nov. 1627 (, Essex, ii. 568).

Sussex was succeeded by his cousin Edward (1552?-1641), son of Sir Humphrey Radcliffe of Elnestow, Bedfordshire, second son of Robert Radcliffe, first earl of Sussex [q. v.] He was member of parliament for Petersfield in 1586-7,for Portsmouth 1592-3, and for Bedfordshire 1598-9, 1601, and 1604-1612. The title expired at his death without issue in 1641. The subsidiary barony of Fitzwalter was claimed in 1640 by Sir Henry Mildmay of Moulsham, Essex, whose mother Frances was daughter of Henry, second earl of Sussex [see under .] The barony was granted in 1670 to Sir Henry's grandson Benjamin, but it fell into abeyance in 1756 (, Peerage, ed. Brydges, ix. 449).

[There is a useful biography, very complete in personal details, in Cooper's Athenae Cantabr. i. 462-70. The principal authorities are Dugdale's Baronage; Burke's Extinct Peerage; Lloyd's State Worthies; ,Stow's Annals; Rymer's Foedera; Holinshed's Chronicle; Machyn's Diary; Tytler's England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary; Chronicle of Queen Jane (Camden Soc.); Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials; Morant's Essex; Wiffen's House of Russell; Suckling's Essex; Blomefield's Norfolk; Origines Parochiales Scotiae (Bannatyne Club); Gregory's Western Highlands; Hill's Macdonnells of Antrim; Statutes at Large (Ireland); Shirley's Letters; Collins's Sidney Papers; Cal. Carew MSS.; Cal. Fiants, Eliz. (Ireland); Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors; Archaeologia, vol. xxxv.; Burgon's Gresham; Haynes and Mardin's State Papers; Sadler's State Papers; Wright's Elizabeth; Sharpe's Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569; Nicolas's Life of Sir Christopher Hatton; Ellis's Letters; Lodge's Illustrations; Leycester Corresp. (Camden Soc.); Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth; Howard's Collection of Letters; Cal. State Papers, Eliz. Dom., Foreign, Ireland, Simancas, and Venetian, passim. Sussex's handwriting is particularly crabbed, and more than once Elizabeth had to complain that she could not read it. Besides those preserved in the Public Record Office, there are numerous letters of his relative to state affairs in the British Museum, viz. Cotton MSS., Caligula B. ix., relating to the rebellion of 1569; ib. C. i., concerning the Duke of Norfolk's projected marriage with Mary Queen of Scots, and affairs in the north; ib. C. ii. iii., relating to Scottish affairs (mostly all printed in Wright's Elizabeth); ib. E. vi. fol. 315, to Leicester on French affairs, 7 April 1576; ib. Vespasian, F. xii., documents relating to his Irish government; ib. Titus B. ii., iii., miscellaneous documents; ib. B. vii., documents relating to the proposed marriage with Alençon; ib. xi. f.. 442 and xiii., on Irish affairs; ib. Faustina, ii. f. 144, porterage charges of his embassy to the Emperor Maximilian; Lansdowne MSS. iv. (50), letters patent for the stewardship of the queen's possessions in Essex; ib. xii. (67), xvii. (21), xxxvi. (8), xxxix. (18), his will, with a codicil, dated 21 May 1583; ib. (19), inventory of his jewels; Addit. MSS. 5822 f. 15 b, 26047 ff. 2086, 2076, 27401, miscellaneous, of no importance; Cal. Hatfield MSS. passim; Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. p. 124 (articles by, as lieutenant-general in the north, 1570); ib. iii. 185 (letters in the collection of the Marquis of Bath); ib. p. 428 (letters in the collection of the Marquis of Ormonde); ib. iv. 597, MSS. belonging to Trinity College, Dublin, containing the expeditions of Sussex in 1556-63; ib. vii., miscellaneous letters, chiefly of 1562, belonging to W. M. Molyneaux of Loseley Park, Guildford; ib. 530, ix.pt. i. 249.]  RADCLIFFE, WILLIAM (1760–1841), improver of cotton machinery, was born on 17 Oct. 1760, at Mellor, Derbyshire. His father was a weaver, and he learned carding, spinning, and weaving at home. In 1785 he married Sarah Jackson of Mellor, and four years later began business in his native place as a spinner and weaver. His chief trade at first was in muslin warps and in the manufacture of muslins for the market at Manchester, where he afterwards opened a warehouse. He also bought premises at Stockport for the extension of his manufacturing operations, and in 1799 took Thomas Ross of Montrose as partner. In 1801 he settled at Stockport, became captain-commandant of the local volunteers, and in 1804 mayor of the town. He had previously (in 1794), from a patriotic sentiment, declined to sell his cotton yarn to foreign merchants who were desirous of buying it for exportation to the continent, where it was to be made into cloth. This attitude he always strenuously maintained, speaking in support of it at public meetings, and publishing in 1811 a pamphlet entitled ‘Exportation of Cotton Yarns the real Cause of the Distress that has fallen upon the Cotton Trade for a series of years past,’ Stockport, 8vo.

The great invention with which Radcliffe's name is associated is the ‘dressing machine,’ which was, however, originated by an ingenious operative machinist in his employment, named Thomas Johnson, who lived at Bredbury, near Stockport. It had previously been only possible for a weaver to dress, or starch, so much of the warp as lay between the healds and yard beam, or about 36 inches, necessitating a frequent stoppage of the loom. By this invention the operation of dressing was done before the warp was put into the loom, thus effecting a great saving of the time and labour of the weaver. By the aid of Johnson he also brought out three other patents, two of them for an improvement in the loom, namely the taking up of the cloth by the motion of the lathe. The patents were taken out in Johnson's name in 1803–4. Radcliffe did not, however, reap any profit by them; the great expenses he incurred in his experiments, and the time wasted in his pertinacious opposition to the exportation of yarn, bringing him to bankruptcy in 1807. Soon after that date he was helped by four friends, who lent him 500l. each, with which he began business once more, carrying it on until 1815, when he became embarrassed again. The Luddites in 1812 broke into his mill and residence, and destroyed both his machinery and furniture. His wife was so alarmed and injured by the rioters that she died a few weeks later. His life afterwards was a continued struggle with adversity. He published in 1828 an account of his struggles, under the title of ‘Origin of the New System of Manufacture, commonly called Power-loom Weaving, and the Purposes for which this System was invented and brought into use fully explained, &c.,’ Stockport, 8vo. 