Mary Vickers and Zebulun Stirk

Zebulun Stirk, born in 1782, was a Leeds-based machine-maker and an accomplished steam-engine manufacturer who may have trained under the great Leeds engineer and engine-builder, Matthew Murray. Stirk is a significant figure in the story of Leeds’ industrialisation, although he had perennial financial difficulties, and he had an interesting connection with Mary Randall Vickers.  

Mary’s son, Benjamin Randall Vickers (“BRV”)’s autobiography states “After I left school aged 13 (ie 1811), I had a great desire to be usefully employed and I asked my mother to speak to Zebulun Stirk to take me with him to the [Methodist] Sunday School1.  It was held in a mill in Mill Street and I became a teacher of a girl’s class.” It seems likely that Mary and Stirk knew each other from the Methodist chapel, and they may also have overlapped as neighbours in St Peter’s Square.  

Sadly, though, Zebulun Stirk turned out to be a bad business partner. 

In January 1811, a little before BRV asked for the introduction to him, Stirk and Mary had reached agreement to go into partnership together as “machine-builders” in Stirk’s premises on York Street, close to St Peter’s Square, on a three-year term. They agreed that Mary would provide funds and that Stirk would run the business, keep the books, and return profits 50/50 between the two of them (after allowing for Stirk’s pay for running the business). Over the three years (1811-1813) Mary invested a total of £700 which – apart from anything else - shows that her income must have been healthy enough for her to be able to invest so much capital.  

Their business seems to have prospered and some of the funds were used to purchase a (second-hand) steam engine, for machine-making, from James Tennant, who owned a flax spinning business on Hill House Bank (the south-eastern side of Quarry Hill), for £ 295. Mary was aware of this purchase and her status as Stirk’s co-partner may place her as one of the first women to invest in a steam engine in Leeds.  

Sadly, Stirk did not keep his side of the bargain. In the draft of her court claim against Stirk, sometime after 1814, Mary alleged that no full presentation of the accounts and profits had ever been shown to her and that her share of the profits had been retained in the business without her approval.  

The first page of a draft of a claim made by Mary Vickers against Zebulun Stirk, machine maker in 1814 for profits owing to her for her share in the business (click image to view)

In late 1814, Stirk had established an adjacent Foundry business and had asked Mary to invest further funds for this enterprise. She declined but discovered that Stirk had gone ahead anyway, using her share of the profits from the existing business without her knowledge or consent. 

They must have reached some sort of agreement for the formal dissolution of the partnership effective 1st January 1816, which was reported in the London Gazette of 27th February 1816 and reprinted in the Commercial Chronicle of 29th February 1816. It seems that, under its terms, Stirk would pay Mary a sum of £800 plus interest in settlement.  This debt from Stirk is recorded in Mary’s first Will (1817). 

However, Stirk must have reneged on his commitment to pay, because Mary then pursued a legal claim against him for non-payment.  This was eventually settled by two Attorneys on the Kings Bench on 6th February 1819 – more than five years after the partnership was due to have expired.  She was awarded the £800, to be paid (with interest) in six instalments on a set schedule through to the end of 1820.   

The official court document includes Mary’s confirmation of receipt of at least the first three payments.  

Confirmation from Mary Vickers that she had received payments from Stirk in March 1819, July 1819 and December 1819 as part of the Warrant of Attorney (click image to view).

There is no reference in Mary’s final will dated 1825 to any remaining debt owing from Stirk, so the other three payments were either made in full, or she had written them off. 

Stirk went on for another thirty years, with multiple enterprises – flax spinning, gaslight apparatus, steam engines, hydraulic presses and (in 1826) the largest iron casting ever made in Leeds, weighing nine tons. But he had perennial financial difficulties, having several times to be rescued. In 1840 he went insolvent, possibly due to a bank failure but bounced back, exporting to Europe until bankruptcy proceedings began again in 1845.