HENRY DEACON 165 



When he needed a manager for the works 

 that he had founded he selected Henry 

 Deacon. 



In those days, at least, he would be a man 

 to recognise ability, and it is a tribute to the 

 capacity of Deacon that he was selected by 

 Hutchinson to manage his works. 



But Deacon was not the man long to wear 

 the yoke of service ; he had in him those 

 qualities that cannot be restrained ; a con- 

 sciousness of power, an active, energetic 

 spirit, no lack of ambition, and a certain 

 restlessness under restraint that made it more 

 congenial to him to rule than to be ruled. 

 John Hutchinson, too, was hardly the man 

 who could control or even co-operate with one 

 of Deacon's character and culture, and so they 

 parted, and Deacon was joined in partnership 

 by his former employer at St. Helens, the 

 younger of the brothers Pilkington, William, 

 of Eccleston Hall, and they started the 

 chemical works at Widnes. The site was 

 everything that could be desired a railway 

 on one side and the canal on the other. 

 When the land was first acquired, it was 

 never contemplated to what extent that 

 insignificant venture would attain : to-day, 

 large as the area covered by the works is, it 



