John Kennedy. 24 r 



Manchester to be the only man who had retired from 

 business in the town who had made a fortune and still had 

 remained in the same house. This may have been owing 

 to the fact that the house was being only very slowly 

 surrounded, and in such cases the residents scarcely 

 observe the ch-ange. Trees, however, are still numerous 

 in the garden, and there is no dwelling house of the larger 

 size equally near the Exchange. 



Mr. Kennedy was the third son of a family of Ken- 

 nedys who had been landed proprietors in the Stewartry of 

 Kirkcudbright for nearly four hundred years. At the age 

 of fourteen he went south, attracted by another boy from 

 the same neighbourhood, named Adam Murray, and they 

 both became apprentices to Messrs Cannan and Smith, at 

 Chowbent in Lancashire. Afterwards Mr. Kennedy was 

 nearly the first to establish cotton-spinning mills driven by 

 steampower. Before this, however, he, in partnership with 

 Messrs. Sandford and McConnel, had been a maker of 

 machines for spinning cotton. He was considered a good 

 mechanist, making several improvements in the mule, and 

 being the first to invent the differential motion in the jack- 

 frame. Mr. Kennedy had kind and engaging manners, 

 and he always gave a hearty welcome to young men who 

 were endeavouring to get on in the world. He left six 

 daughters and one son, of whom one daughter (Mrs. Chad- 

 wick) and the son alone survive. The son, Mr. John Law- 

 son Kennedy, is a member of the Society ; the surviving 

 daughter is Mrs. Chadwick, and we are glad to connect 

 with the Society the name of such a man as her husband, 

 Edwin Chadwick, C.B., who has rightly been called the 

 father of sanitary reform, and who was born in this 

 district. It would be difficult to find any man who 



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