After attending school at Northwich, he began to help his widowed mother on the farm, but to escape from that uncongenial occupation he persuaded her in 1811 to remove to Manchester and start a pawnbroking business.
After confining its operations for some years to ordinary pawnbroking, without profits, it obtained the aid of the Russian State Bank, acquired large premises in Teheran, made advances to the Persian government (since 1898), and in January 1900 and March 1902 financed the loans of 2,400,000 and 1,000,000 to Persia.
For an account of the Monte Pio Geral, which is a combined bank, pawnbroking establishment and benefit society, see Pawnbroking; the deposits in the Monte Pio and the State Savings Bank amounted in 1910 to some £5,228,000.