Sir Ernest Hall: The Yorkshire businessman who created a 'utopia' in a former mill

The subsequent decline in the textile industry forced closure in 1982 after which the complex was bought for redevelopment by a consortium involving Hall, then a successful textile and property businessman; his son, Jeremy and their business partners Jonathan Silver and Maurice Miller. Silver went on to redevelop Salts Mills in Saltaire.

The first tenant as the site began to take shape was a car repair workshop. Over the next decade, some 200 organisations took space, including HM Customs and Excise and the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust.

Additionally there were two theatre companies and 20 resident artists including the sculptor Sir Anthony Caro, working in spaces paid for in part by the businesses on the site.

The site remains home to dozens of businesses, restaurants and cafes, as well as a theatre and six art galleries. It is considered a foremost example of urban regeneration.

The arts side of the complex was close to Hall’s heart. An accomplished classical pianist, composer and supporter of the arts, he recorded three Bartok piano concertos with the Leeds Sinfonia, as well as the complete piano works of Frédéric Chopin while in the 70s.

His start in life could not have been more different. He was born in Bolton in 1930 to mill workers Ernest and Mary Hall.

His mother had been one of 13 children, all of whom worked in the mills that pockmarked the skyline and his father was unemployed for a good portion of the 1930s.

Ernest won a scholarship to Bolton Grammar, where he developed his lifelong passion for piano. He always said it was hearing Sibelius’s Valse triste for the first time that convinced him he could accomplish almost anything – and at age 19 he was performing Chopin’s Étude Opus 10, No 12.

He went on to the Royal Manchester College of Music and won the Royal Patron’s Fund Prize for Composition in 1951.

But not seeing a profitable way forward with classical music he took a job at Mountain Mills in Queensbury, between Bradford and Halifax.

By 1961 he had bought the mill and began turning out cloth by the yard for the fashion market that was putting Britain, briefly, at the centre of the tailoring world. Before the decade was out Mountain had combined with Pudsey’s Leigh Mills to become the Mountleigh Group.

As cheaper foreign imports took hold in the fashion industry Mountleigh moved into property, completing a deal to acquire 800 houses leased to the US Air Force in Lakenheath, Suffolk. But Hall eventually sold his share in the company to invest in Dean Clough.

Mountleigh went on without him for a decade – at one point tabling an audacious £2bn bid for the owner of the Habitat and Mothercare retail chains – before collapsing controversially in the early 1990s.

Hall, meanwhile, had ploughed £20m into Dean Clough, which he described as a “practical utopia” in which commerce, culture and education were combined imaginatively and fruitfully.

He was knighted in 1993 for his services to the arts and served as chair of Yorkshire Arts and chair of Northern Ballet, also sitting on the Arts Council. He was made a Freeman of Calderdale and collected 12 honorary doctorates.

He retired from Dean Clough in 2017 and moved to Lanzarote where he built a concert venue next to his home. He also wrote an autobiography called How to be a Failure and Succeed. Three years ago he returned to the UK to live with his youngest son, Leopold, and his wife, Sarah.

Sir Ernest’s first marriage, in 1951, was to June Annable, a fellow music student. They had two sons and two daughters; the elder son Jeremy followed his father both as a musician and as managing director of Dean Clough. In 1980 he married Sarah Wellby, with whom he had a son. The cookery writer Prue Leith was also a former partner.

Sir Ernest Hall, who died peacefully in his sleep on Saturday (Aug 3), survived by his wife Sarah, his five children Virginia, Vivian, Jeremy, Tom, Leopold, and his 14 grandchildren.

His eldest son, Jeremy, Dean Clough’s Managing Director, said: “My father was a remarkable, memorable, enigmatic, and charismatic human being.

“He had an energy and zest for life which was irrepressible.

“He was still planning for what he was yet to achieve, his ambitions and aspirations undiminished by his growing years.

“We shared a love of work, music, and family. He was a veritable force of nature and will be sorely missed by his family and all who had the pleasure of knowing him.”

His eldest daughter, Virginia Lloyd, DL and former High Sheriff of West Yorkshire, added: “My father was an inspirational man who leaves behind a rich and diverse legacy.

“I am incredibly proud to have been able to call him my father, and I will miss him enormously.”

Actor Barrie Rutter, OBE, founder of Northern Broadsides, also paid tribute.

He said: “Farewell friend: inspirer, advocate, performer, and champion of all that is good for the human spirit.”