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John Mercer (1791-1866) was an English dye and fabric chemist and fabric printer. He developed a process for treating cotton, mercerization, that improves many of its qualities for use in fabrics.

John Mercer, nicknamed "Awkward John", was born in Great Harwood in 1791 and was one of the country's great textile chemists, the inventor of a process which was named after him - 'mercerisation'. Mercer also produced some of the earliest known coloured photographs. He had actually worked as a bobbin winder from age 9 after both of his parents died in his early childhood. Mercerisation is a process, which Mercer developed between 1844 and 1850, whereby cotton fabric is given a silk lustre finish by treating it with caustic soda. By Mercer's process, when cotton cloth is immersed in caustic soda, then washed, the fibre becomes more silk-like and produces a far superior dyed finish. This followed his invention of 1844 for a formula for red ink for which he received £10,000.

Despite the evident efficacy of his process, mercerisation was not implemented in his lifetime, probably due to several unfortunate aspects of the procedure - it was expensive and it tended to shrink the cotton cloth. It was only later when another inventor, Horace Lowe, improved the technique sufficiently by keeping the material under tension whilst being mercerised, and applied a more thorough washing process to remove the caustic soda, that it became a viable textile process.

Mercer was, by all accounts, a generous man who donated much to the community, including Mercer Hall Leisure Centre in Queen Street, Great Harwood and the park in Clayton-le-Moors. The memorial clock in Towngate, Great Harwood commemorates his life and work.