The area between Littleborough and Rochdale called Clegg is where Clegg Hall stands and it seems like a possible origin for the family name. Our branch of Cleggs certainly seem to have come from that direction. They were present in numbers in Sowerby in the 18th century and probably well before that. Stone delving is a natural diversification from the farming which they would have been doing before the industrial revolution. They subsequently made good in the booming textile industry but we'll come on to that.
James Clegg was a stone delver and moved to Mount Tabor across the valley from Sowerby where he was born. His father came from Sowerby and his mother was from Triangle in the valley below.
James married Sarah Rothera whose father I think, owned or had the lease on a quarry...although he seemed to be a weaver by trade.
James and Sarah Clegg had just one son, George, who must have been a bright lad and took a job as an accounts clerk at John Murgatroyd's woolen mill nearby, eventually becoming the bookkeeper. By borrowing money from Murgatroyd and others, he and his future father-in-law and fellow employee, Abraham Hollingrake, left to set up their own business, Hollingrake and Clegg. They leased mills, first in Wainstalls, then in Lower Wade Street in Halifax, before building their own mill complex on Pellon Lane in Halifax.
The business thrived for three or four generations until the latter half of the 20th century. It was then that my father-in-law had the unenviable task of managing the company through the decline of the woolen industry. He once reflected on the fact that after the mill closed he needed work and got a job with the water board at a newly built reservior building walls and working with stone: From delver to delver!