History

My great-great-great-grandmother founded a thriving cotton business from her spinning wheel in the 1820’s. Her three sons, James, Adam and Samuel, transformed it into an Industrial Revolution powerhouse. By the 1850’s my great-great-grandfather, Samuel, built much of Flixton village for the mill workers and his own dream house, naming it after the fertile surrounding farmland, Wellacre. Loving the land so much, he determined one day he would own all the land that he could see. Eventually, he succeeded.

Two World Wars, the Great Depression, 90% tax rates and an eminent domain seizure at pennies on the pound ended that dream, as Manchester expanded and a 30,000-unit housing project was built on the site. The biggest cause of the erosion of wealth, however, was the mismanagement by ensuing generations, some ending up on the brink of bankruptcy.

Despite this, and the financial struggles of my own parents, when I graduated college, I received a tiny piece of seed corn passed down from those long dead ancestors - a small, but surprising inheritance. This gave me my first lessons in the importance of investing and eventually enabled me to put a down payment on my first house and to start my first business. These things transformed my life, allowing me to take risks and seize opportunities, facilitating much of the abundance and freedom we achieved eventually.

I believe in the importance of seed corn for everybody. Without it, my life would have been very different. As I grew older and had a family, I felt called to honor the example of these instrumental ancestors and to help others do the same. For me, Wellacre symbolizes how wealth, when well-managed, produces an abundant harvest that can transform lives and be passed down to transform those of future generations and society at large.