John Rylands John Rylands John Rylands (7 February 1801 – 11 December 1888) was an English entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was the owner of the largest textile manufacturing concern in the United Kingdom, and Manchester's first multi-millionaire. After having learned to weave, Rylands became a small-scale manufacturer of hand-looms, while also working in the draper's shop which his father had opened in St Helens. He displayed a "precocious shrewdness" for retailing, and in partnership with his two elder brothers expanded into the wholesale trade. So successful were they that, in 1819, Rylands' father merged his retail business with theirs, creating the firm
Patrick Rylands Patrick Rylands Patrick Rylands (Hull,1943) is an English designer. After graduating in ceramics from the Royal College of Art in London in 1966 began to work as a freelancer with a number of iconic toy companies (Creative Playthings, Naef, Ambi Toys). In 1970 he became the youngest designer to be awarded the prestigious Prince Philip Designers Prize for a group of ABS plastic toys designed for the British company Trendon Toys (former producer of Sasha dolls). From 1976 up until 2002 he worked as in-house designer for the historic Dutch toy company, Ambi Toys. In 1999 he was awarded the