John Lees of Turf Lane, Royton, Lancashire[1] was an inventor who made a substantial improvement to machinery for carding cotton.
He improved the carding machine in 1772 by adding a feeder to it. On 25 June 1785, he proved this in the course of the trial concerning the validity of Richard Arkwright's second patent (dated 1775) for his cotton-spinning water frame.
John Lees was the father of James Lees. He was one of the carding mill owners sued by Arkwright in 1781, having built a cotton mill at Fowleach at Greenacres Moor, in Oldham. He began by working a horsemill-powered cotton mill in 1776-8 but "raised himself from the extremest drudgery of the spinning room to the position of one of the most opulent inhabitants" of Oldham, with a mill and stock insured for over £2000 in 1795.