Richard Haworth and Co. was established by Richard Haworth in 1854 as a cotton spinning and manufacturing firm in Cannon Street, Manchester, and Tatton Mill in Salford. Today the company is part of the Ruia Group which comprises a number of companies that import, supply and distribute textiles and hosiery to retailers and hospitality organisations. Richard Haworth Ltd. supplies a range of linens to the hospitality sector.

Richard Haworth and Co was founded in c.1854. Richard Haworth, with Frederick Copley Hulton and James Craven, worked in partnership to begin trading as yarn and cloth commission agents in Cannon Street, Manchester. The partners then established a small weaving shed in Mount Street until, following a growth in demand, they expanded into spinning and leased a large mill at Broughton Bridge.

The company continued to prosper and expand, and by 1872 was working out of three large mills and weaving sheds; Egyptian Mill (1864), Tatton Mill (1870) and Ordsall Mill (1872). By 1900 the mills covered 13 acres and 150,000 spindles produced thread for 4,000 looms. The annual output for cloth reached 30,000,000 yards and the workforce reached 4000.

Richard Haworth died in 1883, and his two partners in 1886. Richard Haworth's sons, G and J Haworth, took control of the company. The company continued to thrive, converting to a limited liability company and, at its peak being considered first class example of how cotton mills should be operated, with the Manchester Guardian writing in 1883:^{[citation needed]}

The mills of the firm, erected in various quarters of the city, are celebrated, not alone for their extent, but for the remarkable excellence of their arrangements and for the perfection of their machinery. Extraordinary provision is made in them for the physical comfort, the mental improvement, and the social recreation of the workpeople, in whom Mr. Haworth always evinced the warmest personal interest.

In 1951 Richard Haworth and Co Ltd was advertised for sale. It had grown from a cotton spinning a weaving firm to one offering a whole range of cotton and rayon fabrics under the trademark 'Spero'. By this time the company were working out of a large head office in Manchester and the Ordsall and Tatton mills and weaving sheds, a third location having been destroyed during the Manchester Blitz in 1940.

According to records held at Companies Office Manchester, Richard Haworth Ltd was purchased by Vantona textiles in 1953, and the Title 'Richard Haworth' subsequently purchased by the Ruia Group. The company, Richard Haworth, continues to manufacture and distribute textiles out of Kearsley Mill in Greater Manchester.

Born in March 1820, Richard was the youngest of eight children of George Haworth and his wife. He attended school until, at the age of seven, his father died and by the age of thirteen he secured a full-time job at Messrs Openshaw & Co of Bury, spinners and fustian manufacturers. One day whilst brushing a loom he injured his hand badly when it became caught in the machinery. To some extent this changed the course of his life. He later took a job as a weft lad and utilised his spare hours by attending a night school.