Borradaile’s father, a tanner and the owner of a cloth factory at Wigton, was appointed to a position in the customs office at Ravenglass, Cumberland, following the collapse of his business ‘towards the close of his life’. His family had strong maritime connections and two of his sons predeceased him whilst serving on merchant ships of the East India Company. By the mid-1770s his eldest son William (1750-1831) was trading as a hatter from 31 Cannon Street, London, where he was joined by Borradaile, the youngest of the family, and their mother after she was widowed in 1783. The brothers established a thriving partnership, running a hat manufactory and furrier’s business at 34 Fenchurch Street, in addition to the Lanark Twist Mills, Lanarkshire. Their mother died at Gracechurch Street, 14 Jan. 1794, leaving £65 and her estate to Borradaile. Both brothers signed the London merchants’ loyal declaration of 1795. Diversifying into marine insurance and shipping, they became ‘owners of the heaviest ships in the East India Company’, operating the Cumberland, on which Borradaile’s third surviving son and namesake worked as a midshipman before his death in China in 1811, in addition to the ‘Streatham, Inglis and three other East Indiamen, which were to some extent armed’.
At the 1826 general election Borradaile received an invitation from the independent interest at Newcastle-under-Lyme to stand in opposition to the sitting Members. He had ‘long been serviceable to the borough by taking its staple produce’ of hats, and in the previous year had purchased some of the Newcastle properties auctioned by Lord Stafford as part of his disengagement from local politics. He initially declined, but finding himself ‘uncommonly popular’ sent down his youngest son George (1802-81), who explained that his father was ‘prevented from leaving town on account of an inflammation of the knee’, that he was ‘decidedly opposed’ to Catholic emancipation, and desired ‘such an alteration in the corn laws as shall enable the working classes of this country to eat as cheap bread as those of any other’. On the eve of the poll one of the candidates unexpectedly withdrew, leaving Borradaile to be returned unopposed in absentia. On visiting the constituency four days later, 13 June 1826, he reiterated his hostility to Catholic relief and the corn laws and promised to ‘use his best endeavours to aid the hat trade’.
At the 1830 general election Borradaile, who remained ‘very popular’, offered again, resting on his past conduct and explaining that he was ‘not attached to any party in Parliament, but had acted according to his best judgement and the dictates of his conscience’. After a three-day poll he was returned in first place and ‘renewed his pledges to do all in his power to promote the prosperity of the country and in particular the borough’.
Borradaile died in May 1835 at Balham, Surrey, where he lived with his youngest daughter Sophia (1796-1871). By his will, dated 5 Feb. 1834 and proved under £80,000, he left his seven surviving children legacies of between £1,000 and £3,000 each, with an additional £5,000 to his son Frederick (1798-1876), a prebendary of Lincoln, which were charged on properties in Bedfordshire, and at Tooting, Surrey, and Worthing, Sussex. Sophia retained use of the Balham properties during her lifetime. The trust was administered by his sons and executors William and George, to whom the bulk of his estate eventually passed.