known, and feelingly appreciated by you all. He has been known to you in public and private. He has been associated with you in the varied circumstances and connexions of human life. You have had for many years ample and unbounded experience of his benevolence and integrity. He has lived among you, and you have had converse together. Your presence in this place is a testimony of your reverence and respect. Your sympathy for his afflicted friends is a proof that your own hearts are also stricken. And the garments of mourning, which almost universally you wear, show that you honoured and loved him when living, and that you now deplore and lament him when dead.

At the south side of the east window, in St Andrew's Church, a marble tablet, surmounted by a bust, bears the following inscription :

SACRED

to

The Memory

of

WILLIAM GRANT OF SPRINGSIDE, ESQUIRE,

THE FOUNDER OF THIS CHURCH.

Born at Elchies, Morayshire, Scotland, on 15th of April 1769.
Died at Springside on 28th February 1842.
Distinguished by vigour of understanding,

Spotless integrity of character, and true benevolence of heart.
He lived a benefactor to his species,
And died universally lamented.

A rhymed tribute to Mr Grant's memory, by a member of the warehouse staff in Manchester, was published after his death. It is surmounted by a silhouette of Mr Grant, and followed by the accompanying note :

This generous, good, and affectionate master died on the 28th day of February, about a quarter past seven o'clock A.M., 1842, aged 73 years, and was interred on the 5th of March, attended by a numerous procession of gentlemen from Manchester, Liverpool, and the neighbouring country. In passing their family monument, the funeral was joined by many hundreds of their workpeople and friends. The

country and the village of Ramsbottom appeared one general scene of mourning from his hall to the church, where he was laid in a vault, inside his own temple, which he had built and dedicated to the Lord. See the Rev. A. MacLean's Funeral Sermon.

EDWARD KAY.

A framed copy still hangs in the vestry, at the east end of St Andrew's Church (now Episcopal), not many feet from where he was laid to rest. How this Presbyterian church became an Episcopal place of worship will be hereafter fully explained.

Here we may appropriately insert in extenso the letter of Mr William Grant, written in answer to one by a relative of the Rev. Sir W. H. Clerke, who was rector of Bury from 1778 to 1818, and whose wife was the Lady Clerke who, in 1798, on a memorable occasion, presented colours to the Bury Loyal Volunteers. In this letter, for the first time, we have the venerable Cheeryble's own account of the advent of the Grants to the valley of the Irwell, and their subsequent remarkable career. SPRINGSIDE, May 17, 1839.

DEAR SIR, -Allow me to acknowledge the receipt of your esteemed favour of the 10th. My father was a dealer in cattle, and lost his property in the year 1783. He got a letter of introduction to Mr Arkwright (the late Sir Richard), and came by the way of Skipton to Manchester, accompanied by me. As we passed along the old road, we stopped for a short time on the Park estate to view the valley. My father exclaimed, "What a beautiful valley! May God Almighty bless it! It reminds me of Speyside, but the Irwell is not so large as the river Spey.

I recollect Messrs Peel & Yates were then laying the foundation of their print works at Ramsbottom. We went forward to Manchester and called upon Mr Arkwright; but he had so many applications at the time that he could not employ him. There were then only Arkwright's mill, on a small scale, and Thacary's mill in Manchester. There was a mill on the Irwell belonging to Mr Douglas, two belonging to Messrs Peel & Yates, the one at Radcliffe Bridge, the other at Hinds; and these were the only mills then in Lancashire. My father then applied to a Mr Dinwiddie, a Scotch gentleman, who knew him in his prosperity, and who was a printer and manufacturer at Hampson Mill, near Bury. He agreed to give my father employment, and placed my brother James and me in situations, where we had an opportunity of acquiring a knowledge both of manufacturing and printing; and offered me a partnership when I had completed my apprenticeship. I declined his offer, and commenced business for myself on a small scale, assisted by my brothers John, Daniel, and Charles, and removed to Bury,1 where I was very successful; and in the course of a few years [in 1800 ?] I removed to Manchester and commenced printing in partnership with my brothers. My brother Daniel commenced travelling through the north of England and almost to every market town in Scotland. In 1806 we purchased the print works belonging to Sir Robert Peel, etc., situated at Ramsbottom. In 1812 we purchased Nuttal factory. In consequence of the death of Mr Alsop, the workpeople had been long short of employment, and were very destitute. We ordered the manager to get new machinery, of the first-rate construction, and greatly extended the building; and before we began to spin or manufacture, we clothed the whole of the hands at our own expense; prepared an entertainment for them, and observed that the interests of masters and servants are bound up together; that there are reciprocal duties to perform, that no general or admiral could be brave unless he was supported by his men; that we knew how to reward merit, and would give constant employment and liberal wages to all our faithful servants; and I am happy to say that they, as well as those at our printing establishment, with very few exceptions, have conducted themselves with great propriety.

In 1818 we purchased Springside, and in 1827 we purchased the Park estate, and erected a monument to commemorate my father's first visit to this valley, and on the very spot where he and I stood admiring the beautiful scenery below. There is a fine view from the top of the tower in a clear day, and the Welsh mountains can be descried in the distance.

1 While at Bury, old Mr Grant used on special occasions to regale the lieges near the shop with music from a hand-organ, which must have been a costly instrument in its time. This ancient organ since Springside sale has been in the possession of Mrs Bentley of Lodge View, Ramsbottom.

We attribute much of our prosperity, under divine Providence, to the good example and good counsel of our worthy parents. They expressed a wish that I would build a Sunday school, and erect a church to worship God in, according to the ritual of the Church of Scotland, as a tribute of gratitude to Him for His great kindness to the family. I cheerfully complied with their request, and both have been finished years ago. We have done business, on a large scale, at all the places you have named, exporting our goods and receiving the productions of those countries in return; but trade for some years has been very unproductive-profits being so small, and the risk great, that we have been very much inclined to retire on the moderate fortune we have acquired with great industry, were it not to give employment to our work-people; but we feel unwilling to throw our servants out of employment at a time when many are only being worked three days in the week.

A

Widely and sincerely William's death was mourned ; but to Daniel it was a supreme bereavement. The irrepressible sprightliness indeed still scintillated about the lithe and agile form, but the very genuineness of the man, the moral transparency the εἰλικρίνεια, as the Greeks called it made it impossible altogether to conceal the consciousness of how much had gone from him. mellowing sense of solitude, with its deep "deciphering oracle within,"1 henceforth went with him through the busy haunts of men. And as the larks spring from the valley up through the mountain shadow to greet the coming day, so now his deepest thoughts sought yonderside the "bourne," until the mortal "mure" was rent, and he pursued them to the realm of day. The ruptured fellowship was then restored. Thirteen years after William's death, Daniel himself the second of the immortal "Cheerybles"-passed away.

On the south wall of the church, overlooking the passage in front of the communion table, another tablet bears these words :

This monument is erected

To the Memory of

DANIEL GRANT, ESQUIRE,

of Manchester,

Who died 12th March 1855. Aged 75 years.

READER,

If you are in poverty, grieve for the loss of so good a friend;

If born to wealth and influence,

Think of the importance of such a trust; and earn in like manner,
By a life of charitable exertion,

The respect and love of all who know you,
The prayers and blessings of the poor.

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ?

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee ; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.

Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.

Isaiah, 58 Chap.; 7, 8, and 9 verses.

And, less than two months after the death of Daniel, the last of the brothers, John, went to his rest.

From the sermon on John xiv. 1, 2, preached by Dr MacLean on "the morning of Sabbath, May 13, 1855, on the occasion of the death of John Grant, Esq., of Nuttall Hall," we extract the following :

I have chosen this passage of sacred Scripture as my text on this occasion, because it is as far as my memory serves-among the latest, if not the very last passage, which it was my privilege to repeat to the venerable Christian whose death we now deplore. The doctrines I have

G