SHEFFIELD'S LIFE STORIES.

1861. Joseph Hunter.-Dr. Joseph Hunter, Sheffield's great historian, passed away
immediately prior to the opening of the period covered by the present book. He
was born on February 6th, 1782, and died on May 9th, 1861, at Terrington Square,
London, being buried four days later in Ecclesall Churchyard. In a monograph of
the great historian, Mr. Charles Drury tells us that the plate on the coffin
bore the following simple words: "Joseph Hunter Esq. F.S.A., a keeper of the
public records, died May 9, 1861, aged 78 years." The esteem in which deceased
was held was very eloquently shown at the funeral, and round the graveside a
company as select as Sheffield could then produce gathered in respect. Dr.
Hunter was born in a house situate on the north side of New Church Street, near
the Norfolk Street end, which was pulled down, according to Dr. Julian Hunter,
when Surrey Street was cut through, and the historian himself wrote that his
first known male ancestor certainly lived at Hatfield House when Charles the
First was King. Precocious in his youth, it is reported that Dr. Hunter in his
schooldays had a great love for the antiquities of the district in which he
lived, and that he filled many notebooks then with copies of monumental
inscriptions, collections of church notes, coats of arms, and so on.  His
natural successors in such things in these days must regret their lack of the
same fruitful ready-to-hand harvest, and at the same time be proud in the
recollection that this enthusiast of a hundred years ago found time and a
sufficient enthusiasm to gather together for future ages the story which lay
around him in page and stone. Hunter's first Hallamshire was published in 1819.
The author held many honours in London, where he was a sub-commissioner of the
public records. He was for many years vice-president of the Society of
Antiquarians, and he has been described as "in person and manners a gentleman of
the old school--grave, accurate, and courteous in conversation; abounding in
topographical and genealogical knowledge of both a general and minute character
which he was ever willing to communicate to others."  The sale of his library in
the year of his death extended over four days and produced £1,105, whilst his
manuscript collections were purchased by the British Museum, consisting of
genealogical, topographical, philological and literary collections in Hunter's
own handwriting. Fifty years after the first Hallamshire came out a second
edition was produced, edited by the late Dr. Gatty, who spent much time and
labour in incorporating in the original work a great deal of additional matter
which had been collected by Hunter, as well as notes and additions from his own
pen. Dr. Gatty has explained how this enlarged edition came into existence. As
will be found set out in the life of Dr. Gatty elsewhere, after Hunter's death
four local gentlemen purchased his own copy of his Hallamshire, which contained
the following: "This large paper copy I have had bound for the purpose of
receiving any corrections or additional information that may present themselves.
Joseph Hunter. Bath, August 20, 1826."

1864. William Flockton, who died in 1864 at Glossop Road, was son of a Sheffield
builder.   He became an architect, and the Wesley College and The Mount in
Glossop Road are memorials of his ability. It was to him that the distinction
fell of practically rebuilding Bakewell Church from its foundations, a task
including the delicate one of exhuming and redepositing the remains of the
Rutland family, including those of Dorothy Vernon.  Mr. Flockton afterwards
published an account of that work.

1865. G. Calvert Holland.--Dr. George Calvert Holland was born in 1801 at
Pitsmoor, then an outlying hamlet, at a time when salmon was speared in the Don.
He was apprenticed to a perruquier, and here he learned his first of rude
surgery. When 16 he was stimulated to write verses, and became a regular
contributor to the local weekly papers.  He gradually broadened in his outlook,
ransacked libraries for histories, books of science and travel, and, especially,
the classics. Gradually, amid stupendous difficulties, he secured a knowledge of
French, Italian, and Latin, and read Virgil and Petrarch in the original. He
had, long before, fretted over following his uncle's trade as perruquier, and at
last a relation, a surgeon, sent him to Edinburgh. For three years he toiled
there, and took his degree; thence he went to Paris, and patiently studied
anatomy, physiology, and pathology.  Guizot examined him for his degree of
Bachelor of Arts, and he was full of honours when he became M.A. of Edinburgh,
subsequently commencing practice in Manchester, and later in Sheffield, where in
a few years his income rose to £1,400. When railway speculation began in 1843 he
was chairman of several companies and director of others, until the crash came,
and he was served with a writ for £54,000.  He was then living at Wadsley Hall,
a country gentleman, was driven into bankruptcy, and thenceforward lived in a
small cottage in Worksop.  Even then he wrote his "Philosophy of Animated
Nature," though in poverty and distress.  His buoyant spirit kept him going, but
in 1851, after trying his fortunes in London, he found opinion against him
because he had practised homeopathy, at that time heresy in medicine. He was a
man of the most amiable, learned and gifted character. He died in March, 1865. 
As his biographer said, "it is sad to think that he has done so little for his
age and that his age has done so little for him."  He had held the position of
chairman of the Hunterian and Physical Research Societies in Edinburgh, was
Bachelor of Letters of the University of Paris, and author of many standard
works.  He was a man of the most courtly kindliness, and his fine philosophic
spirit remained with him to the end, despite his reverses.

David Davy.-Mr. David Davy, founder of the great business which bears his name,
who died in 1865, was quite a Sheffield-made man.  In his career was a large
spice of romance. After completing his apprenticeship he set up a lathe in his
mother's house in Glossop Road, and spent all his leisure time on it. The result
was that he built up a considerable connexion, though for years working in
secrecy. Then the orders became too heavy, and he started for himself with steam
power.  Later he took his brothers in as partners, and "Davy Bros." was
established, with 600 workmen engaged there at the time of the founder's death.

1866. Godfrey Sykes.--Tardy recognition of the art of Godfrey Sykes came in
June, 1866, when an exhibition of his pictures and work was held in the South
Kensington School of Art. He was then spoken of as the most distinguished of all
students in all schools of design, one who had passed through the treasure
houses of Italy, assimilating all the beauties of Michael Angelo and Raphael,
and to whom an ever abiding monument remained in his work in the Horticultural
Gardens in London.  The monument to his memory in Weston Park was unveiled on
June 12th, 1875, bearing the following inscription:  "Godfrey Sykes, born at
Malton, 1824, pupil and master at the Sheffield School of Art, called to London
in 1859 to superintend his decoration of the South Kensington Museum, and died
there in 1866." A great deal of his best work is to be found in the Ceramic
Gallery of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington; magnificent work
by the master and his well-known pupils, James Gamble, Reuben Townroe, and Hugh
Stannus.

1869. Thomas Burdett Turton.--Great in his generation, Mr. Thomas Burdett Turton
died at his residence, West Lodge, Sheffield, in December, 1869, when only 63
years old, and his death so closely followed that of Mr. Francis Hoole and Mr.
Samuel Butcher that within the space of one short month three past mayors of the
town had died.  Mr. Turton was associated with the firm of Thomas Turton & Sons,
being the eldest son of Mr. Thomas Turton, who was then in partnership with a
Mr. Gaunt, and the full title was first adopted when the works were in Furnace
Hill, the partners being Mr. T. B. Turton, Mr. Joseph Turton, Mr. Wm. Turton,
and Mr. Matthews, son-in-law of Mr. T. B. Turton.  From Furnace Hill the removal
of the works took place to Sheaf Works, premises which had been greatly extended
by Mr. Greaves at a cost of £60,000, and with such increased facilities that the
firm's business extended enormously. The new spring works were soon found
necessary, and were completed in 1854.  But there came a pronounced mortality in
the partnership, so that within the next four years, when Mr. T. B. Turton
retired, there were alone remaining Mr. F. T. Mappin and Mr. Matthews. Deceased
spent much of his life in the service of his town, making a very important
speech when incorporation came about, being the first presiding alderman of S.
Philip's, Master Cutler in 1846, and four years later Mayor.

1870. William Butcher.--The position of Sheffield's Town Collector has been held
by various gentlemen of high position in the town. Mr. William Butcher, who died
in 1870 at his home, Five Oaks, was a case in point. He was a member of the firm
of W. & S. Butcher, two brothers, and from the beginning of their enterprise
they built up a big business, being extremely successful in trade with the
United States.  Mr. Samuel Butcher died when 78 years old, precisely the same
age as his brother in a later year. Mr. William Butcher showed a fine public
spirit even before the town was incorporated, and held the office of Master
Cutler in 1845.  In the following year he was appointed Town Trustee, and Town
Collector a year later, keeping the position until his death. He was one of the
earliest to take an interest in the formation of the Sheffield Botanical
Gardens, and one of the promoters and for a long time director of the Manchester
and Sheffield Railway.  He left two daughters, both marrying into well-known
Sheffield families, the elder becoming the wife of Mr. J. E. (afterwards
Colonel) Cutler, and the younger of Dr. A. Hall. In his business relations with
his workpeople deceased was generosity itself, and by them, as by the town as a
whole, his death was deeply deplored.

Isaac Ironside.--Mr. Isaac Ironside died at his home, Carr Road, Walkley, in
1870. He was born at Masborough in 1808, and early in life went into Longden &
Walker's Phoenix Foundry. Better still, he stuck to his education, being
constant in his attendances at Eadon's night school until he was reputed the
finest mathematician in the town.   He secured one of the best prizes offered by
the Edinburgh Review for solving problems.  All this took him away from the
foundry to accountancy with his father; he became a great Radical and social
reformer, and for a time was on the staff of the Sheffield Free Press. He became
mixed up in Chartism without sustaining any harm by doing so, and also dabbled
in commercial life.  He was appointed director of the New Gas Company in 1852,
when that company commenced to dig up the streets, lay the pipes, and do other
work, only to have its proceedings declared illegal.  Thus the company was
driven to Parliament for powers which were necessary. There was much money made
in those rather exciting times of the Gas Company's shares, but Isaac Ironside
refused to help himself to any of it.  It was at one time quite probable that he
would be asked to accept the mayoralty of the town.

Samuel Bailey.--Mr. Samuel Bailey, who died in 1870, was a noted writer on
metaphysical and ethical subjects, though at first he was interested in local
trade, being associated with the firm of Eadon, Bailey & Co.  He had much to do
with the formation of the Literary and Philosophical Society in Sheffield, and
at the first meeting, taking place at the Cutlers' Hall on December 12th, 1822,
Mr. T. Asline Ward moved and Mr. S. Bailey seconded the proposal that the
society should be formed. Further than that, Mr. Bailey took a deep interest in
banking. Prior to 1831 all the local banks were in private hands, Parker &
Shore, Walkers & Stanley, and Rimington & Co., but under the new Act of 1828 the
leading gentry began taking interest in the subject, and on July 1st, 1831, the
Sheffield Banking Company was formed, a joint stock bank under the new Act. Mr.
Bailey was chairman, other directors being Jonathan Marshall, Thomas Watson,
Edward Smith, John Read, with James Drabble manager; and John Rodgers was also
very active in the promotion of the new undertaking. Mr. Bailey had the
distinction of presiding over all the first 38 annual meetings of that bank. In
1863 his portrait was presented to him. When he sought election as Sheffield's
member in 1832, his address on the hustings containing the following sentence:
"Place I seek not; pension I would not have.  The utmost of my desires is to
make myself useful to you as your representative." He lived for many years at
Burngreave, then a typically rural district of Sheffield, but as the town
approached he retired to Norbury, with its magnificent landscape views out on
the farther side of the town, and there resided up to his death. A very
interesting paper was read before the members of the Literary and Philosophical
Society on May 3rd, 1887, by Mr. B. Bagshawe, on "Samuel Bailey, the Bentham of
Hallamshire." It was pointed out how singularly he was ignored in England, his
first biographical notice appearing in France, with a very meagre one in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica of those days. He was son of a Burngreave merchant, and
his father-in-law was head of the Free Writing School. The better part of the
youngster's education was secured at Fulneck Moravian School. He was one of the
first to carry the fame of Sheffield manufacturers out of this country, making
many journeys abroad, but there was no charm in business for him. He was
attracted by metaphysics, by the conduct of life and the welfare of the people,
both socially and politically, and his influence on the writings of Adam Smith
was very great.  To a large extent a recluse, he lived a full generation before
his time, and died leaving behind him £102,000 for the benefit of the town.

George Hounsfield.--Very pleasant, entirely away from the town, High Hazels was
at one time a charmingly situated and delightful residence for Sheffield's
commercial princes. One of these was Mr. George Hounsfield, who died there in
1870, when sixty-three years old. He was the only son of Mr. Bartholomew
Hounsfield, a merchant in the town; and the son married a daughter of Mr. Joshua
Scholefield of Birmingham.  Mr. Scholefield was a Sheffielder by birth, and one
of the first Members of Parliament for Birmingham under the Reform Act. In the
years 1849-50, Mr. Hounsfield was deeply engaged in railway matters at a time
when everything went wrong, when the Midland shares went down a full quarter on
the Stock Exchange, and when the stock of the Manchester and Sheffield Company
dropped to an even greater extent.  Mr. Hounsfield was on the Investigation
Committee which dealt with the position of both these Companies, the enquiry
extending over many months, the upshot being that Mr. T. R. Barker (Mr.
Hounsfield's brother-in-law) and Mr. C. F. Younge were appointed directors. In
1864, on the death of Mr. William Smith, Mr. Hounsfield took his place on the
Board of the Midland Railway, and when, in 1868, another very acute period came
in railway matters and the Midland was "caught," because of an immense amount of
capital which had been spent on unfinished works, Mr. Hounsfield stuck by his
colleagues, though the amount at issue was no less than five million pounds, and
it was only when the London and Bradford line was opened that prosperity really
returned to the Midland.  Then, smooth water having been reached, Mr. Hounsfield
resigned his position on the Board, being succeeded by Mr. F. T. Mappin.  For
several years, Mr. Hounsfield was chairman of the Sheffield Water Company, and a
very highly respected and honoured townsman.

1871. Sir Arnold Thomas Knight.--The life of Sir Arnold T. Knight had in it many
touches of romance. It was ended on January 15th, 1871, death taking place at
Malvern.  The Independent said of him, that he would be remembered through his
kindliness of heart and goodness.  It was the same newspaper which declared that
the mainsprings of Sir Arnold's life were healing of the body, educating the
mind, and cultivating the taste. He was the youngest son of Alexander Knight of
Lincolnshire, and was born in 1789.  From the very start it was obvious that the
youngster was destined to something approaching greatness.  He was educated in
Edinburgh, and, according to a carefully examined newspaper obituary notice in
the local papers of that date, became Doctor of Medicine in 1811, at the early
age of twenty-two. The reasons why the young, brilliant scholar came to
Sheffield in 1814 are not made clear to us, but very soon he so roused the town
that he became at the head of everything that was going for the betterment of
those cultivated arts which mean so very much in life.  He was a member of the
Roman Catholic faith, was a gentleman of very great medical skill, and of
benevolence and great courtesy, liberal in his views, and who co-operated with
all the most prominent residents for Sheffield's proper development. He early
became physician to the Infirmary, and it was through his efforts that the
movement came for the establishment of the Sheffield Dispensary.   In 1822, he
joined James Montgomery, Samuel Bailey, Edward Smith and the Rev. H. H. Piper,
in forming the Literary and Philosophical Society, and was its first President. 
In 1828, he became interested in the Mechanics' Institute, and in the same year
took a very definite interest in local politics, then becoming chairman for Mr.
John Parker in his elections, and for many years afterwards he was leader of the
Liberal party in Sheffield until he left the town, temporarily, for a long tour
abroad and especially to Rome. In 1841, he received the honour of Knighthood,
the first Sheffield townsman to be honoured in that manner, though Sir John
Brown actually was the first Sheffield-born recipient of a Knighthood. What has
already been set out above shows very clearly how thoroughly Sir Arnold had
deserved his title, and indicates to some extent the quality of his brain.  To
have taken his degree as M.D. at such a University as Edinburgh when twenty-two,
speaks for itself, but when one also remembers that, when thirty-three, he was
moving with the most important of Sheffield's townsmen in promotion of the
Literary and Philosophical Society, it is possible to realize what an early
life-flower his was, and what an influence it must have had on a rather trivial
town. After his second visit to Rome, Sir Arnold left Sheffield, then going to
reside in Liverpool, and it was when a soiree was being held in his honour, just
prior to his departure, that one of the fiercest hail-storms ever known in
Sheffield occurred, damage to the extent of thousands of pounds being done and
virtually all the windows of the Music Hall in Surrey Street being broken. In
later life, Sir Arnold removed again, this time to The Park, Nottingham, where,
a generation later, Mr. Mundella resided for a time, and eventually Sir Arnold
took up his residence in Little Malvern and there died.

Thomas Dunn.-Mr. Thomas Dunn, by universal consent of his contemporaries, was
one of the very notable Sheffielders in his day, active in many directions, and
at his funeral at Handsworth, on January 11th, 1871, the attendance was
indicative of the respect in which he was held. There were then present Mr.
Mundella, Ald. Robert Leader, Mr. Jessop, Mr. Samuel Roberts, junr., Mr. T. W.
Rodgers, Mr. J. Jeffcock, Mr. Mark Firth, Mr. Wilson Mappin, Mr. George
Wostenholm and Mr. S. Hibbart (a very well known resident in Handsworth and then
living at Lamb Hill, whose family fortunes were largely mixed up with Mr. Alfred
Allott's enterprises).  Those were the most notable witnesses of the interment,
but also there were present over nine hundred miners from the "Birley Vale," the
" Birley Planting," and the Carbrook Collieries. Mr. Dunn was born in 1801, the
only son of Mr. Thomas Dunn, a table knife manufacturer in Solly Street, and an
original partner in the old Sheffield Coal Company, with Messrs. Hounsfield,
Wilson and Jeffcock. His grandfather was a table knife maker in Grindlegate, who
worked and lived on the tributaries of the Don.  One day, finding there was to
be a confirmation service at the Parish Church, he went there with his son, only
to find that he was too late, the service being over.  However, on enquiry, he
learned that the Archbishop at the close of the service had gone to the Rainbow
Inn in Hartshead for refreshment.  In those days, confirmation services were
very rare, so the anxious father took his son with him to the inn, and there met
the prelate, explained the position, and in the tavern the boy was confirmed by
the Archbishop of York. The father was more than a mere cutler, he was a natural
philosopher and the first in Sheffield to apply steam power for the working of
the cutlers' grindstone. Mr. Dunn was Master Cutler in 1832, then being very
largely concerned in colliery work and, like other owners, was often in conflict
with his men on the question of wages.  On one occasion, the employer reproached
his men for seeking a fifty per cent, increase in wages, whereupon the spokesman
replied that he was wrong, they had only asked "for a rise of twenty per cent." 
He was very active in the interests of the growing town, a Whig of the modern
school, and in 1843, when his cousin, Mr. W. Jeffcock, became Sheffield's first
Mayor, Mr. Dunn was chosen as Alderman for the Park, and in the year following
became Mayor.  He was generally regarded as the most fluent of all Sheffield's
speakers, playing a notable part in Sheffield's politics. He was educated at the
Grammar School, and in the early years of his manhood, applied himself to the
business of a coal owner, his father being a partner in the Sheffield Coal
Company.  But he had inclinations in other ways, and his fine debating power and
mental activity took him into the highest circles of Sheffield society.  He
himself would have preferred going to the Bar, but he kept on in trade, and
followed it with unsparing assiduity. At six o'clock in the morning he was
visiting the pits, spending five or six hours in the workings, and then being in
his office till evening. He paid wages, did the most trivial work of a clerk,
and subordinated his undoubtedly brilliant gifts in an extraordinary manner to
his father's business.  The lease of the Sheffield pits eventually ran out, but
he and his partners continued to work those of Earl Manvers at Birley Vale.  Mr.
Dunn first resided in Upperthorpe, then the home of many of Sheffield's
gentlefolk.

Thomas Asline Ward.-That Mr. Thomas Asline Ward must be included even in the
smallest list of Sheffield's great townsmen is apparent enough.  He lived in an
age when really serious thought was more general than it is to-day, and in the
very many movements towards progress which came about during the span of his
life (1781-1871), he was generally in the forefront.  He died at Park House,
November 26th, 1871, when ninety years old, the Sheffield Independent opening
its ample obituary notice with the words: " It is an unwelcome duty which falls
to us to-day."  He grew up amid the stress and strain of the Napoleonic wars,
and, in common with others of his age and generation, took a vivid interest in
militarism, becoming Lieutenant in 1803, in the Sheffield Regiment of Volunteer
Infantry.  That was a movement of a similar sort to those which arose in the
States, when the ranks were filled by members of the best-known families, and of
which, in an entrancing novel, Mr. Booth Tarkington has written.  He became
Captain in 1807, the Corps being disbanded a year later.

In 1806 he was Master Cutler, and from that date to the first Parliamentary
Election for Sheffield, was one of the most prominent of all Sheffield's
townsmen.  So well-esteemed did he become that in 1812 he was chosen, with Mr.
Thomas Leader, to go as town's deputation to voice Sheffield's protest against
the renewal of the Charter of the East India Company. In 1817, he was Overseer
of the Poor in Sheffield; from 1819 to 1828, President of the Town Library.  In
1810, he was on the Committee for the " better watching and lighting" of
Sheffield's streets, and in 1818, on the original Committee of the Gas Company. 
He was elected a Town Trustee in 1815; and in 1828 became Town Regent, holding
the office until 1847, being then succeeded by Mr. William Butcher.

For six years he was Vice-President of the Literary and Philosophical Society,
becoming President in his turn, and about that time, for a period of some years,
was Editor of the Sheffield Independent, a space of time before Mr. Robert
Leader took charge.  It is a tradition in the Independent office, that though
Mr. Ward was a voluminous writer, his "copy " always arrived at the office on
small bits of paper, apparently just what lay handy to him, so that it became
very necessary for the unhappy apprentice who had struggled through the setting
of that article, night after night to trudge away up to Park House, there to
secure the much-needed corrections and then trudge back again.

His greatest fame arose through the part he played in securing the passing of
the Reform Bill of 1832, and certainly during the years 1815 to 1830, he was the
foremost of Sheffield's townsmen.  In the year last named, he founded the
Sheffield Political Union, and, with the passing of the Bill just referred to,
stood as one of Sheffield's first candidates, but failed.  He filled a very
large place in Sheffield's history last century, and his diary was made
excellent use of by a former colleague of mine on the Sheffield Daily Telegraph,
Mr. Alex. B. Bell (now in Leeds), who produced from it a book full of genuine
interest to the lover of olden days.


1872. John Fowler.--Weaknesses of Sheffield's newspapers in the 'seventies were
demonstrated when Mr. John Fowler passed away on August 19th, 1872, and on which
date neither of the two local newspapers contained any reference to his death. 
As a matter of fact, it was five days later that the Telegraph published an
obituary notice which it stated had been supplied. The funeral took place at
Ecclesall, and Dr. Gatty spoke of Mr. Fowler as patriarch and priest of his
parish of Wadsley, the family having been associated for 200 years with
Wincobank. At the time of Mr. Fowler's death it was an entirely rural village,
and from a house there still standing at the time of his death, and remarkable
for a very ancient oak near the gates, "John, son of John Fowler of Wincobank,"
was taken to be baptized at Ecclesall Church, June, 1784. That was the John
Fowler whose death in 1872 is here spoken of. He married Elizabeth Swan in the
year of Waterloo. He was never much associated with the material interests of
the district, but he had a thorough acquaintance with the value and cultivation
of land, and on such subjects he was always consulted. He was a member of the
local Volunteer force which was raised when invasion by Napoleon was threatened.
In that band of 200 he was lieutenant and quartermaster, a tall, alert figure,
and he took part in the famous false alarm.  He left sons of the same high
breed, his namesake with a world-wide fame, William Fowler, of Whittington Hall,
possessing the same high qualities; Frederick Fowler, extremely well known;
Robert Fowler, a highly respected solicitor in London; Charles Fowler, who at
that time was in Australia, and Herbert Fowler, who alone died prior to his
sire, possessed of a very promising reputation as civil engineer.

John Holland.--Mr. John Holland died in December, 1872, and when his life by Mr.
Hudson was published, the Athaeneum newspaper wrote in quite the stately tone:
"Mr. Holland was a hard-working literary man and worthy of much respect.  His
scientific attainments were considerable, and if he was not a poet, his
verses--of which there was an enormous number-were marked by taste, and he did
much to promote culture in Sheffield. But we cannot think that his biographer
was wise in devoting 550 pages, when a short sketch was all that was called
for." William Hudson's life of John Holland was published in September, 1874. 
Holland was what may be termed a humble-minded poet, and it was Montgomery, his
friend and patron, who averred that his poems would be twice as good if they
were twice as short.  However, if much of what he wrote will not live, it is a
fact that his "Rainbow" was generally ascribed to Campbell, and the fact that he
was for almost all his youth a solitary individual may have had something to do
with his lack of breadth.  He was essentially a poet of nature, and in very much
of his work there was fragrance and charm.  His paternal ancestor was Vicar of
Sheffield, his tombstone in the Parish Churchyard bearing date August, 1597. His
parents lived in Sheffield Park, then a sufficiently charming district to bear
some comparison with its namesake in Sussex.  His father was a great lover of
news and gardening, and by trade an optical instrument maker.  The gifted son
was born in 1794, and when quite a young boy, and unaided, managed to acquire a
knowledge of Latin grammar even whilst assisting in his father's garret
workshop. So far as his poetry went, he graduated through the Lady's Magazine,
whilst he was teaching in Red Hill School, "a man slight in build, always
wearing silk stockings and breeches, with a Puritanical fashion in hair."
Gradually his writings appeared in the columns of the Sheffield Mercury, and in
1817 his friendship with Montgomery began and quickly ripened, with affection on
both sides.  Bit by bit he drifted from literature into journalism, and when the
Iris passed from James Montgomery to Blackwell, John Holland became its editor.
He was not fitted for the post, and publicly expressed his pleasure that his
editorial duties had ceased before the coming of the daily newspapers. Still, it
was whilst he was editing the Iris that he received from that stormy soul,
Ebenezer Elliott, a letter which ran as follows: " Dear Sir,--Yet while there is
time, do now those deeds on which you may reflect in satisfaction in the last
hour, when subterfuges avail not and timid, selfish expediency is a convicted
felon; when in this moment, when the balance is trembling into decision for weal
or woe, whom shall England expect to do their duty if not men of religious
principles?'' For all his expressed and obvious distaste of journalism, Holland
went with Blackwell to Newcastle to edit the Courant there, but he came back to
Sheffield in 1883, and was elected curator of the Literary and Philosophical
Society, with which he was connected for 40 years, and participated in that
famous debate respecting the exclusion of Ebenezer Elliott as a member. His
"Tour of the Don," well known as it is, remains an abiding proof of his ability.

Joseph Gillot.--Mr. Joseph Gillott, the great steel pen maker of Birmingham, was
born in Sheffield in October, 1799, and died in 1872.  His parents were very
poor, and his early years were spent in forging and grinding penknife blades. He
moved to Birmingham when 21, during a period of trade depression in Sheffield. 
There he accumulated a great fortune through his industry, was a great lover of
plants and flowers, collected precious stones as a hobby--his collection after
death producing £4,000-and was renowned as a munificent patron of art,
possessing the finest collection of Turner's paintings in private hands in
England. Two interesting stories are told of him, one concerning the young
German painter Muller, who annoyed his patron by accepting commissions and then
selling the finished pictures to others.  That annoyed Mr. Gillott so much that
he thrust on the market, as a forced sale without reserve, all Muller's
paintings that he had, the result being that "Mullers" became a drug in the
market. Mr. Gillott befriended him again later, until the artist died in 1845 at
the early age of 33 years.  At the sale of Mr. Gillott's collection Muller's
painting of "The Chess Players" realized £3,950. The other story concerned
Turner.  It is claimed that Joseph Gillott, not John Ruskin, discovered Turner's
genius, and once he went unknown to the artist's dingy quarters in Queen Anne
Street, in town, and was met by Turner at the door and refused entrance with the
remark: "I have nothing here you can afford to buy." With a persistence which
one likes to regard as characteristic of the Sheffielder, Gillott kept Turner in
conversation until he at last secured entrance to the studio.  Still Turner
refused to put a price on any of his canvases, repeating his initial taunt until
he was startled by Gillott suddenly asking, "What will you take for the lot?"
indicating the whole of the canvases in the room. Turner's response was
sufficiently high to frighten most men, but Gillott took out his pocket book,
produced the amount in Bank of England notes, and the transaction was completed,
the two becoming firm friends. That is the newspaper story of the incident, but
Mr. Sydney J. Robinson is good enough to supply the real facts.  These were that
when the great painter opened the door of his studio to Mr. Gillott, Turner,
with the door half open, asked what his visitor wanted.  "I want to exchange
pictures with you," said Mr. Gillott. "What kind of pictures?" said Turner.
"These," said the visitor, thrusting his hand forward filled with Bank of
England notes of a high denomination, whereupon Turner invited his visitor
forward, and before that visit ended a big "deal" had been arranged between the
two and friendship followed.  When Mr. Gillott's estate was wound up his
paintings alone, sold in Birmingham, realized £180,000.

1873. Henry Wilkinson.--Mr. Henry Wilkinson, one of Sheffield's Town Collectors,
was 85 years old when he died in February, 1873. He was born at Norton Hammer,
which one hundred years ago was one of the principal forges in the town, and
began silver plating with Messrs. Settle, then in Norfolk Street, living in  one
of the large and roomy houses which stood on the site of the new music hall in
Barker's Pool.  Eventually Settle's business was transferred to him, and was
still being carried on there until the time of his death.  Also he had a
business association with Joseph Rodgers & Sons. At the incorporation of the
town he became first Mayor, and in later years built Endcliffe Hall, selling it
eventually to Sir John Brown, and after the sale went to Endcliffe Edge. He was
Town Trustee as well as Town Collector, and was generally known as Town Regent.

Rev. Canon Sale.--The death of the Rev. Canon Sale, Vicar of Sheffield, occurred
shortly after midnight on September 20th, 1873, and created a great sorrow in
the town over which his rule as Vicar had been wholly successful, helped by a
personality of the utmost charm.  Death had come so unexpectedly that an inquest
was deemed necessary, the verdict being death from natural causes.  Prior to his
appointment to Sheffield as Vicar, he was for over twenty years perpetual Curate
of Southgate in the Edmonton district of London; he was an accomplished scholar
and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. His appointment to Sheffield, following
shortly on the death of a vigorous and well-liked Vicar in Dr. Sutton, in 1851,
came at a critical time in the history of the town, which was a parish
exceedingly difficult to work. However, Dr. Sale threw himself with the utmost
vigour into the work, and quite early showed a broadmindedness which brought to
his aid the most responsible of the Nonconformist Ministers in the town. 
Sheffield very rapidly became aware of the new Vicar's worth. One result was
that when, in 1856, a town's testimonial was raised to enable him to proceed to
the degree of D.D. at his University, a sum of £116 was realized; no small
tribute in those far off days.  Very soon after his appointment, the Archbishop
of York made him Rural Dean of Sheffield, whilst as Vicar of the town he had in
his hands the presentation to S. George's Church, S. Philip's, S. Mary's, S.
Paul's, Christ Church, Attercliffe, S. James's, Ecclesall, and Heeley.   He
showed a marked enthusiasm in the Church Extension movement which produced five
new churches in the town, and towards which fund he gave a personal gift of
£500. He also showed great eagerness in the erection of new schools in the town
for week-day education, and it was very largely through his efforts that those
in Carver Street were built, with accommodation for five hundred children.  The
Church Institute came into being very largely through him, and before the Rev.
J. E. Blakeney went to S. Paul's, the Canon cleared off a debt of £1,200 which
encumbered the work there; also erected a schoolroom at his own cost for S.
Silas's, and there placed a Curate. Of the early vicars of the town, he surely
remains in memory as a great friend of the working classes. When he died, it was
written of Canon Sale, "that to the end his step was as light and as quick as in
youth: his figure and bearing untouched by years:  and  his smile  still showing
the sunshine of his mind."

Roger Brown..--Mr. Roger Brown, uncle of Sir John Brown, who was a famous man in
Sheffield when he was quite young, lived in an age when books were extremely
scarce and dear, but showed great zest in study and became a remarkably
well-read and well-informed man, and very fond of scientific research.  He began
his experiments on the steam engine fifty years prior to his death, and,
following that, devoted himself to improving the magnet, many of his
improvements in this direction being sent to the great silver mines of Mexico.
Through his study of electricity, he became justly famous in the district, and
his house was always crowded when he invited his friends to witness
demonstrations of his discoveries.  Hydrostatics, pneumatics and astronomy also
found places in his scheme of self culture, and his magnetic lightning conductor
came into very general use about that period.  He died in 1873.

1874. William Swift.--Mr. William Swift, one of Sheffield's early antiquarians,
was seventy-four years old when he died in December, 1874.  He came to Sheffield
from Chesterfield when eighteen years old, going to the office of Mr. J. Brown
the solicitor, but very soon he found a more congenial home in the Stamp Office,
where he remained to the end.  His investigations throughout South Yorkshire
covered his life-time, and he and Mr. John Holland placed the results before
Sheffield Societies repeatedly. He died at Ash Cottage, Staveley, when
fifty-five years of age, having been for twenty-seven years chief clerk in the
Stamp Office.  It was said that no one knew as much of the Hundred of Scarsdale
or of South Yorkshire as he. He revealed a marvellous industry as genealogical
and topographical collector, was fond of poring over old MSS., old registers,
and so on, and was the "Old  Mortality" of Sheffield.    He mastered  Latin and 
Norman French to enable him to deal with medieval documents, and was the oracle
to which all local questions were addressed, but he had not the gift of writing.
 Of him, Dr. Gatty wrote a very eloquent tribute at the time of his death in his
preface to the new edition of Hunter's Hallamshire.


John Spencer.-Mr. John Spencer died at Masbro' Cottage in 1874, and in his
eighty-four years of life had built up a useful record of town service. A file
maker who retained the old dress to the end, knee breeches, shoes and stockings,
and always speaking the broadest "Sheffield;" he was author of many quaint
sayings. His works were in Pea Croft, and his early enterprise had much to do
with his success. When the great Napoleonic wars ended, he found orders at a
standstill, and so, before 1820, ventured on a personal journey to France.  It
was a journey not unaccompanied by perils, but he found customers, and for half
a century afterwards was enthusiastic in regard to all schemes for increased
travelling facilities.  He had much to do with the formation of the Humber Steam
Ship Company, which on two days a week sent boats as far as Thorne, thence
transhipping the cargoes to Hull and London. When he was Master Cutler--the town
then having no Mayor--he did everything possible to secure a place for Sheffield
on the main line of the Midland, which was then being made.  However, the effort
failed so far as Sheffield was concerned, though to Mr. Spencer went much of the
credit for initiation of the Sheffield and Manchester (M. S. & L.) line.  That
came about through an agreement between Mr. Spencer, Mr. Edward Smith, Mr. T.
Asline Ward and Mr. Deakin, that if the Manchester manufacturers would join in,
such a line should be made.

Robert Younge.--Essentially a self-made man, Mr. Robert Younge died at his home
at Greystones in 1874, aged seventy-three.  His family went back two centuries
in Sheffield's life.  He was first engaged in business as a silver-plater with
his brother who lived at the top of Charles Street, but afterwards joined the
firm of Younge, Kitchen & Walker, other members of the family being associated
with Rimington & Younge's Bank, afterwards the Sheffield and Retford Bank.  He
had a great knowledge of chemistry which became of considerable value to him,
and he filled many high places in local life. He was a Juror on Sheffield plated
goods at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and a very far seeing man.  That was
shown by the way in which he speculated in land in and around the town, for he
owned some of the finest tracts in the suburbs-land sure to claim a greatly
enhanced value in years to come.   In later life, he was associated with a
flourishing wine and spirit business in the Haymarket, and also helped to found
the Literary and Philosophical Society.  In all things he was very charitable
and was a prominent supporter of the School of Art. Further than that, few men
took a deeper interest in the building of the new Workhouse of the Sheffield
Guardians.  Yet another side of his character may be revealed in the fact that
he owned one of the finest collections of engravings to be found in Yorkshire.

1875. Alfred Stevens.--The Times obituary notice of Mr. Alfred Stevens, appeared
on May 2nd, 1875, and with due acknowledgments was copied into the Sheffield
Telegraph, and the appreciation was a very handsome one of a truly great artist.
He was born at Blandford in 1817, and died at Haverstock Hill in 1875.  When he
was sixteen years old Stevens visited Italy, studying in Florence and Rome, and
in those famous cities found a splendid atmosphere.   In painting, sculpture and
architecture the young man surprised those around him by his brilliant
conceptions and his equally brilliant reproductions.  Thorwaldsen, who quickly
discovered Stevens' abundant genius, gave him many orders. In 1826, Stevens was
back in England, doing admirable decorative works, adding to his other
activities work in metal, and in this particular period he secured lasting fame
through the decorative scheme which he introduced into Dorchester House, Park
Lane, the commission for which was given to the young artist by the owner, Mr.
Holford. He was also associated with the famous Cockerill in many architectural
works in town, but his name very seldom appeared in exhibition catalogues.

It did not appear in the catalogue of the Great Exhibition of 1851, but he was
then doing extraordinary work in designing and in metal work. Certainly, said
The Times, he made the fame and fortunes of many manufacturers who carried his
designs through.  In 1850, he was induced to take up his residence in Sheffield
and his influence there became so great on the then Head Master, Mr. Young
Mitchell, and on the students, that the Sheffield School became the finest and
most successful in the kingdom. In the school he co-operated largely with
Godfrey Sykes, but there had then come over Stevens, said The Times, a sense
which startled all his friends.   He began  manifesting a complete 
impractibility, he destroyed model after model, and would tear up sketch after
sketch, which those who copied him would have been proud to retrieve. In that
period, unless work was actually dragged from him, it was not proceeded with. 
He did, however, achieve very definite greatness, he executed what was described
as a noble and vigorous design for the Exhibitor's Certificate in the Exhibition
of 1862. His greatest work, however, was the Wellington Monument in S. Paul's
Cathedral, and The Times added that, at the time of his death, he had
practically completed that superb conception, so far indeed, that any one of his
pupils could finish it, and it also added that the two groups of that great
monument, "Truth plucking out the tongue of falsehood," and "Valeur triumphing
over cowardice," on which Stevens had concentrated, had secured for him lasting
fame amongst decorative artists of modern times. Stevens was only fifty-seven
years old when he died, and was unmarried. In March, 1910, Mr. Charles Green
lectured on the work of Alfred Stevens, pointing out the admirable collection to
be seen at Messrs. Hooles'  Green Lane Works, and also in the School of Art
Museum.  Then Mr. Benjamin Bagshawe had in his office many of Stevens's
drawings, and Mr. Mitchell Withers, a very fine bronze stove and fender executed
by the same artist. Mr. Green also declared that Alderman Gamble of Sheffield,
many years prior to the death of Stevens, asked him to sell the original
painting of Isaiah, from which the grand mosaic was made which now adorns S.
Paul's Cathedral.  It had been offered to Sheffield before then, and also to the
Sheffield School of Art for one hundred pounds, but the officials declared that
it was not worth half the sum, whilst an official in the Town Hall expressed the
opinion that "I wouldn't give a button off my breeches for it." That original
painting now hangs in the Tate Gallery in the Central Gallery of the Sculpture
Room, and is valued at £3,000.  So much for Sheffield and its love of art!
Alfred Stevens came to Sheffield in 1850 to Green Lane, the works of Messrs.
Hoole & Company, and there proved beyond question that he was the only man to
combine arts and crafts, though many people talked of being able to do so. The
Wellington monument, of course, stood out as his masterpiece, but the fatal
procrastinations which burdened him all his life almost caused the magnificent
conception to be lost to the nation.  He only sent his model in for competition
on the last day, and suddenly woke up to the knowledge that it was Bank Holiday
and that he could not get a van anywhere for his exhibit.  However, stirred out
of himself by the suddenness of the crisis, he procured a vehicle of some sort,
and the precious model was deposited safely within three minutes of closing time
for competitors.

Sir William Sterndale Bennett.--The death of Sir William Sterndale Bennett
occurred on February 1st, 1875, at his home, 66 St. John's Wood Road, London. 
Following on his removal from Sheffield, he was a King's College Chorister at
Cambridge when eight years old, and then a pupil at the Royal Academy, there
having tuition from such masters as Cipriani, Potter, Dr. Crotch, Moscheles, and
Holmes.  He was a constant performer on the pianoforte at the Philharmonic
Concerts, and when he travelled across to Leipzic on the direct invitation of
Mendelssohn, his "Naiads" and "Wood Nymphs" were performed at the concerts in
the city. In a paper on his contemporaries, Schumann wrote of Sterndale Bennett,
"Out of the chrysalis a truly wonderful butterfly has emerged, a soaring spirit,
and like his greatest predecessors, Mozart and Mendelssohn, is residing at
Leipzic.  He shows a strong family likeness in his work to his great friend,
Mendelssohn; there is the same beauty of form, the same poetic depth and
clearness, ideal purity and divine power of impressing, yet there is a
distinction between the two, one which is even more evident in playing than in
composition. The Englishman revels in delicacy and finished detail,  whereas
Mendelssohn is at his best in energy and grasp." Sir William's published works
best known were his "Naiads," "Wood Nymphs," "Parisina," "Merry Wives of
Windsor," with concertos, sonatas, songs and duets innumerable; he composed his
"Paradise and Peri," a fantasia overture for the Jubilee Concert of the
Philharmonic Society, and his cantata, "The Woman of Samaria," later.  When he
returned to this country, he quickly took the first place alike as composer,
performer and teacher; in 1856, he succeeded Walmsley as Professor of Music at
Cambridge, having then taken the degree of Doctor of Music, and in the same year
he succeeded Wagner as conductor of the Philharmonic Concerts in London.

He was conductor of the first Musical Festival in Leeds in 1858, his cantata,
"The May Queen," then being first produced, and when the great 1862 Exhibition
was opened, he was invited, together with Auber, Meyerbeer and Verdi, to compose
fitting pieces of music. Sterndale Bennett's was the setting to music of
Tennyson's Ode, "Uplift! a thousand voices."  For several years he was Principal
of the Royal Academy of Music, and his great fight on its behalf preserved that
institution for the nation at a time when it had many enemies, whilst he was
knighted at Windsor in 1871. Not many Sheffielders have been buried in
Westminster Abbey, but it was felt that the remains of such a master in music
had a right to rest there, and on February 6th, 1875, his body was laid in the
north aisle of that glorious Pantheon near the graves of Purcell and Croft, an
"immense congregation" being present.  The respect in which the great composer
was held was shown by the fact that in the procession were the private carriages
of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Edinburgh, whilst amongst
those actually attending were Lord Dudley, the Bishop of Gloucester and the
Bishop of Bristol, Sir Julian Benedict, Mr. Salomons, Mr. Arthur Sullivan, Mr.
Dan Godfrey, and Mr. Boosey, whilst the service was conducted by Dean Stanley.
In the present day one can well imagine that, simultaneous with the ceremony in
the Abbey, a service would have been held in our Parish Church, but no
indication of anything of the sort is to be found in the local newspapers of
that date. Dr. Coward, lecturing on Sterndale Bennett on February 2nd, 1904,
said his election as President of the Royal Academy of Music was his death knell
as a composer, and for that reason a very great and national loss.  At
twenty-one years of age, he possessed a national reputation with his twenty
compositions, and he should not have been placed in such a position where
routine work was demanded of him.  In this country, however, Dr. Coward
declared, there is an all too great a habit of making our Michael Angelos cut
kerbstones and our Michael Faradays do mechanical labour.  There was, in his
opinion, no composer who was so uniformly high-minded in his compositions as
Sterndale Bennett, and it was in his judgment very due to his memory that a
Sterndale Bennett Chair of Music should be established in the Sheffield
University. Sheffield learned much of Sterndale Bennett in December, 1907, when
the life of that great composer was published by his son.  Many who read it were
startled, not realizing that their own townsman was really one of the great ones
in music. He was, in his youth, one of the original students at the Royal
Academy of Music in 1826--at that time a boarding school--and very quickly his
fame as a pianist so far spread that he was commanded to Windsor, and there,
playing before the Court, received the warm encouragement of Queen Adelaide. A
great stimulus was given to Sterndale Bennett by his friendship with
Mendelssohn, one rather pleasantly begun.  The brilliant pianist, when only
seventeen years old in 1833, was playing his Concerto in B minor, at the Hanover
Square Rooms, and by the side of the Ambassador, Lord Burgersh, sat a young
foreigner who stood up at the finish, declaring his desire to "have a good look
at him," and then, at his own request, being taken to the green-room and there
introduced to the executant. From that moment there came a very firm friendship
between this young foreigner, Mendelssohn, and Sterndale Bennett, the latter
finding great encouragement and stimulus from it; a long and charmingly
continued correspondence ensued between them, and Sterndale Bennett went to
Germany to secure an instant appreciation. It was in the London green-room that
that part of his life was decided on, for Mendellssohn urged his new friend to
visit Germany.  "If I do so, may I come as your pupil?" was the enquiry.  "No!
as my friend," was the answer.  Schumann was enthusiastic over Sterndale
Bennett's abilities and his extraordinary skill as a pianist, placing him next
to Mendelssohn, "bringing to us the beauty of Bach and rescuing the Royal
Academy from oblivion."

1876. George Wostenholm.--One of the hardest-headed business men in Sheffield
was George Wostenholm, who died in August, 1876, at the age of seventy-five.  He
was scarcely a public man, but had a flair for business, which made him Master
Cutler of Sheffield, and gave him great prosperity. He was Master Cutler in
1856, succeeding Mr. Frederick Thorpe Mappin in the position, and was "son of
his father" as a cutlery manufacturer.  The father's business was carried on in
Broad Lane whence it was moved to Rockingham Street, at which point in the
family fortunes the son, George, was taken in as partner, together with Mr.
William Stenton (then buyer for Naylor & Sanderson's), the business being
carried on as Stenton & Wostenholm. Stenton's share in a wonderful prosperity
came through his systematic travelling in the States, opening up a great
connexion there, and on returning to England, leaving the firm with which he had
been identified. The younger partner thereupon took matters into his own hands,
and, crossing the Atlantic, consolidated the work done by Stenton. established
many agencies, and pushed well out into the far west.  On the death of his
father, the business was again George Wostenholm & Son. In ten hard years, the
business grew all too quickly for the premises in Rockingham Street, and the
Washington Works in Wellington Street were taken, having formerly been in the
possession of  Oakes, Tompkin & Company.  It was a definite indication of
change.  In previous generations, cutlery works in Sheffield had been virtually
unknown, save those of very small character; the town had been hemmed round by
the factories owned and run by "little mesters," but it was the American zeal
for big things which inspired the acquisition of the big place in Wellington
Street.  When it was built, it was regarded as an unnecessary extravagance, and
Sheffielders of smaller vision wagged their heads solemnly and waited for the
crash-which never came. The business was turned into a Limited Company in 1875,
the capital being fixed at £100,000, with shares of £25, and with a dividend of
ten per cent, guaranteed for the ensuing five years; the allotment of shares
being almost entirely to members of the staff and the workmen.  It was reported
that by 1878, the firm had an American connexion in spring cutlery far larger
than any other English concern. George Wostenholm was spoken of when he died as
the pioneer of Ranmoor, but was, even to a greater degree, the maker of Sharrow
and Netheredge, and his co-operation in this way with Thomas Steade was
responsible for the development of many of Sheffield's suburbs.

Thomas Youdan.--To most people, Mr. Thomas Youdan remains as a memory associated
with the old Alexandra Theatre, but really he was very much more than that. He
died in 1876 when sixty years old, and had lived a remarkably busy life. He was
born at Streetthorpe, Doncaster, and came to Sheffield when eighteen years old,
with no better outlook on life than that of a general labourer, which was his
occupation, and certainly he was architect of his own fortunes.  He began
working at Cornish Place; later he became what was known as a silver stamper,
and later still, a "boniface," taking over a public-house in the Park and then a
similar establishment in West Bar, known as "The Spink's Nest."  He had made
money by that time, acquiring the freehold of the tavern, and round about it,
built the Surrey Theatre.    It was a building noted all through the country for
its general completeness; it possessed a spacious ball-room, a theatre, a
concert hall, a museum and a menagerie, most of the animals being secured from
Wingerworth Hall, where the Hon. W. Hunloke had, as hobby, the gathering
together of wild beasts. Tragedy came to a deserving man on the morning of March
25th, 1865, when the theatre was burned to the ground, destined never to be
rebuilt, and the present Sheffield Union Offices stand practically on the site. 
Youdan lost over £30,000 through the fire.  However, great though the disaster
was, he was not beaten. He had always been looking round for possibilities, and
had acquired on lease, for storage purposes, a very large building in Blonk
Street, and this he renovated and enlarged until there arose what, in future
years, was known as the Alexandra Theatre.  Actually he bought the site, and got
a theatrical license, and the new theatre was opened under the patronage of Lord
Brougham, then attending the meetings of the Social Science Congress in
Sheffield.

1877. Samuel Younge.--In 1877, when seventy-eight years old, Mr. Samuel Younge
died, one of the best known solicitors in the town, a Nottingham man who had
settled in Sheffield in partnership with Mr. James Wilson, as Wilson & Younge,
the firm afterwards taking the title of Younge, Wilson & Pierson, later still
becoming Youngs, Wilson & Nixon, and, in the last few years before Mr. Younge's
death, Younge, Wilson, Nixon & Hughes.  The subject of this story of a
well-known firm joined it in 1825, being the eldest son of Mr. Samuel Younge,
senior partner in the firm of Messrs. Samuel and Charles Younge, Union Street
and Burgess Street, dealing in silver and plated goods.  His brothers were
well-known residents in the town, in Mr. Robert Younge of Greystones, and Mr.
Charles Younge; whilst his only sister was married to Mr. Richard Charles Otter,
who became a considerable owner of land in later years.  Mr. Samuel Younge, here
spoken of, first resided in East Parade, and afterwards at Gatefield, then out
in the country, Abbeydale way; and on his father's death, removed to Brincliffe.
 He was one of the first Improvement Commissioners in Sheffield.

1878. John Jobson Smith.--Mr. John Jobson Smith died at Grange Cliffe,
Ecclesall, in 1878, when sixty-nine years old.  Born at Alnwick, not very far
away from what was for ages regarded as the jumping off ground for young Scotch
laddies in their search for the Saxons' money, Mr. Smith, like the members of
the army just referred to, came south to make his fortune. He had, however, a
definite purpose; he had an uncle in Sheffield, and it was to him that he went. 
Robert Jobson, the uncle referred to, had a flourishing business in Roscoe
Place, practically facing S. Philip's Church, and the young nephew, showing
himself "painstaking, eager, intelligent and pious," was entrusted with the
duties of travelling for orders. In due time, Mr. Robert Jobson passed away,
leaving the whole business to his nephew, who made the most of it and extended
it greatly.   He took into it a partner in Mr. Stuart, the title of the firm
then becoming Stuart and Smith, and the latter manifesting a great love of art,
the very thing essential to the future success of the business, which at that
time had more than one eager rival.  Mr. Smith was something of a specialist in
statuary, and employed a workman named Bell, to design the monument which stands
to-day close to the top gates in the General Cemetery, in memory of James
Montgomery; the original model was presented by Mr. Smith to the Cutlers'
Company, and it stands to-day in the vestibule to the Banqueting Hall. An
introduction of art into stove-grate work secured for the firm a greatly
increased business, and in many parts of Sheffield, notably in the residences
along the Hallam slopes and the Ranmoor district, one finds singularly artistic
and beautiful work of this character, a good deal of it dating back to the
golden days of Roscoe Place.  Mr. Smith was enthusiastic in his support of the
School of Art when it was instituted.

1879. Charles Cammell.--Mr. Charles Cammell, of Norton Hall and Brookfield
Manor, died at the former residence on January 13th, 1879, when sixty-nine years
old.  He was born at Hull, coming to Sheffield when twenty-one, and joining the
firm of Ibbotson Brothers of the Globe Works, Penistone Road. It was at that
time one of the leading firms in the town for steel, files and cutlery.  When he
reached Sheffield, young Cammell's total wealth was comprised within the compass
of a five pound note, but he quickly made good.  He acted as traveller for
Ibbotson Brothers for many years, showing great industry and a fine persistence
in his work, but during the great commercial crisis of 1837, he left that
employment, and, with Mr. Thomas Johnson, began business under the style of
Johnson, Cammell & Company, in Furnival Street, as steel manufacturers and
makers of files. In 1845, the business had extended to such an extent that it
was found essential larger premises should be secured, and land was acquired in
Savile Street, where were then only a few houses east of the Sheffield Station
in the Wicker, and scarcely anything save green fields.  There, the foundations
of new works were laid in May, 1845, the land comprising two acres, and straight
away the business prospered there and grew side by side with the growth of the
railways, just reaching the end of the great boom. In 1852, Mr. Johnson died,
and Mr. Edward Bury joined Mr. Cammell, with knowledge acquired through his
position as locomotive engineer on the London and Birmingham line. He retired in
1855, when the firm of Charles Cammell & Company was formed. In 1861, the
manufacture of rails was begun at Cyclops works; in 1863, that of armour plates,
and these changes involved great extensions towards Grimesthorpe.  In 1864, the
concern was turned into a Limited Company, with Mr. Cammell as chairman, the
capital being one million pounds, with £800,000 paid up.  The iron and steel
works at Penistone were secured in 1865; the Oaks collieries in 1873; and at the
time of Mr. Cammell's death, it was said that the Savile Street premises
occupied eleven acres; Penistone, twenty-five; Grimesthorpe, twenty-one, and the
Oaks, eleven hundred.  At that time, Mr. George Wilson had been Mr. Cammell's
right hand man for a generation.  Mr. Cammell, who had six sons, lived in 1845
at the house in Clarkehouse Road, adjoining the Botanical Gardens, and later
occupied by Mrs. Osborn, with Mr. Joseph Nicholson succeeding Mr. Cammell.  In
later years, Mr. Cammell lived at Loxley House, afterwards occupied by Mr.
Miller, and in 1857 he purchased from the assignees of S. Shore, the Manor of
Norton, taking advantage of every opportunity that presented itself afterwards
to purchase land in the neighbourhood.  He also owned a Hampshire estate of two
thousand acres at Ditchingham.


1880. Thomas Moore.--Alderman Thomas Moore's life story is one of sustained
interest.   For four successive years he was Mayor of Sheffield at a time when a
great deal of Sheffield's municipal history was being made, and during his
sojourn here, scarcely anything occurred but found him at the heart of it.  He
was born at Howden in East Yorkshire in February, 1809, and through sustained
perseverance claimed many academic joys. He was 38 years old when, even then a
wealthy man, he came to Sheffield, taking charge of the Exchange Brewery, though
at that time he had no knowledge of the industry, and was simply a man with
plenty of money looking out for something wherein to use it.  The Exchange
Brewery at that time was in low water, but high intelligence and, above all,
industry saw the new management succeed, the balance being brought on to the
right side.  The Brewery then was in what we know to-day as the Market Place
under the name of Proctor & Co., being acquired by the Tennant family in 1840. 
In 1853 came a sudden upheaval, the Duke's agents issuing what was known as a
bill of ejectment. The old brewery then was held on a lease from the Duke, and
he had powers under Parliament to take it with other property for the erection
of the proposed markets.  However, as the lease to the brewery had only a short
time to run, the Duke's agents decided to leave the Company in possession until
the lease had expired so that payment for compensation might be avoided. By
that, of course, the Company would lose everything that had been spent on new
buildings and general improvements, and also be hampered by having to remain in
premises which could not be maintained on long tenure.  So Mr. Thomas Moore
acted, and frustrated the ducal proposals.  He informed the Duke's agents that
his firm proposed compelling the Duke under the provisions of his Act of
Parliament to take possession at once. The Duke resisted the suggestion,
resorting to the Court of Chancery from time to time, but without success, and
eventually the Duke, acting on an old and almost forgotten statute, sought the
ejectment of the company as trespassers. Action was taken before Lord
Chief-Justice Campbell at York, the Duke's agents withdrew and compromise was
arrived at, the Duke paying £3,000 compensation to the firm, plus a period of
four months in which to remove its business. What a search through the Acts
there must have been in such a struggle as is here indicated.  The four months
allowed gave little time for transfer of the business; but a site was found by
the banks of the Don, the new buildings erected well within the period
stipulated, and, as the reports said, "never a brewing was lost." Alderman
Moore's services to Sheffield were very great--he stood out as one of the
townsmen who had a real vision and who was unafraid to carry his schemes into
execution, through fierce opposition often enough, in the Council.  His great
disappointment came owing to his inability to carry through the Council his plea
for the town's control of the gas and water undertakings.  Alderman in 1873, he
was proposed as Mayor in the same year by Mr. Thomas Jessop, and during his
mayoralty he put all his strength into a successful effort to prevent Wakefield
obtaining Langsett for its water, the result being that Sheffield got it.  He
lived in several well-known Sheffield houses in those days, notably at Park
Farm, at Harbour House, Sharrow Head, and at Crabtree, where he died.  His
grandfather, on his mother's side, carried on business at the old works in
Whiteley Wood.  Alderman Moore died in 1880.

Mark Firth.--The local newspapers were black bordered on November 29th, 1880, in
memory of Mr. Mark Firth, who had passed away the previous night at Oakbrook,
and the tributes paid were worthy of a great citizen.  He was taken suddenly ill
at his works on the 16th and removed to Oakbrook, where he received every
possible attention.  He was attended by Sir William Jenner, Dr. Bartolome, Dr.
Favell and Dr. Dyson; but the original seizure had been a stroke, and there was
but little chance of recovery.  A telegram of sorrow was received by Mrs. Firth
from the Prince of Wales at Horstead Hall, from every class in Sheffield came
sympathy, and the whole town was overtaken by a genuine sorrow at the death of
its greatest citizen. He was Sheffield born (in 1819), and was the eldest of
five sons, all educated at Eadon's School in Redhill.  His father was a
steel-maker at Marshall's, one of the earliest firms in the trade in the town,
and then went to Sanderson's, having a very intimate knowledge of steel-making.
Later, the father and son left Sanderson's and commenced business for
themselves, and for several years the two lived in Charlotte Street near their
humble works.  Then the son took Stanton Broom, afterwards lived in Wilkinson
Street, and subsequently went to Endcliffe somewhere about 1860, and became a
pioneer of Ranmoor, purchasing 26 and a half acres of land on which he built his
mansion of Oakbrook. In 1860 he was returned to the Town Council as
representative of St. Peter's Ward, straightway showing a keen interest in all
matters connected with the sanitation of the town.  He lost his seat for St.
Peter's, but when Alderman Hallam's term of office as Mayor ended in 1874 the
Council did an unprecedented thing, calling Mr. Firth back to the Chamber,
straightway  electing him an Alderman, and at the same time electing him Mayor
of the Borough. It was at the March meeting in the following year that he
announced the consent of the Prince and Princess of Wales to visit Sheffield in
August, and it was on July 8th that he wrote his letter presenting to the town
35 acres of the Page Hall Estate as a public free park to the inhabitants of
Sheffield for ever.  Mr. Firth was Master-Cutler of the town for three
successive years and was a member of the Town Trust, whilst amongst his many
benefactions were the Almshouses at a cost of £30,000 and the Firth College. He
was also greatly attracted by education matters in the town, and originally
intended to erect the College in Bow Street, on the right-hand side where he had
been employed in his early life; but it was proposed to him that, as the School
Board Offices were being built in the new thoroughfare of Leopold Street, his
College might stand at the corner and make the whole into a massive pile.  So
land was bought there for £8,000, and in due course the College was opened by
Prince Leopold. A publication called "Eminent Manufacturers" wrote of Mark Firth
as follows:  " From small beginnings in Charlotte Street he passed on to the
immense establishment of the Norfolk Works in Savile Street, covering 15 acres,
in 1849.   His works were at one time open to everybody who came; but
sharp-witted foreigners took notes and made use of what they saw, so that other
methods were subsequently adopted for protection of the secrets which made the
greatness of the firm.  It was as gun makers that the firm became best known
throughout the world, celebrated as it was in many other ways."  Mr. Mark Firth
was asked to stand for Parliament on the retirement of Mr. Roebuck, but
declined, though it is fairly certain that he would have been returned with ease
had his wishes gone towards a Parliamentary career.

THE ROYAL VISIT, 1875. The greatest event in the life of Mr. Mark Firth was the
Royal visit of 1875, and the first indication of its likelihood was given when
he proposed that an invitation under the Corporate Common Seal should be sent to
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales to visit Sheffield
during that year.  He said he was even then in possession of the knowledge that
an invitation would be accepted, but such an honour to the town should not be
through any personal or individual invitation, but from the town as represented
by the Council. He believed that such a visit would be possible in August. The
resolution was carried with acclamation, no time was lost in forwarding the
invitation, and, whilst the meeting of the Council was held on February 10th,
the Royal letter of acceptance bore date February 11th. It was signed "Francis
Knollys," and ran as follows:  " I have had the honour of laying before Their
Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales the address which you have
forwarded to me on behalf of the Aldermen and Burgesses of the town of
Sheffield, and I am commanded by Their Royal Highnesses to inform you that it
will afford them great satisfaction to accept the invitation they have received
to visit Sheffield in the course of the ensuing season." The letter was
addressed "The Worshipful the Mayor." Subscriptions poured in towards the cost
of the visit and the decoration of the town, especially of the proposed route to
the new park well beyond the Pitsmoor toll bar.  By July it was announced that
£140 had been promised for the Wicker section, £1,400 for the Fulwood and
Broomhill section, for West Street £140, and for Burngreave and Pitsmoor £530.
The visit took place on August 16th and 17th, 1875. The Royal train left King's
Cross at 11 in the morning on August 16th, the suite consisting of the Marquis
of Hamilton, the Right Honourable Sir W. T. Knollys (Comptroller), Major Russell
(Equerry), Mr. Sumner and Miss Knollys. A forty minutes wait occurred in the
Sheffield station before the procession moved away, a battery of guns near S.
John's Church in the Park acquainting the crowds that the visitors had arrived.
The route was down Blonk Street, into the Wicker, where, beyond the arches, was
a magnificent spectacle, the steepness of the Burngreave vista being packed with
cheering humanity.  The heat of the sun was almost unbearable, the crowds were
tightly wedged, yet the enthusiasm was tremendous, and so the 37 carriages, with
their accompanying escorts of soldiers, passed up through the Bar and on down
the slope of Barnsley Road, then thickly lined by splendid trees, to the park.
There, in their robes, were assembled the members of the Town Council, and the
address of the Corporation was then presented by the Mayor and the Town Clerk
(Mr. John Yeomans), with whom was Alderman Fairburn, and in reply the Prince
said he could not but be interested in the present and future welfare of
Sheffield through its reputation so long borne throughout the world for its
peculiar manufactures which had given to the town its wealth, and a prosperity
and success to the great commercial Empire of which it formed a part. The
address of the Cutlers' Company of Hallamshire was presented by the
Master-Cutler (Alderman Edward Tozer) and the Vicar (the Rev. Rowley Hill), with
Mr. Macro Wilson (Law Clerk) and the Wardens.

For many weeks before the great days the inhabitants of the town had been busy
in preparations of many kinds, and, as the Royal visitors saw it, Sheffield  was
a place transformed.   Arches stood up in almost every thoroughfare through
which the procession passed.  Some of the arches remain vividly in one's
recollection, such as the Scottish Arch in Glossop Road and the representation
of an ancient gateway at Lady's Bridge. As the Royal Visitors saw the East End,
the blackness stood out all the more violently because of the surrounding colour
schemes, whilst everywhere in the district stood "women with their working
husbands--the wives with handkerchiefs of cotton loosely bound around their
heads,--all unrestrained by barricades, and a scene full of vividly expressed
loyalty." The visitors went to the works of Messrs. Cammells', Firths', and John
Brown's, and also to Messrs. Joseph Rodgers & Sons' in Norfolk Street. They
could not very well buy an armour-plate or a casting in the East End, but they
proved ready purchasers in Rodgers' showrooms, examining the very many costly
and lovely articles with great interest. This visit was paid very shortly before
the greater one to India, and the firm presented to the Prince a case of
articles suitable for the visit, whilst to the Princess was given a lady's case
of cutlery of the finest possible workmanship, with handles of solid gold and
silver. All the Banking establishments in the town were closed at noon that day,
and practically everywhere else a general holiday was taken, if not granted, for
this was no small occasion for Sheffielders.  The part played in the programme
by children was a notable one, and on the evening prior to the great day a
rehearsal was held in Paradise Square under the conductorship of Mr.
Charlesworth, whilst a prime feature of the proceedings in Page Hall Park was
the singing of the massed thousands of happy children, the Royal visitors being
very obviously delighted by what was there so well done.  Following the first
day's proceedings the Telegraph contained 23 and a half columns of reports, and
its contemporary did equal justice to the day. On the evening of the first day
dinner was served at Oakbrook, where the Royal visitors stayed, and the guests
were Lord and Lady Wharncliffe, the Earl and Countess Fitzwilliam, the
Archbishop of York and Mrs. Thomson, the Duke of Norfolk, the Right Hon. Lord
John and Lady Manners, General Sir W. T. Knollys and Miss Knollys, Mr. J. A.
Roebuck, Sir John Brown, Lady Mary Howard, the Marquis of Hamilton,
Major-General Sir H. P. de Bathe, and Mr. Arthur Sumner. In the evening a ball
was given at the Cutlers' Hall, affording a magnificent spectacle. The first
quadrille was taken part in by the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Mark Firth; Earl
Fitzwilliam and the Princess of Wales, the Master-Cutler and Countess
Fitzwilliam, the Duke of Norfolk and Mrs. Wilson, Lord Wharncliffe and Lady
Alice Fitzwilliam, Earl Manners and Miss Knollys, the Marquis of Hamilton and
Lady Howard, Lord John Manners and Lady Wharncliffe.  His Royal Highness
subsequently danced with Mrs. Wilson, and Mr. George Wilson had the honour of
dancing with the Princess of Wales.  The Princess wore white silk, with a long
jacket bodice with gold braid, the skirt and dress trimmed with gold bullion
fringe, with ear-rings of diamonds, a necklace of diamonds and pearls, and a
magnificent tiara of diamonds. The whole effect, wrote a peculiarly enthusiastic
and impressed reporter, "was charmingly fine." The Prince wore the broad Ribbon
of the Garter, Mr. T. R. Gainsford was Master of the Ceremonies, and the
Stewards were Messrs. Charles H. Firth, Henry E. Watson, Marriott Hall, Arthur
Thomas, Major Prest, T. E. Vickers, C. E. Vickers, F. P. Smith, William Smith,
Henry Isaac Dixon, Frederick Fowler, B. P. Broomhead, and W. F. Dixon. The Royal
party left the hall at half-past one, greeted on their appearance at the
entrance "by tremendous cheering from the eager but patient crowds outside." 
One mentions this list of names because it and the dinner party of the following
day included practically the whole of what was Sheffield's "society" in those
far-off days. Lunch was taken in the Cutlers' Hall on the following morning,
when the toast of "The Royal Visitors" was given by the Master-Cutler, and the
Prince said that the Princess and himself had been deeply touched by, and
grateful for, the warmth of the reception given by the town, and said he hoped
very soon to be able to tell Her Majesty "how deep was the devotion of that
democratic town to her person and Throne."  They had expected to see marvellous
things in the great works of the East End, and they had not been disappointed.
The feature of this second day's programme was the presentation of new Colours
by the Princess to the First North Riding Green Howards, a regiment afterwards
to be known as "The Princess of Wales' Own." This took place at a garden party
held at The Farm, the then residence of the Duke of Norfolk in Sheffield; now
smoke-grimed and ugly, but then a fairyland of sylvan beauty; and at the dinner
party at Oakbrook on the second evening the guests were Lord and Lady Halifax,
Lord and Lady Galway, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord and Lady Auckland, Lady Philippa
Howard, the Marquis of Hamilton, Earl Manvers, the Master-Cutler and Mrs.
Wilson, Mr. Edward Firth, Mr. C. H. Firth, Mr. B. P. Broomhead, Mr. T. R.
Gainsford, the Rev. Rowley Hill, Mr. Mundella, Mr. H. E. Watson, Mr. E. M. E.
Welby, and Mr. S. J. Tucker, Rouge Croix.

On the morning of the second day the Prince had telegraphed to Her Majesty,
speaking of the splendid reception which had been given to the Princess and
himself, how greatly gratified they had been with it and by the brilliance of
the illuminations, and during the garden party at The Farm Her Majesty's reply
was received, expressing Her Majesty's gratification at the conduct of her
Sheffield subjects. It was known some time prior to the visit that the Prince
had expressed a desire to get some shooting on the adjacent moors, and he
thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Whilst the shooting was going on, so the
story runs, the Princess busied herself gathering wild flowers in the adjacent
glens and plantations near Longshawe, and though in those days Longshawe was a
long way from the town, it is said that thousands tramped out to see what could
be seen of the shooting.  It lasted for two days and the chief bags were as
follows: The Prince, 76 birds the Duke of Rutland, 27; the Marquis of Hamilton,
93; Earl Shannon, 58; and Mr. Sumner, 68.  The shooting was accompanied by
dinner parties at Longshawe, and the Royal guests returned to town on the
Friday, having spent most of a week in Sheffield and Longshawe, where the
hospitality of the Duke of Rutland was princely. A singularly happy act must be
mentioned in connexion with this visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to
Sheffield.  It came in the shape of a letter to Alderman Mark Firth on December
23rd, 1878, from Sandringham, from the Secretary of the Princess of Wales, and
came at a time when distress in Sheffield was exceedingly severe. The letter was
in the following terms:  " Sir,--The Princess of Wales, having heard with great
regret of the severe distress prevailing in Sheffield, and gratefully
remembering the kind reception received from the inhabitants when the Prince of
Wales and herself visited the town during your Mayoralty, Her Royal Highness has
directed me to forward the enclosed cheque for fifty pounds as a contribution to
the special fund now being raised for relief of the poor in Sheffield, and,
through the Home Secretary, Mr. Cross, Her Royal Highness wishes to be kept in
touch with the conditions in the town." In connexion with this visit the Post
Office in Sheffield dealt with 156,000 words of newspaper copy during the two
days, and a very delightful story was told of the difficulties of the operators.
 They were simply cut off by the crowds from every source of refreshment, and it
was eventually arranged that a cord and rope should be stretched across from the
upper windows of the Post Office and the Brunswick Hotel, and an electric button
enabled the operators to get supplies from time to time, the nature of those
supplies having been decided on beforehand.  At all events, every time the bell
rang a basket came along the wire from the Hotel, and there was only one
accident all through the night. The intervening space was densely crowded by
sightseers, either to watch the constant processions or to gaze at the
illuminations, and the one sad accident which occurred was to a gallon of porter
en route to the Post Office, which was overturned on to the heads of the massed
crowds beneath.

Ralph Blakelock Smith.--Mr. Ralph Blakelock Smith died at Bent's Green Lodge,
Ecclesall, in 1880, at the age of 56. He had spent a busy life in the town,
especially as legal adviser to the Sheffield Water Company. That was
particularly notable during the time when Alderman Thomas Moore fought so
strenuously for acquisition by the town of the gas and water undertakings.  Mr.
Blakelock Smith, however, proved an astute and clever fighter on the other side,
and time after time, when the Corporation efforts seemed on the verge of
success, so far at all events as the Water Company was concerned, high hopes
were dashed by some quite unexpected bit of strategy employed by the company's
adviser. Mr. Smith first lived near Weston Park, his father, Mr. Albert Smith,
well known in the town, removing to Bent's Green, which he transformed from the
posting house known as "The Rising Sun" into a delightful residence. It is
believed to be "the House on the Moors" referred to in Mrs. Holland's novel
bearing that title. The son, during his father's life, occupied Thrift House,
but later he went to Bent's Green Lodge, residing there until his death. His
grandfather, Mr. George Smith, was one of the assistant ministers at the Parish
Church, and curate at Ecclesall 1801-1817, and his great grandfather, Mr. John
Smith, also one of the assistant ministers at the Parish Church, 1755-1776,
curate at Attercliffe, and also head master of the Sheffield Grammar School. 
The last named was son of a Sheffield manufacturer who was Master Cutler in
1749.  Mr. Smith joined his father in practice, and also as law clerk to the
Water Company, the duties in the last-named position becoming very onerous
through the bursting of the Dale Dike Reservoir in 1864. Parliament, following
on that disaster, granted the company's suit for a special commission whereby it
could adjudicate on the claims which were put in, and, through Parliament's
authorization of a charge by the company of an increased rental for water over a
period, the company raised money. In the space of one year the whole of the
claims and the costs had been paid off, and the company was able to carry on.

1881. Thomas William Rodgers.-Mr. T. W. Rodgers passed away in London, his
residence in Sheffield then being Endcliffe Vale. He was a member of an old
family of solicitors in Bank Street, and 70 years old when he died in 1881.  He
was the second son of Mr. Robert Rodgers, and was educated first at Piper's
School, Norton, and finally at Peter Wright's School in Fargate. He was articled
to his father and, whilst in London for the period of service, became special
constable during the great riots. He was admitted as solicitor when 21 years
old, and joined his father, who had in his office the duties pertaining to the
Stewardship of the Ecclesall Court of Request, at a time prior to the
establishment of County Courts, and when civil cases went before Commissioners
who were appointed for the manors of Sheffield and Ecclesall. Mr. Hugh Parker
for many years was steward of the Sheffield Court, with Mr. Michael Ellison as
his deputy, and in due course, and in the position indicated, Mr. T. W. Rodgers
succeeded his father.  In 1847 all these cumbrous appointments were abolished
under a general Act for the establishment of County Courts, a special provision
being that the steward and his deputy in the manorial courts should be the first
judge and registrar in the newly-established County Courts in each district.  So
Mr. T. W. Rodgers became joint registrar in Sheffield with his colleague, Mr.
William Wake. After the death of Mr. Robert Rodgers, Mr. T. W. Rodgers' brother
Henry joined the firm, until the former went to Lincoln's Inn three years later,
becoming a barrister, Mr. Arthur Thomas then becoming partner, and in a later
period Mr. Arthur Swift and Mr. Henry Ashington.

1882. Henry Rodgers.--A great many of the best known legal businesses in the
city have descended from father to son through many generations, and this was
observed in connexion with Messrs. Rodgers & Thomas when Mr. Henry Rodgers died
in 1882, at the age of 67, at Broomfield. He was the youngest son of Mr. Robert
Rodgers, founder of the firm in 1800, and after his father's death became
partner with his brother, the firm taking the style of T. W. & H. Rodgers.  In
1859 Mr. T. W. Rodgers retired, and in 1860, Mr. Henry Rodgers took in his
nephew, Mr. Arthur Thomas, and thus formed the firm of Rodgers & Thomas, the
senior partner retiring in 1872.  He had married, in 1846, Mary, daughter of
Thomas Creswick, of Ecclesall Grange.

Dr. W. Haxworth.-A gentleman spoken of in his day as father of the medical
profession in Sheffield was Dr. William Haxworth, who died in 1882, aged 84, of
which 68 years had been spent in Sheffield. The story of his life, sketchy as it
is, furnishes us with indications of the changes which had come over the town.
When young Haxworth was in his apprenticeship to Mr. George Hounsfield, then the
leading local practitioner, his master resided in Figtree Lane, and, fifty years
before that, Mr. Charles Hawksley Webb conducted what were then regarded as very
large professional operations at his home in Change Alley. When Dr. Haxworth
began on his own account, presumably about 1830, in Queen Street, Mr. John Shore
and Mr. W. Smith (later "Smith of Barnes Hall") lived in Bank Street, Mr. Albert
Smith in High Street, Mr. John Brookfield and Mr. Wheat in Paradise Square.  Mr.
John Brown and Dr. Young were in St. James' Row, Cowley's School was at the top
of Figtree Lane, White's School at the top of School Croft, the Shores resided
at Norton, Meersbrook and Tapton, and the Creswicks at Highfield and
Cliffefield.   Dr. Haxworth's body was interred in S. Mary's Churchyard, the
vault being opened by special permission of the Home Secretary.

William Ellis.--A tragedy in Sheffield's life was revealed when that very gifted
sculptor, William Ellis, passed away on July 19th, 1882, virtually starved to
death, and assuredly starved temperamentally through the neglect his abilities
received from his townsmen.  Hardship and real privation had been his for years
before his death. Apprenticed to Chadburn Bros., he went with unmistakable
talents to London when 21 years old, and then came back to his native town. At
the School of Art he formed firm friendships with Godfrey Sykes and Charles
Green, and his first work of real note was a study of Sappho. The crisis in his
life came when he was allied with Stevens in the competition for the Wellington
monument, and he went to London with Stevens to carry the work through. The
death of the latter before the monument was finished resulted in Ellis losing
all reward for the great amount of work he had done, and he came back to
Sheffield to earn a scanty living as modeller of stove grates and the making of
many busts. The remuneration, however, was very poor, though his bust of
Roebuck, now in the Cutlers' Hall, is a lasting tribute to the greatness of his
genius.

1883. Joseph Pearce.--Mr. Joseph Pearce deserves remembrance in these pages
because he was one of the very early pioneers in newspaper work in the town.  He
died in 1883 at Intake, and for many years was a bookseller and printer in High
Street.  He was the eldest of three sons of Joseph Pearce, of Gibraltar Street,
whose extensive store of classics aroused the admiration of the whole town.
Young Pearce's father combined art with literature, and bought many well-reputed
"old masters" which came under the hammer. With his premises next door to those
of Ebenezer Elliott, the young man naturally turned to writing.  He was
frequently called in to assist in the production of Pearce's Sheffield Magazine
and Yorkshire Miscellany, which, so its author stated, had been formed to
"encourage talent in every way, in every department of science and philosophy,
and to rouse energies which otherwise will lie dormant and be useless." In 1846
Joseph Pearce issued the first number of the Sheffield Times, his office being
in Angel Street, and at that time he had, on his own account, a booksellers'
business in High Street and a printing office in Wilson's Yard, which he
re-named Aldine Court after Aldus, an early printer of celebrity who first
introduced italics into printing. Mr. J. C. Platt was the first editor of the
Sheffield Times, with Mr. Joseph Pearce proprietor. Afterwards he became founder
and proprietor of the Sheffield Telegraph. In 1855 the Stamp Act was abolished,
and thereupon several well-known weeklies were transformed into dailies. Mr.
Pearce, however, had apprehended the abolition, and started his Telegraph a few
days before the abolition came about, thereby securing his first issue some days
before his rivals, and he had what was then regarded as an unprecedented sale.
in 1863 he sold the property to Mr. Leng.

1884. J. H. Andrew.--One of Sheffield's self-made men was Mr. J. H. Andrew, of
Oak Lawn, Oakholme Road, who died very suddenly on his return from Bridlington
in 1884. He was head of the Toledo Works (J. H. Andrew & Co.), and rose from the
ranks of labour. Early in life he was with Wilson & Sothern, in Doncaster
Street, and when 22 was partner in Richard Graves & Son, in Snow Lane, remaining
there fifteen years.  For the next ten years, up to 1870, he carried on his
steel works in Malinda Street, then removing to Toledo Works, which he had built
and had developed his business tremendously. He declined the office of Master
Cutler on account of ill-health.

William Pashley Milner.--Never quite a public man, though very well known in the
town, the death of Mr. William Pashley Milner in 1884 caused very general
regret. It occurred at Meersbrook Hall when he was 78 years old.  He was son of
Gamaliel Milner, one of the twelve capital burgesses of Sheffield, and was long
associated with Attercliffe. He was educated as a solicitor, and had his office
in St. James' Row, entering into partnership with James Pashley Burbeary and
William Smith under the title of Milner, Burbeary & Smith, and "William Smith
junior," afterwards taking a very high place in the town as alderman and one of
the most erudite of its residents.  Mr. Milner retired in 1802 to the
cultivation of valuable and much-loved orchids and other flowers. He succeeded
the Misses Shore at Meersbrook, but in early life, when living with his uncle at
Attercliffe, he lived in a very beautiful home fronted by large gardens and
acres of flowers. He was father of Mr. W. A. Milner, of Totley Hall.

William Overend.--Mr. William Overend's life was busy and assuredly successful,
though he failed in his earnest attempt to secure a place in Parliament. In one
way he did so, as, following unsuccessful efforts to secure a representation of
Sheffield, he was returned for Pontefract in 1860, but it was ascertained that
one of his committee had been guilty of an irregularity, and, in a speech in the
House, Mr. Overend declared his ineligibility to keep his seat, and he was
allowed to withdraw.  He died at West Retford House on December 24th, 1884, aged
75. Born in Sheffield, he was son of Mr. Hall Overend, a surgeon, who was given
a public funeral on his death in 1865.  The son was educated at the Grammar
School. and at Piper's, Norton, where many future successful Sheffielders also
attended. He was articled to Mr. Sangster, of Leeds, but forsook the occupation
of a solicitor in favour of the Bar, and spent much time educating himself in
Hamburg. During this period of absence from home, improving his mind and
educating himself in every way, he travelled up to the second cataract on the
Nile, a feat up to that time seldom accomplished by Englishmen. He was called to
the Bar in 1837, At first he came to Sheffield, and at his first sessions had
five briefs given to him. Then he attached himself to the West Riding Circuit,
and as a pleader for the defence had few equals anywhere. A Q.C. and Bencher of
his Inn in 1851, he became leader of the Midland Circuit, and then came his
effort to secure a place in the House, his memorable and rather tragic campaign
in Pontefract ending in his defeat of Mr. Hugh Childers. He took a very great
part in settling the liabilities of the Sheffield Water Works Company following
on the great flood of 1864, being appointed Commissioner on the Board for
adjusting claims, and was afterwards appointed Commissioner to deal with the
Trade Union outrages in Sheffield, with Mr. J. E. Barker as secretary. The Court
sat from June 3rd, 1867, to July 8th, and its report stated "we believe that out
of the 60 Trade Unions in the town 13 had committed or incited others to commit
these outrages, the saw grinders, file grinders, sickle grinders, fork grinders,
tool makers, fender grinders, pen and pocket knife blade grinders, scissor
forgers, scissor grinders, edge tool forgers, edge tool grinders, scythe
grinders, and saw makers. One hundred and thirty witnesses were called during
the enquiry, and more than 40 cases were declared proved, fifteen of these
against members of the Saw Grinders' Union."

William Bragge.--William Bragge, F.S.A., engineer and antiquary, was born in
Birmingham in May, 1822, and early in life went into engineering there, and also
applied himself assiduously to mechanics and mathematics. Quite a young man he
began railway surveying, and was sent out to Brazil as representative of
Bellhouse & Co., Manchester, there carrying out the lighting of Rio de Janeiro
with gas and the survey of the first railway in that country. He was visited at
his home in Sheffield many years later by the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro.
Coming to Sheffield, Mr. Bragge became one of the directors of John Brown & Co.,
and was elected Mayor of the town and Master Cutler. All through his residence
in Sheffield he evinced the greatest interest in Sheffield's art schools and
libraries and museums. He returned to his native city in 1876, but had left a
very pronounced impression on the life of Sheffield during his stay. His
antiquarian tastes were catered for by his great wealth, but many of his almost
priceless treasures were destroyed in the great fire at the Birmingham Free
Library in 1879. He died on June 6th, 1884, aged 61 years. The collection of
manuscripts gathered together at great cost by Mr. Bragge was dispersed in
London in June, 1876, the three days sale producing a total of £9,333, and the
principal buyers being Messrs. Quaritch, Muller, Addington, and Stevens, the
last named for clients in the United States.

William Howson.--Mr. William Howson was 60 years old when he died at Tapton Park
in 1884 from paralysis.  His long life had been marked by strict common sense in
business, integrity, a kindly bearing and a generous disposition.  His father
was partner in the firm of Thomas Sansom & Sons, one of the oldest firms in the
town, and on his father's death in 1847 the son William became partner in the
same firm with James William Harrison. Subsequently they were joined by Henry
Harrison, the firm then taking its present title of Harrison Brothers & Howson,
and maintaining a high reputation throughout the world for Sheffield cutlery. 
Mr. William Howson was most prominent as traveller for his firm, but he retired
in 1875, his son George taking his place.

Charles Doncaster.--Mr. Charles Doncaster, who died in December, 1884, at Totley
Grove, will be best remembered as a deep and earnest educationist. He was head
of the poll at the election for the School Board in 1882, receiving 17,614
votes, and, though reserved, he was a very well liked and much respected man. He
was, of course, associated with the firm of Daniel Doncaster & Sons, and
formerly lived at The Hawthorns, Crookesmoor Road, then going to Beauchief,
which district was being gradually opened out residentially.   He chose a lovely
place for his house, quite secluded, and was there enabled to indulge his
pronounced love of botany to the full.  He died at the early age of 43.

Doncaster Family.--The story of the Doncaster family (1536-1912) was told in the
first issue of the works magazine, Forging Ahead, published by the firm in
January, 1919, and containing very much information respecting the early days of
the firm. The Doncasters came to Sheffield from Maplebeck, in Notts., between
Ollerton and Southwell, the little churchyard being full of " Doncaster" graves,
and the old family home a large cottage abutting on to the village green, its
oak beams in the ceilings black with age.  A Thomas Doncaster was Abbot of
Rufford Abbey when the monasteries were dissolved in 1536. The great great
grandfather of Mr. Samuel Doncaster was William of Maplebeck.  He was the
village blacksmith, his shoeing forge was on the village green, and he was a
Quaker married at Burton-on-Trent in 1718. "His son Samuel (1721-1792), after
whom I am named," wrote Mr. Samuel Doncaster, "was my grandfather, coming to
Sheffield about 1750, when "Sheffield was a big village of 11,000 inhabitants." 
He settled in West Bar, keeping a grocer's shop at the foot of Furnace Hill, and
also started soap works in the Park, perhaps, as Mr. Samuel Doncaster declared,
because he thought it would be better if Sheffielders "weshed theirsens a bit
more." His son Daniel took on the trade mark which the firm still uses when he
was only 21 years old, commencing as file maker and steel converter with
converting furnaces in Copper Street.  He lived in Allen Street, then the most
westerly street in the town, with open country and a beautiful landscape of the
Don Valley and the Old Park Woods.  His large garden and orchard covered the
ground on which the Doncaster Street works now stand. He, like Mr. H. I. Dixon
and others, used then to ride on horseback with big saddle bags for weeks at a
time, going as far north as Cumberland and as far south as Wales, collecting
orders and accounts. Later on his sons persuaded him to use a one-seated gig,
named a "sulky," in order that he might not be tempted into giving weary
travellers a lift, those weary ones as often as not proving to be highway
robbers. Two years before he died, Mr. Daniel Doncaster bought Lydgate Hall and
its farm of sixty acres, riding there from the works in Allen Street almost
every afternoon.  The father of Mr. Samuel Doncaster was another Daniel
(1807-1884), born in Allen Street, going as a child to a dames' school in Cross
Smithfield, just behind his father's house, afterwards to a Friends school in
Paradise Square, whence he went to William Singleton's school in Broom Hall, and
later to Loxley Hall school, finishing with a year's schooling at Leeds. He
built his first furnace and warehouse in Doncaster Street in 1831, and resided
at Upperthorpe House until the town overtook it, going to Broomhall Park in
1851.  He had five sons and five daughters, and in the newspaper obituary
published when he died he was spoken of as a man living "a truly noble,
unselfish and useful life full of good deeds, unostentatiously performed, and
though he has gone the memory of him will remain as a precious inheritance." He
had in later life been joined by Mr. Samuel Doncaster's brothers Daniel, David
Kenway and Charles, and Mr. Charles Doncaster during those years devoted a great
deal of care, foresight and ability to the interests of the firm.  Mr. Samuel
Doncaster joined the firm in 1874 as town traveller, after four years
apprenticeship with Seebohm & Dieckstahl, and his first depressing duty was to
sell stock bought at the high prices of 1872-3, following on the Franco-German
war, at a loss of from £5 to £10 per ton.

1885. Juliana Horatio Ewing.--The death occurred at Bath in 1885 of Mrs. Juliana
Horatio Ewing when only 43 years of age, a lady, according to all who knew her,
of delicate health but of the greatest charm, and one who, in her home at
Ecclesfield (she was the daughter of Dr. Alfred Gatty), attracted to herself a
wide and select circle.   Her world-famous writings were chiefly for the young,
but during the last twenty years of her brief life she wrote steadily, and had a
public eager for every fresh book. Perhaps "Jackanapes" was her best; over
50,000 copies of it were sold, and it secured wonderful appreciations from the
reviewers. The Academy said: "Here, stitched in a paper cover, almost
overlooked, was found the book of the season : there is nothing like it outside
Thackeray." The Spectator called it "an exquisite bit of finished work--a
Meissonier in its way."  Several of her books were most sympathetically
illustrated by that great book-illustrator, Randolph Caldecott; they were sound,
sensible, and always wholesome. The Rev. T. Wilkins, then Vicar of S. Michael
and All Angels', Neepsend, in an appreciation of this gifted lady, said that
from childhood her physical weaknesses brought out powers of mind and a vivid
imagination in a cheerfulness in bearing such as could have characterized no
ordinary person, and she used in the most modest way to read her stories round
the family fireside.  Hers was a pure and most useful life.


Alderman Robert Leader.--There was, at the time when Mr. Leng was issuing his
many fulminations from High Street, another editor in the town who preferred
bare knuckles to gloves when fighting. That was Mr. Robert Leader, editor and
also proprietor of the Sheffield Independent. The two marched along parallel
lines, each was ever ready to organize a sudden attack, seldom was there peace
between them in their newspaper work, and behind each was a solid body in
support. I have already indicated various traits which endeared Mr. Leng to
everybody who worked with him. It is very true that in Mr. Robert Leader's
character there was much in the same way. Where the two editors differed was in
politics, and there they differed utterly. As one browses over the old, dirty
newspaper files, discovery is easily made of the fierceness of the fighting
which went on between the two; the bayonet (meaning the pen) was always ready
for the fierce attack, and each man served his paper well. There was one
definite difference between the two. Mr. Leader, in spite of the great work
which he did for his paper and the town, found time to take part in municipal
affairs, whereas Mr. Leng left local ambitions alone, though fiercely eloquent
when discussing them in his paper. Mr. Leng had no recreative hobbies; but his
great rival found new life through his love of hunting. On one occasion, when
riding down through the town, Mr. Leader was flung off his horse head first into
an approaching hansom, and afterwards gleefully declared that the incident would
have made the fortune of any circus. As it was he picked himself out of the
hansom, walked on to his office, and embarked on his day's work without
worrying. Alderman Leader was only ill a week before his death took place, at
Moor End, on 11th October, 1885.  He was then 76 years old, and, to some extent,
death came about through his insistence on attending the meeting of the Town
Council, where discussion was promised on the suitability or otherwise of
allowing traction engines to be used in the streets of the town. Curious as it
may seem to-day, that was a subject on which the principal townsmen in the
'eighties were largely divided. Alderman Leader was born in October. 1809, being
son of another Robert Leader, who was, at that time, proprietor of the
Independent; he was educated at the Sheffield Grammar School, and was James
Montgomery's last apprentice on the Sheffield Iris.  Later, he joined his
father, taking a very active interest in the paper, and for the ensuing fifty
years or so seeing all the many newspaper developments of those changing days.
Alderman Leader's grandfather was engaged in trade, being a member of the firm
of Tudor, Leader & Nicholson, in Tudor Street; and Mr. Chisholm, who passed half
a century in the service of the Independent, tells me that in those far-off days
there was nothing between the premises of the firm here indicated and the
pleasant waters of the Sheaf save a rolling bank of country-side.  Mr. Leader
entered the Town Council in 1876, became alderman four years later, was also
elected Town Trustee, and was held in honour throughout the town. When Mr.
Leader lay dying, in 1885, Mr. Leng buried every atom of a long-standing strife.
The two life-long antagonists were men of a rare charm and sympathy, and, though
Mr. Leader's passing came at two o'clock in the morning in the year mentioned,
the Sheffield Telegraph appeared that morning with a striking and very manly
appreciation of its long-time rival. In it Mr. Leng spoke of him as a great
politician, a man of strong will, totally indifferent to all side issues, with a
robustness in his Liberalism which made him impatient of those of feebler sort.
He never cultivated the outward gloss; he never deviated from straight, blunt
speech, and with him politics was a real and very earnest thing. He took an
important part in every election fought in the town during his manhood, and
during the last few years occupied an absolutely unique position in his party.
His integrity was never in question, and on his own political platform he was
the happiest of men, but to smash an opponent was his one great delight. Men of
his stamp rarely arise to guide the fortunes of a party in any town. Mr. Leader
was directly responsible for indicating a blunder by Government which set back
the incorporation of the town by some years. Lord John Russell's motion, in
1832, to confer electoral rights on Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds caused
large disquiet in Sheffield, and Mr. Leader promptly sent out a pamphlet
entitled "A Pamphlet on the Population of the town of Sheffield, with a view to
its being comprehended in the motion about to be made in Parliament by Lord John
Russell." It had a very wide circulation, and pointed out that Lord John's
advisers had erred very badly.  They had informed him that Manchester, with its
many outlying districts, then  had a population  of  149,756;  Birmingham, also 
with  its outskirts, 106,722; and Leeds, with an even wider circuit of
dependencies, a population of 83,796. The pamphlet further showed that only the
Sheffield township was dealt with in Lord John's calculations, whereas it
possessed six townships, in all of which the same trade was being carried on.
Taking those six into consideration, the populations of the four towns referred
to were: Manchester, 149,796; Birmingham, 106,722; Leeds, 83,796; and Sheffield,
over 90,000. Apparently, the official blunder was one common in all works of
reference in connexion with Sheffield; but the blunder took Leeds into
possession of electoral rights in 1832, whereas Sheffield had to wait eleven
years before the Charter of Incorporation came--in August, 1843.

Matthew Ellison Hadfieid.--Monuments to his skill stood all over the town when
Mr. Matthew Ellison Hadfield died in 1885, 72 years old, at Knowle House, in
Norfolk Road. He was one of the founders of the Sheffield Club, and, when in the
Town Council (1854), was a very earnest supporter of the Corporations
Improvement Bill, for he was a man to whom the betterment of the town meant more
than the accumulation of wealth. A handsome, very genial and highly cultured
man, he had made his own way in the world. Born at Lees Hall, Glossop, he went
into the office of his maternal uncle, Mr. Michael Ellison, in Sheffield, when
15 years old, and was afterwards articled to a Doncaster architect. In 1837 he
became partner in Sheffield with Mr. John Grey Weightman, then busy with plans
for the Collegiate School, the offices being in the old Corn Exchange buildings.
For twenty years a fine business was carried on, especially during the Gothic
revival, and many churches in this country and Ireland were built to their
plans. Acting in association with Sir John Fowler, a great deal of work was
executed on the new M.S. & L. line to Sheffield and the East Coast. Mr. George
Goldie joined the firm in 1850; in 1864 Mr. Hadfield's son joined it, and the
business assumed very great proportions. Mr. Hadfield was employed by four Dukes
of Norfolk, and the town, at the time of his death, was full of his creations.
These included the Norfolk Market Hall, the Fitzalan Market, the Royal Victoria
Hotel, the Gas Company's Offices in Commercial Street, the Norfolk Drill Hall,
many Catholic Schools, S. Vincent's Church, S. Joseph's Home, Queen's Tower, the
Cyclops Works, Thornbury for Mr. F. T. Mappin, Bleak House for Mr. John Fowler
in Manchester Road, the Corn Exchange, S. Marie's Church, and Pawson &
Brailsford's fine pile at Church Gates.  He was also architect of the Salford
Roman Catholic Cathedral; he restored the Manor Lodge and the tombs of the
Shrewsbury family in the Parish Church.

George Wilson.--Mr. George Wilson, of Banner Cross, died at that residence in
December, 1885, and was attended during his illness by the famous London
specialist, Sir William Jenner. He had been seized with a stroke at Cyclops
Works, and whilst lying there stricken, so great was the respect shown for him,
that Mr. Michael Hunter stopped all his grinding wheels and machinery, the
tramcars were taken past the works at a walking pace, the railway engine drivers
were forbidden to whistle save under conditions of extreme urgency as they
passed along the line, and the Chief Constable diverted every possible bit of
street traffic elsewhere. All that could be done was done, but in vain, and
death ensued as stated. Though only 56 years old, Mr. Wilson had a European
reputation. Born at Broughty Ferry, he was with his father in Fifeshire in the
flax trade when he was noticed by Mr. Charles Cammell up there, and brought to
Sheffield when he was nine years old. There Mr. Cammell sent the boy to the
Collegiate School, and afterwards took him into his works in Furnival Street,
then Messrs. Johnson & Co. Later Mr. Cammell moved to a point where he could
most easily receive his coal and iron, and bought from the Duke of Norfolk 49
acres of land near the railway at twopence-halfpenny a yard.  At that time the
maximum output was a ton of springs a week, and the weekly wage bill £300. Mr.
Johnson died before this Savile Street enterprise developed, but in 1864 fifteen
acres of land was acquired, and yet another fifteen acres for future
developments. The result was that within 22 years the output had increased to
100 tons a week, with a weekly wage bill of £3,000. In 1864 the firm was turned
into a Limited Company, Mr. Wilson being managing director and Mr. Charles
Cammell chairman. Years before, when Messrs. Johnson & Cammell needed a
representative in America, they looked round and decided to send "young Wilson,"
a decision followed by the happiest possible results, for he made a splendid
overseas representative, and gradually, following on the conversion of the firm
into a Limited Company, rose to a position of great esteem through the whole
town. When the Russian Grand Dukes and the Lords of our Admiralty visited
Sheffield to see what was being done in the Cyclops Works, they were royally
entertained at Banner Cross by Mr. Wilson. In 1874 he became Master Cutler, his
Feast being delayed because he had great hopes of inducing the Prince and
Princess of Wales to attend it, a hope in which he was disappointed; but Mr.
Wilson found himself able to disclose the fact that they would visit the town
the following year, and to Mr. Mark Firth fell the honour of entertaining the
Royal couple. Responding to the toast of his health at that Feast, Mr. Wilson
said it was possible in extreme competition to cheapen too much.  They had an
immense labour market already being educated and already skilled to a degree
beyond anything known before, and that labour was being guided by employers well
known for their aptitude and energy. It was for them to see that Sheffield's
name was kept ahead of all the world. The death of Mr. Cammell occurred in 1879
at a time when Mr. Wilson was chairman of the Company. Before this the Dronfield
works had been established by Wilson, Cammell & Co. for the manufacture of a
patent wheel, a process which was abandoned, and the works used for production
of rails. A splendid plant was laid down, the result being a great business at a
time when other firms were doing comparatively little.  Gradually there came the
trouble over railway rates, and the inevitable fight. It was found impossible to
obtain concessions from any of the railway companies in the matter of rates, and
the firm eventually decided on the bold experiment of transferring the whole
establishment from Dronfield to Workington, and combining the Dronfield Steel
Works and the Derwent Hematite Company at Workington, on the Solway. That
resulted in an annual saving of £60,000, for it was possible to send the cargoes
of rails from the Solway to Liverpool by steam barges. To say that the scheme
and transference startled the entire trade world is but to state a sober fact,
but the " Bismarck of Commerce," as Mr. Wilson was often called, got it through
triumphantly. His enterprise was followed by other firms, and thus the trade in
rails left Sheffield. The Cyclops Works, with a called up capital of a million
and a half sterling, were rightly regarded as second only to those of Krupp in
Germany, and Mr. George Wilson was the ruling and the guiding spirit.  He was
kindness itself, and full of consideration for his men, and as one of his oldest
workmen said afterwards, "it is rare indeed that we get a George Wilson." The
removal of Cammells' works from Dronfield to the sea coast at Workington in far
off Cumberland came in 1881, to the great distress of Dronfield, a blow from
which it did not recover for a full generation. The firm made clear the reason
for the change, stating that it was induced by a desirability for competing more
effectually with its competitors in the home and foreign markets as makers of
steel rails, and throughout Sheffield at that time there was a definite dread
lest other great manufacturers of the town might follow suit and similarly carry
their industries to the coast. At the time when Cammells' great removal took
place it was pointed out that the cost of bringing raw material to Sheffield,
and of getting finished goods to the coast, was a great drawback to enterprise,
and before Cammells went there, other far-seeing capitalists had established
railmills along the Cumberland coast. The establishments at Workington, the West
Cumberland and the Moss Bay undertakings were cited, at each of which the output
in steel rails was said to exceed 1,600 tons weekly, whilst the rapid growth of
Workington was evidenced by its 44 blast furnaces within a six miles radius.

1886. James Poole.--One of the greatest of Sheffield's artists in the person of
James Poole died on March 14th, 1886. He was 82, and died at Ecclesall Manor
House. He was a most lovable man, with no touch of egotism about him.  Son of a
Birmingham merchant, his eldest brother, William, was a successful portrait
painter, and once President of the Sheffield School of Art.  James Poole came to
Sheffield when 23 years old with a collection of his paintings, and took rooms
at Riley's, the Old China Shop, where his stock was quickly exhausted, and Mr.
James Rimington, of Rimington Hall, was his first patron in Sheffield. For years
he taught, and reckoned that he walked 100 miles a week, going to Chesterfield,
giving his lessons, and walking both ways, and on Saturday--a day of
recreation--walking to Hathersage for fly fishing in the Derwent, and walking
home, usually with a full creel. None of those days was wasted, for when the
fish rose lazily he employed himself with his pencil sketching the beauties of a
valley which has grown very dear to thousands of Sheffielders in later years. 
Most of his money was invested in railways and Sheffield Water Company shares,
and when the great flood came in 1864, and there was a slump in railway stock,
he stood on the verge of ruin.  At that critical juncture came the consistent
and very generous patronage of Mr. Joseph Gillott.  That gave the artist steady
work for two years, and gradually he rebuilt his fortunes. Singularly enough, he
never exhibited in the Royal Academy, simply because he never sought to do so.
He sold his pictures as quickly as he painted them, and had a great vogue in
such places as Manchester, London and, curiously enough, Torquay, general wonder
being excited at his staying in Sheffield so long.  But James Poole, like many
another artist, loved Sheffield and its incomparable surroundings. For three
months of every summer he visited Scotland or Wales or Switzerland, always
returning with a portfolio full of sketches, the frameworks of pictures. 
Creswick, David Cox and he became great chums on these angling and sketching
excursions, and Poole was with Cox at Bettws-y-Coed when that artist repainted
the sign of the inn for a dinner, and which work, so it was said, was afterwards
sold for £1,000. Poole's style was very like Creswick's, and both were pupils of
Barber in Birmingham.  James Poole was passionately fond of mountain scenery,
"Mountain Poole," as he was called by his artist friends, and Creswick declared
that no man living had such "feeling" for mountains as James Poole.  Forest
scenery claimed his attention in later years, and when Lord Palmerston visited
Endcliffe Hall he expressed a very great admiration for the examples of Poole's
art which were hanging there.  Yet it is said that the highest price he ever got
for a painting was £120.

H. F. Crighton.--H. F. Crighton was an Ayrshire laddie, 62 years old when he
died in Scotland in 1886, having gone there from Sheffield on a visit.   His
father fought in the Scots Guards at Waterloo, and the son was a tailor when he
first exhibited paintings in the Edinburgh Academy, afterwards going for study
in Paris.  He lived in Sheffield for 30 years, and helped the local School of
Art a great deal, whilst he occupied a seat in the Town Council from 1869 to
1877. Ill health interfered with his work more than once, and he indulged in one
memorable trip to Algiers with his friend, W. Keeling, in 1883, and both found a
new field there for their talents. His principal local portraits were of Messrs.
Thomas Moore, W. C. Leng, Thomas Jessop, W. F. Dixon, Dr. Falding, and R. N.
Phillips, the last being exhibited in the Academy.

1881. Samuel Roberts.--Mr. Samuel Roberts, of Queen's Tower, died there, aged
87. The founder of the family, Mr. Samuel Roberts, was born in 1649, as stated
on his grave in Ecclesfield Churchyard, and died in 1715, having ten children. 
Jacob, the ninth, was baptized at Ecclesfield in 1697, and of his eight
children, the second son, Samuel, born in 1763 in Sheffield, was father of Mr.
Samuel Roberts, of Queen's Tower.  The father died in 1848, being 85 years old,
and having lived a remarkable life. Mr. Samuel Roberts, now spoken of, was born
at Park Grange, and educated at Milk Street, then in charge of J. H. Abraham,
and at Whitley Hall Boarding School. Then he went to the Old Grammar School in
Townhead Street, and afterwards to Catherine's College, Cambridge, where he took
his degrees. He joined his father's firm in Eyre Street as correspondent and
treasurer, but on his father's death took out his capital and retired from
business.  He became Town Trustee in 1847, and in 1872 was made Town Collector. 
In 1845 he entered the Town Council, and in the same year was made Alderman. His
life is spoken of as one of generous benevolence and great liberality. 
Practically every case which went before his notice was personally investigated,
and he made many large gifts to the charities of the town.  He built Queen's
Tower, but never lived there, and died in 1887.


James M. Wehli.-Sheffield ran close to entertaining an angel unawares when it
had as resident a gentleman who subsequently made a very great name for himself
in other countries. This was Baron James M. Wehli, who died at San Remo in 1887.
Twenty-five years before this date he was a very well-known musician in
Sheffield, and as professional pianist had under him the children of all the
first families in the town.  He also established an orchestra here, but the
Sheffield public was not educated up to the class of music he purveyed, and this
effort failed.  He left Sheffield about 1864, as Thalberg had discovered him
whilst paying a professional visit to the town, and took him on tour to London
and also on the Continent. Further than that, Wehli made a great success of a
visit he paid to the United States and Canada.  His first appearance with the
great Thalberg was at Leeds, where the couple played the duet from " Norma" in
such a fashion as roused the most tumultuous applause, and it was said that the
audience was astounded at the apparition of such amazing local talent. Before he
came to Sheffield Wehli had toured Germany with almost dramatic success, playing
before nearly every Court in Europe, before the Emperors of Russia and Austria,
before the Viceroy of Egypt, the Grand Duke of Baden, had been honoured by the
Sultan of Turkey, and also played before Queen Victoria.  He received presents
from all quarters, but retired into obscurity in Sheffield.  He was originally
pupil of Tomaschek and disciple of no mean school, severe and pure in method as
Thalberg himself, "as fervid as Liszt and with all Chopin's poetic delicacy and
charm."  He had, as a biographer of the day said, few living rivals.  The only
time he appeared in Sheffield after his departure with Thalberg was at the Music
Hall in Surrey Street.  What caused him to take up his residence here after his
triumphs abroad one cannot say.  At that time the town can have had no
musicianly attractions for such a soul; but he did come, and though making money
through his lessons the town revealed an aloofness characteristic of it in those
times and refused to honour him.

Arthur Hayball.--h Sheffield craftsman of great skill passed away in June, 1887,
when Arthur Hayball died.  He was 43 years at the Sheffield School of Art, as
his abilities secured for him the honour of being made a student for life in
1848.  He was described as unsurpassed in wood carving, and absolutely an artist
in expression. When the Great Exhibition of 1851 was held he sent up an exhibit
in defence of the character of the School of Art, and it was spoken of in the
following terms:  "This cabinet is the work of Arthur Hayball, a young wood
carver of Sheffield. Scarcely a single part of it is open to reasonable
objection.  The design is pure Italian, abundantly rich in ornament and free
from the monstrosities which too frequently deface similar productions."

How greatly his genious was appreciated may be estimated from commissions which
he executed. For the Duke of Norfolk he provided the fittings of Arundel Chapel,
and also supplied many reredoses, stalls and altars in Spain and Ireland; Dr.
Gatty entrusted him with much restoration work in Ecclesfield Church, and for
Mr. Henry Wilson he carved the handsome screen in St. Silas' Church.

William Hutchinson. -The death of Mr. William Hutchinson, then Alderman, took
place at Broomhall Park in 1887 when he was 87 years old. His father had quite a
prosperous business in Pinstone Street as scissor manufacturer, and the son, at
a time when the pressure of French competition was being felt, went to London as
traveller for his firm.  He could not sell his scissors--he was told Sheffield
folks kept taking to London just what London had and was asked if Sheffie!ders
had no ideas. The conversation ran on until the Londoner showed his young
visitor a scarificator and asked if his firm could make them.  The young man
believed that it could. One was brought home, and what had been an exclusive
trade in London was better done in Sheffield, where it created a new industry.

Thomas Jessop.--A very real shock ran through the town when Mr. Thomas Jessop
passed away at Endcliffe Grange, on November 30th, 1887.  He had reached the age
of eighty-three; and the appreciation in which he was held may to some extent be
gauged by the fact that the Sheffield Telegraph devoted five columns to the
story of his life. The story takes us to strange scenes.  Mr. Jessop was born in
Blast Lane, Sheffield, on January 30th, 1804, a genuine Park lad, and Blast Lane
in those days was a very different place to what it is to-day.  The canal then
was clear and pretty and full of fish, and it was no uncommon sight to see men
walk along its banks armed with little knobsticks with which they hit the
luckless fish on the head, and so caught them. His father's cottage in Blast
Lane is spoken of as a very charming place with a lovely lake and gardens.  As
with many other manufacturers in those days, Mr. Jessop, the father, lived next
door to his works, being a member of the firm of Mitchell, Raikes & Jessop, and
the son joined him in 1830. The firm was in quite a small way in the making of
steel, but it became William Jessop & Sons two years after the young man,
Thomas, had joined it. By that time he had become quite a practical man, and had
been to America on a very successful visit, wherein he laid the foundation for a
subsequent great connexion with that country. Then the business was taken to
Brightside, and afterwards, works at Kilnhurst were added.  Gradually the
Brightside works were enlarged until they covered thirty acres, all freehold,
including the site of the old Brightside water works which were acquired in 1845
from the assignees of Parker, Shore & Company; and more land had been secured by
purchase from Admiral Southeran,  The firm had originally been established in
1793, and its development in Brightside became so great that, very soon,
practically all the later additions to the Navy were fitted with Jessop's stern
posts, rudders and other parts, and to this had to be added considerable orders
from Continental navies as well. About the middle of the century there came a
period of very great anxiety with regard to funds; money was "tight" and every
ship due in Liverpool was very anxiously looked for because of the specie she
might have on board. In 1847, came a panic in banks and railways, and money went
to twenty per cent., but the firm pulled through at a time when  many others
could not stand the strain. It became a Limited Company in 1875, the valuation
of its assets being returned at £84,480, and twenty-nine acres were included at
twopence per yard. In his dealings with the shareholders in the new Company, Mr.
Jessop was liberality itself, and its prosperity was never in any doubt. It had
acted as pioneer in sending steel to America, and had got as much as £80 per ton
for it.  Those were the good times for Sheffield, the times before the
conversion of the firm into a limited company, and Mr. Jessop and his brother
Sidney heaped up their riches as quietly and as easily as was ever done
anywhere.  They used to call at the King's Head on the way to business in the
morning for a glass of beer, go to the Park works for an hour and a half, go
back to the King's Head for another glass and for bread and cheese, home to
dinner and back to the works in the evening. Not strenuous, but sufficing in the
days of which I write. Mr. Jessop was a very close friend of Mr. Gillott of
Birmingham, the great steel pen maker, and had as his contemporaries men who
assuredly helped to make Sheffield, such as T. B. Turton, W. A. Matthews,
Charles Hawksworth and William Woodhead. He owned Thornsett, near Bradfield,
where there used to be great gatherings whenever "the twelfth" came round; also
the Huggat estate on the Yorkshire Wolds, one of four thousand acres which cost
him £160,000; and Foston, near Driffield, an estate of six hundred acres.  His
first home in Sheffield after Blast Lane was in Claremont, then Farm Bank,
Shrewsbury Road, then Shirle Hill, and later and last, Endcliffe Grange. Mr.
Jessop was a man of great liberality and possessed no narrowness of view,
appreciating by voice and purse any movement from whatever source which he
regarded as calculated to benefit the town.  His own munificence in supplying
the town with Jessop's Hospital for women is well-known; it cost him £26,000,
and stands as a monument to his benevolence. He was a moving spirit in the
Birthday Club at the King's Head, and was its President to the last. His public
career opened in 1843, the year of Sheffield's incorporation. He became Master
Cutler in 1863, and Mayor the same year. He was re-elected in 1864, and two
years later, after a visit to America which had lasted several months, he was
accorded a remarkable ovation on re-entering the Council chamber. The last of
the great gatherings of the Birthday Club at the King's Head was held on
February 3rd, 1885, when the President's birthday was celebrated, a very large
company being present to greet Mr. Thomas Jessop. Mr. Edward Tozer had the
honour of proposing the toast of the evening, and the end of that Club came on
December 16th, 1887, a fortnight after the death of its promoter.  With his
death, the life and soul of the Club had vanished.  It really was the outcome of
a market dinner for the accommodation of farmers coming into the town, and was
thirty years old.  The first President was Mr. Dyson of Tinsley, and then Mr.
Jessop to the end.  In its more recent years, its membership had been comprised
of gentlemen in the town and neighbourhood for friendly intercourse.  There were
about sixty members, and the great day of its year was when the birthday of its
popular President was celebrated.

The Rt. Rev. Rowley Hill.--Many very notable churchmen have filled the position
of Vicar of Sheffield, and among the most distinguished the Rev. Rowley Hill,
who died in London, May 28th, 1887--a shock to Sheffield almost as sudden as
that of Dr. Sale in 1873, then Vicar of the town, and whose passing was very
tragic.  At the time of his death he was Bishop of Sodor and Man, having been
installed to that high office in 1877, and he had gone to London from his palace
in the Island to his house in town in Hereford Square to take part in the May
meetings.  On the 21st he was present at a levee given by the then Prince of
Wales, accompanied by the Rev. J. E. Blakeney and, being suddenly taken ill,
died within three days though attended by so eminent a surgeon as Sir Wm. Gull. 
He was Vicar of Sheffield from 1873 to 1877, was a man of rich fervour in the
pulpit, having few equals as a preacher, and was strictly evangelistic.  He was
a strong believer in the necessity for changes in the Church, and earnestly
strove for the coming of those changes before they were compelled by its
enemies, and always he was on very friendly terms with Nonconformists. A sworn
foe of Liberationists, however, he fought local ministers such as the Rev. David
Loxton and the Rev. Henry Quirk on many occasions, and, with the help of four
well-remembered curates, worked up a great organization in the town.  Those
curates were the Rev. H. Trotter, the Rev. Mowbray Trotter, the Rev. Marmaduke
Trotter and the Rev. C. M. Sharpe, the last-named playing cricket for Yorkshire
just as well as he preached.   The Bishop, when in Sheffield, saw Sheffield's
needs and grappled with them earnestly in every direction.  He was spoken of as
the "most genial of gentlemen with a natural and sparkling wit." It was whilst
he was Vicar that there came the restoration of the church, which was only
possible through the generosity of Mrs. Thornhill Gell.

John Yeomans.--The death of Mr. John Yeomans, Town Clerk of Sheffield, took
place at St. Leonard's-on-Sea on April 8th, 1887.  He had gone there from London
after the long-drawn-out battle of the Corporation and the Water Company, in
which the Corporation had proved successful the previous week.  He was 64 years
old.  He had his early education at what was then a notable
establishment-Wright's School in Howard's Hill, was articled to Mr. John Dixon,
admitted as solicitor in 1844, and began business with Mr. Francis Hoole in
Meetinghouse Lane.  He became Town Clerk in 1859, after a stiff contest with
Ald. W. Smith ; and when the Local Board was established under the Local
Government Act in 1864 he became its Clerk as well.   Its functions were to take
over, on behalf of the town, the highways, sewers and lighting. Mr. Yeomans was
a man wholly loyal to the town, and the borough business became a part of his
being.  His private life was very lovable, and his public career one of unbroken
integrity.  Recreation he knew little of, he had as his belief that "life would
be tolerable but for its pleasures." One thing for which he deserves to be
gratefully remembered in Sheffield was his firm, uncompromising attitude towards
the Gas and Water Companies and his earnest support of all efforts which had as
their purpose the acquisition of these monopolies for the town.  He was
practically successful, as has been said, only a week before his death.

Samuel Fox.--Mr. Samuel Fox, whose whole life bordered on the romantic, died at
Market Weighton, February, 1887, at the age of 71.  He was not really an old
man, but he had crowded into his life a man's hard, unremitting work, and he had
built up a magnificent business from nothing at all.  Of such stories the
commercial history of the town is fairly full.  He was son of a weaver's shuttle
maker at Bradwell, in Derbyshire, and was apprenticed to Cocker Bros., who at
that time had an establishment at Hathersage. Then he went to Sharrow Moor with
the same firm, and later entered into partnership with Mr. Rose in the Rivelin
wire works; but the firm was soon broken up by mutual consent, and Mr. Fox
drifted on to Stocksbridge, then a very sparsely-peopled hamlet. Here he rebuilt
old works and started in the making of wire, until very quickly he had drawn to
him over a hundred workpeople.  The simple device of the paragon frame for
umbrellas proved a gold mine and, by the secrecy adopted, he had made a fortune
out of it before other manufacturers realized what a very good thing it was. 
Not content with the frame, the umbrellas were covered as well at Fox's works;
and with his admirable wife Mr. Fox toiled on and gained fresh successess in
practically everything he touched.  It is reported that one customer from
Shoreham Street steel works used to travel to Stocksbridge for orders and, once
there, was given breakfast, his appointment being for six o'clock in the
morning, when Mr. Fox and his wife had already started their long day's work,
manual as well as managing.  They lived in a little cottage close to the
entrance to their works.  Crinoline steel, as it was made at Stocksbridge to
suit the new fashion, had a great run and added fresh triumph for the firm,
which also turned out rods for cables, telegraph wires, and steel ropes for
mines. In everything success came; and eventually, possibly tired of small
things, a Bessemer plant was installed for the making of rails and tyres and,
later still, railway springs.  By this time the works had become a very hive of
industry, with perfect contentment prevailing between master and man. In 1871
the concern was formed into a limited company with a capital of £300,000--not a
bad return even for thirty years toil--and when Mr. Fox died his £100 shares
were quoted on the Stock Exchange at £146. By that time the firm had built over
300 houses in Stocksbridge for its many workpeople.  A benevolent fund which had
been formed in the works had been a very great success.  Mr. Fox, seeing the
possibilities arising out of railway transit, built the present line from the
village to Deepcar station where it joins up with the main line of the present
L.N.E.R. He was a Fair Trader by conviction and loss of trade, for in the States
he found his profits drop from £80,000 to £8,000, and in France suffer a like
depreciation.  So he formed a factory in Lille with English workmen, and
here,-as in everything else he undertook, made an instant and very great
success.  It was said of his wife and himself that "they never tired though
working all the day and very often through the night as well."



1888. Robert Hadfield.--Mr. Robert Hadfield had been failing in health for three
or four years before his death, which occurred at Ashdell in 1888. He had
previously paid a visit to Switzerland in search of health, which, however,
failed to improve his condition.  Founder of the Hecla Works, he owed his
success wholly to his own efforts. He was a member of an old Sheffield family,
his mother being sister to Sir John Brown's father.  He was apprenticed to R.
Sorby & Sons, and there first tasted the romance of steel.  However, when his
apprenticeship was ended, he became assistant to Mr. Frederick Wever as Overseer
for Brightside and Attercliffe, and when his master went to the Sheffield
Savings Bank young Hadfield in turn became Overseer, remaining in the position
for a period of ten years. Even through this time his mind was turned on steel,
and in 1865 he allied himself with Mr. Jabez Shipman and commenced business in
wire under the style of H. Shipman & Co. at the Attercliffe Wire Mills.  After a
few years Robert Hadfield withdrew from the firm and devoted himself entirely to
the steel casting business.  The estate of William Charles came into the market
and the young man bought it with its models, patterns and plant, took the
Continental Works in Bessemer Road, and there founded a steadily increasing
business.  He foresaw that steel castings were capable of great improvement.  He
launched out into an enterprise so tremendous as to frighten his many friends,
buying land at Newhall Road and there building the Hecla Works, and ever since
that time the Hadfields Steel Foundry has carried on an extraordinary business.
Even in later life he was always watchful in Sheffield's interests, and was very
wroth when Woolwich came into the market as competitor for Government orders.

Rev. Samuel Earnshaw.--The era of assistant ministers at the Parish Church came
to an end on December 6th, 1888, when the Rev. Samuel Earnshaw died. He was M.A.
of Cambridge, but a very great deal more than that.  He died at Earn's Cliff,
Beech Hill Road, a house of his own designing.  He was born in 1805, of poor but
very industrious parents, and his schooling took place in the Carver Street
National School, the only one of its kind in the town, with twenty-two classes
and two teachers to each. He was principal usher when ten, then a paid monitor
receiving two guineas per annum, and, when 18, became a teacher in the school.
Very early he betrayed an extraordinary aptitude for mathematics, and the then
Vicar, Dr. Sutton, was very fond of taking his friends to the school to try and
puzzle the lad by their questions, but they never succeeded. In 1827 he went to
Cambridge  how, is unknown, but it is certain that the kindness of friends must
have been the cause.  Once there he made good, and very quickly a scholarship
was bestowed on him for mathematics. In 1831 he became Senior Wrangler and First
Smith's Prizeman, a double very rarely won. It is related that in that year Lord
Brougham had a protege, Gaskin, who had been declared by his tutors and Lord
Brougham's friends who had examined him to be invincible, and when the great
nobleman found Gaskin only second, he refused to stay and congratulate the
winner, young Earnshaw ! For sixteen years Samuel Earnshaw remained there as
teacher and coach, and had phenomenal success in the latter sphere.  He himself
used to say that during that period he had "men who paid a half-penny for a
lesson and others who paid a guinea."  He gave his lessons every quarter of an
hour for six hours--a method savouring of cramming--and his average earnings
reached £2,000 a year.  He had his carriage and many servants-"like a Don at
Cambridge." In 1847 there was a vacancy at the Parish Church, Sheffield, and he
became assistant minister at £400 a year, his health having shown signs of
giving way under the incessant strain.  He held that position to his death in
1888.  " His," wrote his biographer, "was one of the gentlest hearts that ever
breathed, pride and ambition were absolutely wanting in him."  In Sheffield he
was a great advocate of the Church Extension movement.  He was Vice-President of
Firth College, a great help to ail charitable efforts, and very prominent in the
Literary and Philosophical Society. It may be added that he was not the first of
Sheffield's Senior Wranglers, that distinction belonging to the Rev. John
Webster, of Corpus Christi College, son of a working cutler in Sheffield, who
gained the honour in 1756.

John Roberts (Abbeydale).-Sheffield lost a very good son when Mr. John Roberts,
of Abbeydale Park, died in 1888 when 90 years old. Early in life he was
apprenticed to a local gunsmith, but later gravitated into silver in more senses
than one.  The firm became known as Wilkinson & Roberts.  Eventually the latter
partner had matters in his own hands and went to Wirksworth, where he paid a
visit to his old school and there happened to mention to the old master that he
could do with a likely lad. " I have the one you want," was the reply.  "Come
here, Ebenezer." And Ebenezer Hall went forward, and in due time was
apprenticed. Therein came the foundation of Martin Hall & Co., for, after the
early partnership had become Roberts & Hall in 1847, it was amalgamated with
Martin & Naylor, of Fargate, in 1852, and took its present well-known title in
1865. A year later it was converted into a limited company. Mr. Roberts, who
took no part in public life, though often asked to do so, worshipped for a long
time at Nether, but later with the Church of England, and built and endowed S.
John's Church, Abbeydale.  For many years he lived in Shrewsbury Road, but
acquired Abbeydale Park, which he considerably enlarged without spoiling the old
part, and it was said at that time that on the favourite Baslow road there was
no more picturesque house than this, with its ivy-mantled walls and fine
gardens.

1889. Henry Swan.--A very gifted man passed away in the person of Mr. Henry Swan
in March, 1889, when 64 years old. Devizes born, he came to Sheffield after
doing notable work in London, where he had been one of the coterie of young men
whom John Ruskin had drawn around him at Great Ormond Street. He was at the
Working Men's College with George Allen, who afterwards became printer of Mr.
Ruskin's Books. Mr. Swan took up the study of illumination of MSS., and probably
knew more of the methods and processes than any other living man, and amongst
his pupils was Adelaide Proctor, the poetess and song-writer.  He prepared the
plates for Ruskin's "Modern Painters," these being signed by him as draughtsman
and engraver, and also engraved many of the plates for Isaac Pitman's early
books on stenography. He was, further, inventor of a system of photography
whereby an ordinary photograph mounted in a case or casket had all the corporal
solidarity of the sitter, and Lord Brougham and Louis Napoleon both sat to him
for portraits of this type.  His connexion with the Ruskin Museum as curator
dated from its establishment in Sheffield in 1877 until his death.

David Ward.-Mr. David Ward's name is still revered in Sheffield as that of one
of the most open handed of men and one whose unsparing energy and wonderful
grasp of business did great things for at least one section of the town in which
he lived.  His death was very tragic, occurring in 1889, for, hurrying for a
train at the Victoria Station after a busy morning's work in private and public
matters, the rush across the station bridge brought on sudden heart failure and
he died within two minutes in the arms of his wife. He was then on his way to
Burwell, near Louth, the estate of a friend where he hoped for much good
shooting, and had spent the previous Saturday at his shooting box, Lady Cross,
Stanedge moors.  He was only 55 years old. The firm of Ward & Payne! had been
founded close on a century prior to his association with it, and as he was only
seven years old when his father died the business was carried on on his behalf
by trustees. Directly he came into it he developed it wonderfully,  He began by
purchasing the carving tool business of Messrs. Aldis of London and roused the
trade in Sheffield when it was on the point of extinction to renewed prosperity.
Germany had earmarked it as one of her own, but Mr. Ward drove the Germans out
of the market by restless enthusiasm for the work. In sheep shears also he
created a boom. The Civil Wars in America had caused a great shortage and a huge
demand, and into this he threw all the efforts and resources of his firm until
here again he achieved very great success forming a valuable connexion with Cape
Colony, America and Australia. There was one thing about him, said one of his
workmen, "we could always get a hearing,'' and that saying goes to prove on what
admirable relations he and his workpeople stood. He was Master Cutler and Mayor
of Sheffield, and in the former connexion set an example which is still followed
of giving a dinner to his workpeople, their wives and sweethearts each year. His
two great years followed, one being 1877, and his Mayoralty coming in 1878, the
year of the visit of the British Association to Sheffield. In that year came a
period of intense trade depression and distress, Sheffield being described as a
"mass of misery."  But he threw himself into its relief with characteristic
zeal, and when it was ascertained that there was a shortage of £800 on the fund
he promptly squared the accounts out of his own pocket.  His great love of
flowers will be well remembered, his gardens at Mount View, Glossop Road, being
always very beautiful, and in later life he cultivated the orchid with success.

Henry Hall.--On March 3rd, 1889, Mr. Henry Hall passed away at his home, Llwynda
Court, Abergavenny, aged 87.  For many years he was partner with his
brother-in-law Mr. Edward Bingham in Sheffield, and after retiring and taking up
his home in Worcester, he was inspired afresh by the incoming of silver plating
and returned to Sheffield, being principal partner in the firm in Howard Street.
 It was said that when he was young his journeys took him to practically every
town and village in England, and his ceaseless energy did wonders for his firm,
that of Walker & Hall.  His tastes were high-he was devoted to literature,
poetry, nature and art, and his collection of paintings at Llwynda Court was
famous.

1890. Abram Brooksbank.--Mr. Abram Brooksbank died on April 21st, 1890, not a
Sheffielder by birth, but a very active citizen of the town to which he came,
one who commanded the respect of all parties without striving to do so.   He was
born in London, his people being in the leather trade.   He himself was
apprenticed to hardware, and came to Sheffield when his indentures were ended,
and in 1847, when Hoole's business in Malinda Street fell on evil times he
bought it, and the firm of Hoole & Brooksbank was formed.  Mr. Hoole, however,
went to London, and Mr. Brooksbank remained in Sheffield alone, conducting a
business as general merchant. Later he was joined by his nephew, Mr. Bryant
Turner, the firm taking the title of Abram Brooksbank & Co. In 1874 his
municipal activities began; he had placed his business on a sound footing, and
was quite ready to devote some portion of his life to the service of the town of
his adoption.  The two representatives of St. Philip's, Messrs. Gamble and J. H.
Andrew, were retiring in the year named; the latter resigned, and Messrs. Gamble
and Brooksbank were unopposed.  In 1877 Mr. Brooksbank retained his seat,
defeating Mr. Reuben Clark, and in 1880 he was again honoured by an unopposed
return to the Council.  In that year he allowed himself to be put forward as a
candidate for the Mayoralty, the Liberals then championing Alderman Michael
Hunter, but Mr. Brooksbank was returned by 31 votes against 26. In the following
month Mr. Mark Firth died, a vacancy thus arising on the Aldermanic Bench, and
Mr. Brooksbank, then Mayor, and Mr. J. W. Pye-Smith were nominated for the
vacancy, a tie resulting, and the Mayor, Mr. Brooksbank, giving his vote in
favour of Mr. Pye-Smith.  Previously that year, on November 9th, when the
election of Aldermen had taken place there had also been a tie, in that case
between Alderman Robert Leader and Mr. J. W. Pye-Smith, and then the Mayor,  Mr.
 Brooksbank,  had given  his casting vote in favour of Mr. Leader.

John Wilson.--Rising from the ranks has been a commonplace in Sheffield, and a
very striking instance of this comes in the life-story of Mr. John Wilson, a man
who, from the most hopeless outlook, died honoured throughout the town and much
further afield. His death occurred in June, 1890. He was then over 70 years old,
held an altogether unique position in Sheffield, and had proved that the
difficulties of combining the atmosphere of a grinder's hull with
self-improvement were not insuperable, so the Sheffield Independent said in its
obituary notice. He had shown mental activity and interest in all the public
movements of his time, always with a robust faith in himself. He was born in
Granville Street, his father a spring knife cutler, and when 13 years old this
boy was apprenticed to John Whittington, a pen and pocket knife grinder working
for Joseph Rodgers & Sons at the old Park Wheel, until there came completion of
the Top Wheel in Norfolk Street, when workmen and their apprentices moved in a
body to the new quarters. His education was of the poorest type, but throughout
his life he held that a man's education was never finished.  So one day a
fellow-workman, Anderton, at a time when both were apprentices, asked young
Wilson to go with him to the old Bridgehouses Wesleyan Sunday Schools, where
Anderton was conducting a class. The youngster went there for fun, but was so
impressed that he joined the little band, and for many years taught in that
school.  Anderton seems to have been a man with equal zeal, the two founded a
night school, and it was there that John Wilson first became acquainted with the
mysteries of the three "R's," very quickly developing a passion for knowledge in
the "Brotherhood of the People's College." With an increasing vision, Mr. Wilson
fought the instigators of the Trade Union Outrages tooth and nail, and though in
his early life he had been a member of the Pen and Pocket Blade Grinders Union
he only remained a member for three years, ceasing because he refused to be
mixed up with things of which he was ashamed. The particular reason for
withdrawing from his union was because he saw a fellow-workman draw money from
Broadhead for blowing up a boiler at the Dronfield Wheel.  From that date
onwards he refused to have anything to do with trade unions--his own or any
other. In 1865 he had the honour of reading a paper on the subject before the
members of the Social Science Congress in Sheflield. Mr. Wilson, later, declared
himself in no sense averse to co-operation with Trade Union leaders in any
movement which was believed to be in the interests of the working-men, and he
took a prominent part in the movement which brought into being the Merchandise
Act. In many ways he served his class. The reduction in Burial Fees in local
churchyards was largely due to him, and in 1873 a society was formed for the
object of protecting bereaved families from oppression of that kind. The
Brightside Burial Board revised its charges, but it was no uncommon sight for
Mr. Wilson to be seen in a churchyard, surplice and prayer-book complete,
conducting the service when the proper official declined to attend unless
prohibitive fees were paid.  That in effect was a clergyman's strike in
Sheffield.  The then Archbishop of York addressed a letter to Mr. Wilson on his
behaviour, but it did no good, and in more than one local churchyard there were
distressing scenes until compromise was arrived at and the agitation ended.  Mr.
Wilson was long a member of the Town Council, first standing in 1873 for
Ecclesall, but in 1874 he stood for Brightside, and remained Brightside's member
to his death. "Our John," as he was popularly known, was one of the notable
figures of his time in Sheffield.  In 1885 his name figured on a list of new
Justices of the Peace "to the general astonishment," said the Independent, but
the same paper's long obituary notice ended with the words: " Few of his class
ever read more, wrote more, talked more than John Wilson in his day, but on the
whole he did it to a good and useful purpose."

Edward Tozer.--From a very low rung of the ladder Mr. Edward Tozer, who died at
Crabtree Lodge in 1890, rose to a very high place in Sheffield's life, and he
was a ready exemplification of the saying, "Commerce, like war, has its heroes."
 He had the true business instinct, and, though born of poor parents, he became
partner in one of the town's best-known undertakings.  He was born at Clifton,
Bristol, in 1820, and when an infant was brought here, his mother, a widow,
setting up a school in Victoria Street. Later the boy found further education at
Broomhall School until, in 1831, he went to Sanderson Bros. & Co.'s Steel and
General Cutlery Works in West Street. In that office young Tozer found a
youthful colleague named Mark Firth and the two lads rose side by side in the
town.  Mr. Tozer stayed with Sanderson's 44 years until 1875, and, from 1840,
was practically head of the business, three of the Sandersons dying between 1852
and 1866. Then in 1869 the firm became a Limited Company with Mr. Tozer and Mr.
Halcomb joint managing directors. In 1875 Mr. Tozer, though then 55, found fresh
conquests, and, leaving Sanderson's, he joined Mr. Henry Steel, Mr. T. Hampton
and Mr. J. Peech in the Phoenix Works, which in that year was formed into a
limited company with a capital of £70,000.  Mr. Tozer remained there to his
death. How the young office colleagues of former years came across each other in
prosperity may be inferred from the fact that Mr. Tozer sold to Mr. Mark Firth
Sanderson's Works in West Street, because Mr. Firth wanted the land for his new
College at the corner of Leopold Street.  Again, when Mark Firth was Mayor,
Edward Tozer became an Alderman, and during Mr. Firth's Mayoralty Mr. Tozer was
elected Master Cutler. Sheffield trade, with all its romance, would find it
difficult to parallel such a case as this. It was said that Mr. Tozer's Cutlers'
Feast was one of the most successful of the series, and though his was almost a
business life he helped Dr. Bartolome to found the Athenaeum Club.


Mariano Martin de Bartolome.--It is not often given to a foreigner to come to
Sheffield and be so very welcome or successful as was the case with Dr. Mariano
Martin de Bartolome, who died at his home in Glossop Road, in 1890, aged 76.  He
was born at Segovia in Spain, of an old Castilian hidalgo family, and in
consequence of unrest in the country he, like hundreds of others, became
refugee. He came to England, staying first in the Channel Islands where he met
Miss Parker, a Sheffield lady whose pedigree is to be found in Hunter as
belonging to Shierclif, and their marriage induced the young pair to come to
Sheffield to settle down. The young husband busied himself with the study of
medicine, and in 1838 became M.D. of Edinburgh University.  He was made very
welcome in Sheffield, had an infinite capacity for work, and showed great skill
as a surgeon, until in 1866 it was acknowledged that he had become quite the
recognized leader of the profession in the town.  To him no young student ever
went in vain.  For the greater part of his professional life he had his home in
Eyre Street, where Dr. Hargreaves lived later, but in 1880 he removed to the
more convenient "Doctors' row" in Glossop Reap and there so far added to his
reputation that he was regarded as one of the cleverest doctors in the north of
England. His ardent temperament drew to him a wide circle of friends and, though
his opinions were always expressed strongly, there was a kindness about the man
which endeared to him very many who realized his thoroughness and earnestness. 
He was associated with the Sheffield School of Medicine from 1848, and during
the first 18 years of his connexion with it delivered 100 lectures every winter,
computing that altogether he gave 3,000 of these to students. His very great
share in promotion of the formation of the Sheffield Medical School is a page of
history.  To that purpose he devoted all his energies and earnestness and saw it
achieve a considerable success.  He knew all about the inconveniences of the old
school in Surrey Street from experience.  Further, he took a prominent part in
the formation of the British Medical Association and was its President in the
year 1886 when its meetings were held in Sheffield, and his personal hospitality
was then spoken of as unbounded.  He was also first President of the Athenaeum
in Sheffield, holding the position for 36 years, when the utmost care, patience,
tact and judgment had to be exercised lest it should cease altogether.  He was a
very notable Freemason and the father of the cult in Sheffield, whilst he was an
original Director of the M. S. and L. Railway and on the Firth College Council. 
Altogether he was a very busy man, a striking proof of the capacity of a man for
work when the responsibilities of his own profession appear sufficient to
overwhelm him.


Rev. Robert Stainton.--When the Rev. Robert Stainton died in 1890 the Sheffield
Independent said he would to a large extent be remembered for the part he played
during the period of the Broadhead outrages, especially when he convened a mass
meeting in Paradise Square to denounce what Broadhead was doing and the
newspaper reports of the time stating that there were that day "upwards of
thirty thousand people in the famous Square." That was in 1867 and, with the
rousing of the town through that and other meetings, there came more than one
attack on the then minister of Garden Street by Broadhead's supporters, but
personal violence was only threatened on one occasion. It came at a time when
Broadhead's friends were posted in the vicinity of my father's home in
Broomspring Lane, and one day my mother was told that a gentleman wished to see
her.  She went into the room and there found the visitor striding up and down in
very obvious agitation.  She asked him to sit down but he refused. Still
striding about he threw both hands above his head and then said quite quietly,
"I am William Broadhead. Your husband must stop his meetings, I will not allow
them.  I have come to tell him so, and if they are not stopped he will be
stopped." Then he calmed down, besought my mother to use her influence, and,
just as suddenly, walked out of the house. The subject of this notice, with the
Rev. Henry Tarrant, organized the Sunday afternoon services at the Theatre Royal
in Tudor Street, but after one session, Mr. Tarrant ceased to take part, and my
father carried them on alone.  He was born in Hawick and came to Sheffield from
George Street Chapel, Huddersfield--now a carpet warehouse--in 1865, was largely
responsible for the rebuilding of Garden Street Chapel and secured a great
success there.  When, in 1877, illness compelled his retirement from Sheffield,
there were over 1,100 actual communicants on the Church books, quite an
unprecedented thing in local church history.  At the same time as this work was
going on at Garden Street, he was conducting his Sunday afternoon services each
week either in the Theatre Royal or the Albert Hall and, possessed of a good
baritone voice, added much to the pleasure of his audiences by singing, as
Sankey did in a later age, on the platform.  One Sunday afternoon when speaking
to a packed Theatre Royal there was an alarm of fire and a general rush for
safety, but he remained singing on the stage and calm resulted. In 1868 he was
presented by the working men of the town with an inscribed gold watch in return
for his campaign against Broadhead, and in 1873 a town's testimonial of £400 was
presented to him at a meeting in the Cutlers' Hall, a testimonial subscribed to
by people of all classes, and at which meeting the Mayor (Alderman T. Moore)
presided. Many newspaper sketches were written of the way in which those Sunday
services were carried on. Always they were on topical subjects and the Rev.
Charles Leach, afterwards of Birmingham, in his book "How I reached the Masses"
paid a high tribute to him as the sole inspirer of the great work which that
minister did in a later age in the Midlands. Mr. Joseph Binney published certain
correspondence with the Vicar of Sheffield, the Rev. Rowland Hill, in January,
1875, with regard to the statement that the Rev. Robert Stainton had preached to
a Moody and Sankey overflow meeting from the altar steps in the Parish Church.
Twice Mr. Binney wrote to the Vicar asking for information so that he could
carry the matter forward, and enclosing a statement which had appeared in the
London Standard on the subject.  It was in reply to the second letter that the
Vicar wrote as follows: "Not having the honour of your acquaintance, and the
Parish Church having been opened in my absence, on the occasion to which you
refer, without my consent, I must ask you to seek your information from those
who were there." Mr. Binney, therefore, sought the aid of the Editor of the
Sheffield Daily Telegraph, but got cold comfort there.  In reply Mr. Leng stated
that "he had made enquiries as to the charge and was assured that Mr. Stainton
had taken infinite pains not to transgress in any way."  Mr. Binney's enthusiasm
ended at that point. The Sheffield Telegraph dealing with the incident declared
that in the absence of the clergy Mr. Stainton spoke privately to a pew full of
people at a time and once addressed three pews full, desisting when the Rev.
Owen asked him to do so. The Rev. Dr. Potter, at a lecture delivered in S.
Luke's Schools on January 18th, 1875, said there was nothing illegal in what had
been done; a dissenting minister could address the whole church full of people
so long as he did not enter the pulpit. When the Rev. W. Odom invited Dr.
Ballard to address a men's meeting in Heeley Church in 1904, he did so possibly
wholly ignorant of precedent, but confessed his desire to see the invitation
bring about greater charity amongst Christians.  Dr. Ballard, said a spectator,
seemed a little strange at first.  He went in with the choir and took a seat to
the left of the communion table, afterwards kneeling down by the communion table
during prayers with his arms resting upon it.  During the singing of the hymn
Dr. Ballard went into the pulpit. Made acquainted by the vicar of his proposed
invitation to Dr. Ballard, the Archbishop of York replied, strongly urging him
to withdraw the invitation on the grounds that it was contrary to ecclesiastic
law, but His Grace did not think it desirable to take further proceedings. In
later years Mr. Robert Holmes, the Sheffield Police Court Missionary, preached
twice at least in Sheffield churches, once in the Parish Church itself on
October 16th, 1910, and before then on August 28th from the pulpit in Pitsmoor
Church.  In neither case was the slightest objection raised. Perhaps the world
has grown a little more tolerant than when it possessed red hot zealots like Mr.
Binney.

1891. Robert Forester Mushet-"The Bessemer-Mushet Process, or Manufacture of
Cheap Steel."  Such is the title of a little neatly-bound book kindly lent to me
by the firm of Messrs. Samuel Osborn & Co., and dealing with the discoveries of
the Mushets, father and son, and the influence of those discoveries on the
prosperity of the firm referred to. The book was written by Robert Forester
Mushet, dated May 1, 1883, and bearing an inscription: "To Mrs. Osborn, with
best respects and kind regards from the Author." The introduction, a matter of
one page, is as follows:  "I am the youngest son of David Mushet, formerly of
the Clyde, Alfreton and Whitclift Ironworks, discoverer of the Black-band
Ironstone which has enriched Scotland, and inventor of the process called
Puddling Furnaces, by means of which one firm alone of ironmakers gained, on
their own showing, over £500,000 in the course of 14 years.  Mr. D. Mushet
likewise invented the method of producing steel by melting bar iron with
charcoal.  He was likewise the first who published correct ideas on the subject
of the Iron and Steel Manufacture." The book was issued from Cheltenham, and has
a preface in which the author declares his desire to set the merits of Sir Henry
Bessemer's process and "my own process in a clear light, so that the world in
assigning to Sir Henry's process all the praise it so richly deserves may at the
same time not wholly overlook, as up to the present time has usually happened,
the part my process has played in the manufacture of cheap steel."  He adds, "I
by no means arrogate to myself the idea that if I had never invented my
Spiegel-Eisen process no one else would ever have found it out. I have frankly
and publicly said that Mr. Bessemer would in all probability of sooner or later
have made the discovery.  I, however, was fortunate enough to anticipate him,
and all the world besides, in perfecting this marvellous invention. Mr. Mushet
also tells us in this introduction that Bessemer was not made knight for his
steel invention, but received the honour for a most ingenious invention of a
stamp which, by preventing frauds, saved the British Government over six
millions sterling, and for which he never received anything save his knighthood.

The story of the Bessemer-Mushet process or manufacture of cheap steel follows. 
Mr. Mushet says that "during the summer of 1848 Mr. Henry Burgess, editor of The
Bankers' Circular, brought me a lump of white crystallized metal which he said
was found in Rhenish Prussia, where, he was told, a mountain of it existed. He
had merely confounded iron with iron ore, an error often committed.  Being
familiar with alloys of iron and manganese," says Mr. Mushet, "I at once
recognized this lump of metal as an alloy of these two metals and, as such, of
great value in the making of steel.   Later, I found that the white metallic
alloy was the product of steel ore, called also spathose iron ore, being, in
fact, a double carbonate of iron and manganese found in the Rhenish mountains,
and that it was most carefully selected and smelted in small blast furnaces,
charcoal fuel alone being employed and the only flux used being lime. The metal
was run from the furnace into shallow iron troughs similar to the old refiners'
boxes, and the cakes thus formed, when cold and broken up, showed large and
beautifully bright facets and crystals specked with minute spots of uncombined
carbon.  It was called, from its brightness, 'spiegel glanz' or spiegel eisen,
i.e., looking-glass iron.  Practically its analysis was:  Iron, 86…25;
manganese, 8…50; and carbon, 5…25; making a total of 100…00."  From this point
the book becomes highly technical in dealing with Mr. Mushet's researches. It
was from this spiegel eisen that the steels were prepared for which Rhenish
Prussia had for so long a time been celebrated, and after which first Napoleon
had hankered when he coveted the German Rhenish provinces. "I saw," says Mr.
Mushet, " that this metal was of the utmost importance to steel-making, and that
it was essential to the manufacture of steel of superior quality.  I ordered 12
tons of the best spiegel eisen from Siegen. It cost me about £14 per ton
delivered in London, where the Custom House officials described it as 'crude
spelter'.  Having a small steel works of my own and my own time at my disposal I
made a series of trials and combinations of this metal with iron and steel, and
found that I could greatly cheapen the cost of production and at the same time
improve the quality of the steel produced.  I had seen that wrought iron long
exposed to flame and draughts of air became comparatively valueless, and so only
sold at about a fourth of its original value. It was termed burnt iron. By
alloying this spiegel I found that I could restore its original quality and even
improve upon it, and proceeded to ascertain the reason for that kind of
renovation. The fracture of fire bars of burnt iron was crystalline in place of
fibrous, and I concluded that when wrought iron had a crystalline fracture it
contained simple or pure oxygen shut up in it, occluded in fact. " In what
manner or in what form it was thus shut up I could not say, nor could anybody
else.  Next, I set about removing the oxygen and improving the burnt iron by
means of the great affinity of carbon for oxygen, but was unsuccessful.  Carbon
was powerless to eliminate the obnoxious oxygen.  Then arose the question, why
did spiegel, a compound of iron, manganese and carbon, accomplish what carbon
alone had failed to effect. Knowing the powerful affinity of manganese for
oxygen, and vice versa, I arrived at the conclusion that the introduction of as
much metallic manganese as was necessary to combine with the occluded oxygen in
the burnt iron would bring about the required elimination of the oxygen in the
slag, as an oxide of manganese.  Never had I any reason for altering my opinion
as regarded this occluded oxygen, and as to its elimination or removal by the
addition of spiegel, that was then and ever after remained an incontrovertible
fact. "Years passed away; certainly I had mastered the subject of the effects of
spiegel when alloyed in various ways with iron and steel, and then there came
the reading of Mr. Bessemer's celebrated paper at Cheltenham on 'The Manufacture
of Steel and Iron.' It was read in 1856. I was not at that meeting, but Mr.
Thomas Brown, then managing director of the Ebbw Vale Iron Company, came to me
bringing pieces of Mr. Bessemer's pneumatized iron which had been decarbonized
at his works at Chelsea by his pneumatic process.  The pieces of metal were
blown from Blaenavon pig iron, a very good quality of cast iron, but by no means
the best suited for Mr. Bessemer's process. " When I read his paper I saw at
once that the product he obtained was in effect burnt iron, and also that the
blast would not remove the sulphur from the metal, nor probably the phosphorus. 
It was then essential to his final success that the iron operated upon should be
practically free from sulphur and phosphorus, for I had proved clearly that the
presence of these pests, even in minute percentages, was, in steel, fatal to its
commercial value. That fact had long been known to steel-makers. It was also
essential to Mr. Bessemer's successful carrying out of his great invention that
he should be able to remove the occluded oxygen.  I knew the metallic manganese
would effect this, and I had that metallic manganese in alloy with iron as found
in spiegel.  I therefore added to some of the Chelsea Bessemer metal from
Blaenavon pig iron three per cent, of the purest spiegel and fused those
ingredients together.  The small ingot obtained was forged, and was quite free
from redshortness at any usual temperature, but was inferior steel, owing to the
presence of sulphur and probably phosphorus in the Blaenavon pig iron. "Mr.
Brown, later, brought to me one of his bars; it resembled an old-fashioned
puddle bar, from the worst redshort iron, only it was far more deeply cracked.
He held it up in one hand and asked me, 'See, this is all we can do; can you
help us !'  I replied, 'Yes, I can.'  The metal of this bar was very soft but
tough, almost as much so as fine copper.  I had part of it cut into small
pieces, and of them I placed 16 oz. in a small clay crucible, and placed the
crucible with its lid in a small assay furnace capable of fusing wrought iron. 
Into another smaller crucible I put 1 oz. of pure spiegel and placed the
crucible in the flue of the melting-furnace.  When the contents of the crucibles
were melted I withdrew quickly both crucibles from the furnace, poured the
melted spiegel into the melted Bessemer metal and then emptied the mixture into
a small ingot mould.  The ingot was smooth and piped and had all the appearance
of good cast steel. I heated it to a fair cast steel heat, Mrs. Mushet held the
ingot in a pair of tongs, and with a sledge hammer I drew one-half of it into a
flat bar.  That bar I heated and twisted in a vice at a white heat, a red heat,
and a low red heat. It remained quite sound, and clear in the edges, and not a
trace of redshortness remained. I next doubled the bar, welded it, and drew it
into a chisel, which I hardened, tempered, and tested severely on hard cast
iron. It stood well, and was in fact cast steel, worth 42s. per cwt.  I saw then
that the Bessemer process was perfected and that, with fair play, untold wealth
would reward Mr. Bessemer and myself. However, the tragedy of the patent
followed, dissipating all such dreams, in which, says Mr. Mushet "Much against
my inclination, the name of Mr. Bessemer was replaced by that of Mr. S. G.
Martien, by whom an absurd and impracticable process had been filed previous to
the data of Mr. Bessemer's great patent.  Mr. Martien's claim was partially to
decarbonize melted cast iron by running it from the blast furnace along a cast
iron gutter, the bottom of which was perforated with numerous small holes
through which air was forced.  The metal thus treated was run into a receptacle,
whatever that might mean.  Not a syllable was said, however, as to converting
the cast iron into steel or malleable iron.  It was, indeed, a pneumatic process
possessing neither value nor utility, unless it was desired to make an
exhibition of fireworks at the cost of the iron. "However, my patent was filed
22nd September,  1856, and a very poor and lame affair it was, though the
Counsel's fees were £300 and to me were not worth as much pence.  My patent was
taken out for England, France and America. Mr. Brown arranged for his partners,
the Ebbw Vale Iron Company, that I should have a moiety of the proceeds from
royalties, whilst his firm was to have the other moiety for being at the cost of
the patents and for guarding them from being trifled with or pirated.  The deed
of arrangement was promised, but was never executed, or, so far as I know, ever
drawn up. " I had to complete and file the final specification within six months
of my patent being conceded, and naturally required a small furnace or hearth
and a blowing apparatus, to enable me to test my process direct from the
converter and without re-melting the Bessemer scrap.  It was then that, for the
first time, Mr. Brown exhibited the cold shoulder to me.  I asked him to let me
have the facilities just referred to without delay, but was told by his firm
that there was not sufficient time to set up the apparatus, nor was it
essential.  It was in that very great dilemma, abandoned by Mr. Brown, my early
patron, and running the great risk of being unable to complete my claim, that I
turned to Mr. S. H. Blackwell and assigned to him one-half my interests in the
patents on condition that he would procure for me the blowing apparatus and
other essentials, and act as trustee for me in my quarter share of the interest
in the patents. "In five weeks Mr. Blackwell had done everything I required--he
had set up a cupola for melting the pig iron, a Bessemer hearth 15 in. square
and 5 ft. in depth, and a blowing apparatus driven by a band from a large pulley
fixed on the end of the flywheel shaft which worked the tilt-hammers. My
complete specification eventually went through, the patent being thus arranged: 
The Ebbw Vale one moiety interest, Mr. Blackwell one-quarter, and one-quarter
for myself.  Pending the filing of my complete specification the Ebbw Vale
Company had consulted an eminent London chemist who had pronounced that my claim
was quite worthless, because it was quite impossible that the spiegel eisen
could mix properly with the Bessemer metal. "From that date the Ebbw Vale
shelved me and difficulties overwhelmed me in every direction. Mr. Blackwell had
got into heavy pecuniary difficulties;  Mr. Brown, the other trustee of my
patent, let matters slide until the third year's stamp duty fell due, a matter
of £50.  They omitted to pay it, they gave me no notice respecting it, and so my
process became public property, the patent lapsed, and anybody could use the
process. " Mr. Bessemer," wrote Mr. Mushet in his book, "had a perfect right to
make use of it and his prosperity dated from that period, and no application for
a re-grant of the patent was ever made.  My foreign patents were all forfeit
save the American one, and in that I managed to secure an interest amounting to
the sixteenth part of one thirty-second part of the royalties; but the patent
ran out before the enormous advance began in the manufacture of Bessemer-Mushet
steel in America, and so a few hundred pounds represented the amount I realized
from my invention in place of its fair value of half-a-million pounds sterling."
It will be seen that Mr. Mushet had very bitter experiences in connexion with
his one great discovery; he had others in later years in connexion with steel
rails, and certainly what Mr. Mushet wrote suggests clearly that his relations
with Ebbw Vale were not of the pleasantest.  Only a year after the futile patent
came steel rails rolled by that company from Mr. Mushet's Bessemer and Mushet
ingots, cast at the Forest Steel Works, near Coleford, in the Forest of Dean. 
"The double-headed rail," he writes, "sent back to me after being rolled was
quite sound and perfect, but so thickly stamped with the words Ebbw Vale Iron
Co. that there was no room on it for my name--the name of the maker. I was
directed to send it to Derby Midland Station, where it was to be laid down at a
part of the line where, as was stated to me, the iron rails had to be renewed
every six months, and occasionally every three." Early in 1857 Mr. Mushet's rail
was placed in position, and in 1863 the Ebbw Vale Company officially declared
that the rail remained apparently as perfect as ever, though about 700 trains
had passed over it daily.  In 1867 Mr. Mushet wrote to the Midland Railway
Company asking if the company would re-sell the rail to him, and in reply was
told that the rail had been taken out and used up despite a promise by the
company that if ever it was taken out Mr. Mushet should have the refusal of it. 
During its 16 years "life" 1,252,000 detached engines and tenders at the least,
apart from trains, had passed over that rail. Gradually the Bessemer-Mushet
process progressed, but very seldom did Mr. Mushet's name appear in connexion
with it, until in April, 1879, there came a letter in the Standard newspaper
signed by Mr. George Wilson, the Managing Director of Chas. Cammell & Co., in
which occurred the following:  "With no desire to detract from Mr. Bessemer's
merits I hold that his material should certainly be termed Bessemer-Mushet
steel, as it is certainly due to a modification invented by the latter eminent
metallurgist that the Bessemer steel ingots attained a value for any practical
purposes whatever."  Following on that letter came others. In the same year Mr.
Isaac Lowthian Bell expressed his intention of defending Mr. Mushet's work
wherever possible, and a letter in The Times by Mr. H. K. Jordan, also written
in 1879, ran as follows:  "In your leading article to-day you speak of the
Bessemer process as being the result of the brain-work of one man.  This is not
so, for another renowned metallurgist, Mr. R. F. Mushet, has, or rather should
have, co-ordinate honours.  In fact it was Mr. Mushet who successfully completed
the Bessemer process. While drawing attention to the honour so deservedly
conferred upon one illustrious inventor, I am sure you do not wish to detract
from the honour due to another."  That letter was written from Gold Tops, Mon. 
Mr. Mushet disclaimed the suggestion that he was "a renowned metallurgist,"
declaring that he "merely supplied the rudder to the Bessemer ship, and a rudder
is indispensable no matter how otherwise complete the ship may be." The great
acknowledgment came in 1876 at the meetings of the Iron and Steel Institute in
London, when Mr. Menelaus, the President, said it would be needless to enlarge
at any length on what the iron and steel trades of England owed to Mr. Mushet. 
He was son of a man who was one of the first to apply scientific research to the
everyday operations of iron-making. His great work was the discovery of the
black-band ironstone, which had founded one of our leading British industries,
that being the Scottish Iron Trade.  The elder Mr. Mushet extended his
researches into the manufacture and properties of steel, at a time when very
little was known on the subject, and he was enabled to throw a great deal of
light upon it. The son followed in the footsteps of his father. It would be
needless to enquire into the success which attended his efforts, as they were
all overshadowed by his beautiful application of his spiegel eisen process to
the invention of Mr. Bessemer, and it was on that ground that the Council of the
Institute, after giving the matter full consideration, had decided to award the
Bessemer Gold Medal that year, 1876, to Mr. R. F. Mushet. He believed that all
the members would agree with him that the application of the process he had
mentioned was one of the most elegant and beautiful processes in metallurgy.  It
was worthy of being associated with Mr. Bessemer's process.  The two would go
down to posterity together, and nobody in the room would be more pleased than
Mr. Bessemer himself that they proposed paying that compliment to Mr. Mushet. It
was only right that the medal introduced by Mr. Bessemer should be given to one
who had made his system perfect. Mr. Bessemer thereupon spoke, declaring that
Mr. Mushet's invention supplemented his own beyond any shadow of doubt, and said
that he was very glad that the medal had been awarded to Mr. Mushet as he so
nobly deserved. Throughout this little book of 64 pages there runs a spirit of
egoism as well as acute disappointment, and, following on the conferring of the
medal just referred to, he declared that, "as regards the great lions of
metallurgy, the inventors of such processes, I appear to be in the position of
the mouse in Aesop's Fables, and it has been my office to relieve them by
gnawing away the fetters of burnt iron by which they were unexpectedly
entangled. The most pride, however, that I feel is that I never was inside a
steel works save my own, and never even saw the outside of one save the Avonside
Steel Works in Bristol." He referred to a remark by Dr. C. R. Brown, who said
that the Bessemer-Mushet process was still used to some extent. To that he
replied that every steel works in England, France and America used it, and that
were the steel-makers of Sheffield deprived of their oxide of manganese and
their charcoal and his triple metallic compound of iron, carbon and manganese,
Sheffield would be ruined.  In 1836 the annual production of spiegel eisen was
less than 2,000 tons; in 1882 it was fully 280,000 tons, with a money value of
over one million pounds sterling, the vast increase being solely due to his
invention.

Barbara Wreakes.--Few Sheffielders were listened to with greater attention than
Ald. William Smith, and one of the most interesting of his many papers was that
on Barbara Wreakes, read before the Literary and Philosophical Society in March,
1889.  Afterwards Mrs. Barbara Holland, this gifted lady filled a by no means
inconspicuous place in local history.  She first married Mr. Thomas Bradshaw
Hoole, but was a widow in two years, and, thrown on her own resources, had
recourse to an active pen. Her first venture was a small volume of verse issued
by subscription in 1805 and, though the poems were indifferent with little of
the real poetic fire, there was so much sympathy for her that the subscription
issue produced several hundred pounds. Then she opened a boarding house in
Harrogate, and there began writing the tales which made her famous in this
country, in Europe and the States.  Ten years later, she married Christopher
Holland, a young artist who afterwards achieved considerable fame as a landscape
painter. For forty years the outpouring of books went on and the sale was
enormous; they were chiefly of the novelette type, but "her name was celebrated
in all lands." Following residence in Knaresborough, she went to London, where
her home was spoken of as the centre for the best literary and artistic society
of the day. A pure, gentle, brave woman, she was referred to as "having
contributed much to the mental, moral and religious improvement of her day." She
wrote a very fascinating contribution on "Old Sheffield Worthies" in the
Sheffield Courant.

A. A. Jowitt.--Mr. A. A. Jowitt died at Dore in 1891, the elder son of Thomas
Jowitt of ScotiaWorks, the firm first taking the title of Jowitt & Batty. Mr. A.
A. Jowitt was apprenticed to his father and became partner when twenty-eight
years old, the firm being Thomas Jowitt & Son, and the new partner travelled the
United States regularly, bringing great prosperity to his firm by his energy and
business acumen.   He went there possessed of a complete mastery of trade
matters, and created a fine market for the goods being turned out at home. For
twenty years he made journeys across the Atlantic, and it was said of him that
in that period he was a better known man on Broadway than in Brightside or
Fargate. Originally, the works were in Savile Street, later at Royds Mill,
Attercliffe, and last of all, on the banks of the Don near Attercliffe bridge.
The founder of the firm died in 1875. Mr A. A. Jowitt was in the Town Council
for three years, and was Master Cutler in 1882.


Henry Elliott Hoole.--The death of Mr. Henry Elliott Hoole occurred at
Ravenfield Park, Rotherham, on February 1st, 1891, when eighty-five years old;
and he had been at his beloved Green Lane works as recently as the 24th January.
 In the 'fifties and 'sixties, and even earlier, Mr. Hoole was indubitably a
"big" Sheffielder.  He was active in the movement which brought about the
incorporation of the town in 1843; in 1856, he was one of its Aldermen, and in
1859 Mayor, after suffering two defeats. At the Great Exhibition (1851), he was
selected to go round with Queen Victoria and explain the nature of the Sheffield
exhibits to Her Majesty, and later, the Society for Promotion of the Arts and
Sciences gave him its highest diploma. A man of commanding personality and very
genial, he had a firm business instinct and developed one of the finest stove
grate industries in the country, down at Green Lane, though for years he had
keen rivals in the firm of Shaw & Jobson in Roscoe Place, whose business he
acquired in 1888.  He was responsible for Mr. George Hadfield coming to
Sheffield as a Parliamentary candidate, and also for visits to the town of
several distinguished men such as Lord Brougham, Lord Russell and the Earl of
Shaftesbury, entertaining them very royally.  In all this he found time to think
of others and was one of the founders of the Ragged Schools.

Bernard Wake.--How very near he was to being one of the truly great men of the
town, those who had greater opportunities of knowing than the writer can
testify, but it is beyond all question that in very many directions, Mr. Bernard
Wake, who died April, 1891, held a position of very great influence in
Sheffield. Mr. Bernard John Wake died in 1842 when sixty-four years old, his
elder son, William, being articled to his father, and the younger, Bernard, to
his brother; and on being admitted, the two brothers began business as William &
Bernard Wake in Castle Court. No change occurred till 1876, when Mr. W. Wake,
the Registrar, took offices in Bank Street, and Mr. Bernard Wake remained in
Castle Court with his firm known as B. Wake & Co., Mr. H. O. Maxfield joining
him, and later a son of each partner being added. Mr. Wake became one of the
great authorities on lead mining customs and cases, then a matter of very great
local interest, and a paper which he read before the local Law Society was
regarded as the most explicit known. He also was Chairman of many of Sheffield's
large trading concerns.  One of the town's best cricketers, he played in all its
representative matches in his youth, and his commanding and genial presence is
still well remembered in the town. Mr. Bernard Wake was spoken of as "a typical
lawyer loving the law for its own sake, and the more intricate it was the better
he liked it."  He was an early President of the local Law Society, was a notable
Churchman, and had much to do with the successful carrying out of the extension
scheme put forward by Archbishop Longley, whilst the Priory at Ecclesfield found
in him a constant benefactor.  In 1878, he made himself responsible for the
entire reseating of the nave, and placed stained glass in the glorious Church in
memory of his wife, beautifying an interior which even then was a constant
delight to visitors.  He bought Ecclesfield Hall and the Priory, and renovating
them, presented the latter to the parish; he became Trustee of the Sheffield
Dispensary when Mr. Sorby, of Park Grange, died; he bought a commodious house at
Sandygate for a convalescent home for women, placing it at the disposal of the
hospital; and also defrayed the cost of an out-patients department of the
institution at a cost of £7,000.  Further, he was Trustee of Jessop's Hospital,
but never took any really public office.

Rev. James Stacey.--The life-story of the Rev. James Stacey is worth studying. 
He died at Ranmoor Crescent in 1891 when 73 years old, was born in one of the
most dismal parts of the town, Dunfields on Shalesmoor, and was educated at the
Lancasterian Schools. His schooling ended when he was nine years old, and at
that age be became an errand boy. Then he became a cutler at Joseph Rodgers &
Sons' works, but all through those days was a great reader. There was then a
bookseller's shop on Shalesmoor, and as he passed it to his work he gazed in
fascination at the windows, until one day he walked into the shop.  His master
gave him twopence a week for himself, and he arranged with the bookseller, who
must have been a man of ideas and sympathy, to deposit this sum until the lad
could secure for himself Johnson's Dictionary and an English Grammar.  Later, he
became a local preacher under the Rev. Thomas Allen at. Scotland Street, and in
due course was appointed to train candidates for the ministry.  One of the most
active in promotion of the establishment of the College at Ranmoor, he was its
first Principal, in 1863, and made a very real success of his work there.

Samuel Osborn.--The death of Mr. Samuel Osborn, Mayor of the town, occurred at
Blackpool in 1891 when he was 65 years old.  His health for some time previous
had been precarious. His home was Heatherfield, but just prior to his death he
had purchased Clarke House and had intended moving there with his family, though
never doing so.  He was described as a man of sterling business capacity,
unblemished character, high moral worth, and deep religious feeling.  His was an
old Sheffield family and he was born at Ecclesall in 1826, getting his early
education at Eadon's school. He was in due course apprenticed to Thomas Ellin &
Co. and afterwards joined Henry Rossell & Co., but in 1852 he started business
on his own account in Brookhill in a factory formerly in the occupation of Mr.
Beet. Files occupied Mr. Osborn's early attention, but when he went to the
Wicker his enterprises broadened out. His new premises had formerly been the
works of Howell, Shortridge & Co., and Mr. Osborn carried on the business of a
steel refiner with much success in partnership with Mr. W. H. Fawcett, and in
1873 he became Master Cutler.  Earlier he had had the west of England trade
virtually in his own hands, but in later days he exploited other areas and
foreign trade as well. On his death Mr. Osborn left a very fragrant memory
behind, for he was well liked everywhere and very earnest.  He entered the Town
Council in 1869 and retired in 1872, subsequently re-entering the Council in
1884.

1893. Benjamin Huntsman.--Mr. Benjamin Huntsman died in 1893, at West Retford,
member of a Doncaster family, and great grandson of the inventor of cast steel. 
 His only direct association with Sheffield was in the fact that, for five
years, he was proprietor of the Sheffield and Tinsley Collieries when a
prolonged strike cost him a fortune. He afterwards declared that he had known
his pits purposely flooded and one set on fire, and he said without hesitation,
fired maliciously. In connexion with his death, one or two interesting items in
relation to his great grandfather were made known.   One was the publication of
a pamphlet in 1792, by Fourness & Ashmore, engineers to the Prince of Wales and
the Duke of Clarence, and addressed to the public. It was described by the
authors as "A succinct account of Huntsman's cast steel," and the authors added,
"We issue it because, during the thirty years he was making his steel, Huntsman
so neglected his own interests and credit as never to have given the public any
idea or account of his invention.  The whole of this information we offer to the
public as friends of a man who we think ought, in an advanced stage of his life,
as well for his own gratification as his family's prosperity and comfort, to be
repaid by the increase in trade for his expenditure in time and his sedulity in
contributing to the convenience of the mechanical part of society." The name of
Huntsman is inseparable from the Attercliffe district. Mr. Benjamin Huntsman was
the inventor of cast steel, the great invention of the eighteenth century.  He
was born in Lincolnshire in 1704, and after early work at Doncaster and
Haxworth, in connexion with his research, he removed to Attercliffe in 1770, and
there devoted himself to perfect his ideas. He worked most of the early years at
night so as to secure secrecy, but only lived six years after his removal to
Attercliffe, dying there and being buried in the Attercliffe Churchyard.  His
tombstone is in marble, protected by iron railings and surmounted by a
sarcophagus bearing the inscription: "Benjamin Huntsman of Attercliffe, steel
refiner, aged 72."  The son succeeded to the business but was unsuited to it,
and not until Francis, his grandson, took it over did it secure the larger
success.

Thomas Hawksley.--Many highly skilled engineers have been associated with
Sheffield enterprises, one of them unquestionably in Mr. Thomas Hawksley, whose
obituary appeared in The Times in September, 1893, and was copied into the local
newspapers.  He was one of the best known civil engineers of the day, born in
Nottingham in 1807, and in 1830 making the waterworks in his native town.  In
1852, he went to London, and used to say that during his busy life he had
constructed over 150 waterworks of various kinds, and there were very few cities
and large towns in the country for which he was not consultant. In 1850, he was
responsible for giving Liverpool its water supply from the Rivington Pike, a
distance of twenty-two miles, and that stands as the first occasion when such a
stupendous achievement was carried through, though commonplace in more recent
days.  Later he carried water to the same town from the far-off Severn; and
other towns which sought his genius in the same direction were Leeds, Leicester,
Sheffield, Huddersfield, Rochdale, Barnsley, Merthyr, all from high gathering
grounds; and Bridgetown in Barbados. He was designer of the present system for
supplying water to Sheffield, and from the opening of the Water Company's
undertaking to its transfer to the Sheffield Corporation, he was consulting
engineer and "the constant service of water which was purveyed by his skill gave
him honours of very many kinds."


1895. W. E. Laycock.--The death of Mr. W. E. Laycock took place in 1895, at
Scarborough, where he had a residence for many years.  He was eighty years old
and stood out as one of Sheffield's many makers of great businesses. By his
friends he was spoken of as "one of the kindest and most indulgent of parents,
and the worthiest of citizens."  In his day, he bore a full share of the
anxieties and worries and also of the successes of a business man, and he took a
prominent and acceptable share in public life, with a generous interest in all
that was for benefiting and instructing the people, sharing in their sorrows and
sufferings, whilst his influence "was ever on the side of public morality and
uprightness in life.'" There was a good deal of romance attached to his business
life, and also a very great deal of anxiety.  It may be news to most people,
that in his early days he was a weaver in the Millsands carpet weaving
establishment with a fellow workman there in John Crossley. The time came when
these two young men decided to stretch out. John Crossley went to Halifax, where
he founded what has since become the largest carpet weaving establishment in the
town or possibly in any town in England, whilst young Laycock set up a
hair-seating factory in Portobello, taking his three sons with him. This was a
success practically from the start, though, in the early days, the business was
surrounded by many trade uprisings and difficulties.  In 1855 this factory was
burned down, but it was pluckily rebuilt, and, years afterwards, the Millsands
business was incorporated with it, and Mr. C. D. Pettinger became a partner in
what had become a flourishing concern.  In the same year as saw his factory
destroyed by fire, Mr. Laycock purchased Stumperlowe Orange, having previously
lived quite close to his works in Portobello House.

John B. Jackson.--Alderman J. B. Jackson, of Kersal Mount, Manchester Road, who
died in 1895 at Rhyl, was unquestionably one of Sheffield's foremost citizens,
and a man of burly figure.  He was blunt of speech, but had a racy humour
characteristic of many Sheffielders, and possessed marvellous capacity for
business. His father had received the Cross of the Legion of Honour from
Napoleon III in 1855 at the Paris Exhibition, so that the commercial instinct
was inherited. The founder of the business with which the Jacksons became
associated (Spear & Jackson) was John Love, who combined the business of a
draper with that of cast steel refiner and founder in Castle Street--a
combination not at all unusual in Sheffield in those days. When quite young Mr.
J. B. Jackson travelled on behalf of the firm all over Europe, often visiting
America, and in 1873, at the Vienna Exhibition, received the Order of Francis
Joseph for his firm's exhibit.

Rev. John Edward Blakeney.--The Rev. J. E. Blakeney, Archdeacon of Sheffield,
passed away on January 12th, 1895, beloved by everybody who knew him.  He was
born in Ireland, and was 70 years old when he died. Coming to S. Paul's Church
as Vicar in 1860, he became Vicar of Sheffield in 1877, and in that time saw new
schools built at a cost of £5,000 and the church restored at a cost of £2,500.
He was then spoken of by the Archbishop of York as one of the most energetic
young clergymen in the province. Following the Rev. Rowley Hill at S. Peter's,
where he stayed until his death, he accomplished a great work, and
Nonconformity, as well as his own Church, had cause to rejoice over his presence
in the town.  After thirty years ministry in Sheffield he was presented with his
portrait (painted by Archibald Stuart Wortley) at the Cutlers' Hall. He served
under five archbishops, saw the population increased by 150,000 people, saw 17
new parishes formed, 17 new churches opened, and 18 parsonages. The working men
were very proud of him, and during the great distress of 1888, when the
Corporation opened a stone yard for relief, he went down and personally tested
the work required of the men. That was a thing the working men never forgot.

John William Pye-Smith.--When Mr. John William Pye-Smith passed away at his
home, Uplands, Manchester Road, in 1895, there died at the early age of 54 a
gentleman who had served the city with singular ability. Educated at Mill Hill,
for he was a member of a very old family of Congregationalists, he passed
through his articles with Messrs. Pye-Smith and Wightman, and eventually joined
the firm which became Burdekin, Smith and Pye-Smith.  He became a very sound
lawyer, but it was his public life which gave him his greatest opportunities. He
became in turn Councillor, Alderman, Mayor, and Town Clerk of Sheffield, and
singular incidents surrounded his election as Alderman and Mayor.  He became
Alderman in 1880, on the casting vote of the Mayor, who was the other candidate.
A month prior to this the Mayor (Councillor Brooksbank) had given his casting
vote against Mr. Pye-Smith in a similar election.  Then, when made Mayor on
November 9th, 1885, Mr. Pye-Smith had the almost unique experience of being
elected by his political opponents and voted against by the Liberals. That came
because the Liberals declared there had been a tacit agreement between the
parties that Alderman Clegg should be elected unanimously, a contention which
the Conservatives strongly denied. Mr. C. T. Skelton said his party would gladly
have supported Mr. Pye-Smith for the love they bore him had it not been for this
understanding, and Mr. Batty Langley followed in the same strain.  The result
was that 29 Conservatives and four Liberals supported Mr. Pye-Smith, and 20
Liberals Mr. Clegg. It was spoken of as the most singular incident in the
history of the Council. In 1887 Mr. John Yeomans died, and Mr. Pye-Smith applied
for the position of Town Clerk. He was unanimously elected at a salary of
£1,250. He was habitually hedged round with reserve, but beneath a cold exterior
was a very sympathetic disposition, and also a generous and warm heart. He was
"the soul of honour and courtesy, but no orator."

Dr. Arthur Jackson.--Dr. Arthur Jackson of Wilkinson Street, Sheffield, died in
1895 in his fifty-second year. He was a very fervent lover of his birthplace,
Sheffield, and his researches respecting its former inhabitants were many and
very valuable, coming into the possession of the city on the death of his wife,
and now forming the much conned Jackson Collection in the Reference Library in
Surrey Street.  He was the fourth son of Henry Jackson, surgeon of St. James'
Row, the eldest being Dr. Henry Jackson of Cambridge University, the second and
third dying in childhood; and Arthur, the youngest, was educated at the
Collegiate School and Cheltenham College. He studied in the Sheffield Medical
School and the Infirmary, his father being one of the honorary surgeons at the
latter Institution, and later, the young man studied at Barts. His father died
just when the son had qualified, so the latter came straight back to Sheffield,
being there associated with Mr. Jonathan Barber. He married a daughter of Mr.
Bernard Wake, and on the death of that gentleman, succeeded him as Treasurer of
the Hospital.  Very early in his active life in Sheffield, he became established
as a consulting surgeon; his manner was blunt, and to those who only knew him
superficially, sometimes brusque, but there was a world of kindness behind the
manner, and he was greatly liked.

John Tasker.--The short, rather ungainly figure, so well-known in the centre of
the city in the 'seventies and 'eighties, gave no indication of the busy, active
brain which governed it, but a glance into Mr. John Tasker's keen eyes revealed
something of the indomitable will, the almost dauntless courage which spurred
him on to researches which have left undying marks on the story of Sheffield's
progress. He died in Sheffield in 1895, at his home in Lawson Road, then being
seventy-six years old. In early life a bootmaker, he founded a rubber and
leather belting business in 1855 in Snig Hill, but prosperity so quickly came
that he very soon had to remove to Angel Street, where a remarkable business was
built up. The full tide had scarcely come when Mr. Tasker heard of the telephone
just then coming in, and his ever ingenious mind was captivated by its
possibilities; he commenced investigations into the telephone largely as a hobby
at the outset. The Exchange which he founded in 1877 was the first to be opened
in the provinces. He was faced by innumerable difficulties; discouragement came
from his personal friends, but he kept on and finally established a very
prosperous service.  That did not satisfy him.  In 1886 he erected an expensive
plant for the production of electric light, first providing his customers with
arc lights, and afterwards with incandescent. Three years later, a football
match was played at Bramall Lane, by what was known as "Wells' light," under the
control of Mr. Tasker, so that his interest in new forms of lighting was no new
thing. In 1888, a company was formed-The Sheffield Telephone Exchange and
Electric Light Co. Ltd., with Mr. John Tasker as Chairman; and this was
re-formed in 1891 as The Sheffield Electric Light and Power Co. He was succeeded
as Chairman by Ald. George Franklin. On March 12th, 1892, the National Telephone
Co. took over the Sheffield Telephone Exchange on the understanding that there
was to be no increase in the subscribers' tariff.   The new switch, now in
Station Road, was opened on March 22nd, 1893, and transfer of telephones to the
Government came about in the later days of 1905. July 1st, 1895, was a very
important day in the history of all provincial towns, for on it they were placed
in direct trunk-line communication with London on the telephone, under a system
inaugurated by the G.P.O. By a Treasury minute of May, 1892, the Government
stipulated that the operations of the licensed Telephone Companies should be
confined to definite areas or towns, and that the trunk service should be in the
hands of the G.P.O.  For the trunk-line system, an amazing amount of wire was
required, being 2,719 miles of 800 lb. copper per mile per wire; 4,914 of 600
lb. copper per mile per wire, and 3,025 of 400 lb. copper per mile per wire; 96
miles of submarine cable 24 miles long, or altogether 10,754 miles or 2,889
tons.  The "backbone" wire from London through Leeds to Edinburgh, Glasgow and
Dublin was the heaviest copper wire ever erected--800 lb. per mile. The
underground wires at that time were regarded as seriously impairing efficiency
and clearness. The local experiments took place in the Sheffield Post Office,
similar simultaneous arrangements having been made with Liverpool, Manchester,
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Bristol, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.  In
Sheffield, amongst those present were the Master Cutler (Mr. C.. H. Bingham),
Ald. William Smith, Ald. Bramley, Ald. Hunter, and Mr. Alexander Wilson. Mr. T.
Noble (then Postmaster) had the arrangements in hand, and, on connexion being
established with London, Sheffield of the towns mentioned had the honour of
leading off. At the London end of the wire was Mr. Spencer Walpole, representing
the Postmaster General, and he spoke to the Master Cutler, saying that the
Postmaster General hoped the innovation would be to the advantage of all and for
the good of the trade and city of Sheffield. The Master Cutler said that,
speaking on behalf of the gentlemen in the room, they were delighted with the
distinctness of the message, which all were hearing simultaneously. " I
suppose," he added "this is not the first time connexion has been set up between
Sheffield and London." "You are quite right," said London. The Master Cutler
asked when the service would be available for the public, and was told in about
a month. Then the Master Cutler asked if it would be connected with the
Sheffield Exchange; and was told that the Post Office hoped that would be the
case. Bagpipes were then played in the Glasgow Post Office and heard very
distinctly in Sheffield; similarly, a musical box in London gave pleasure in
Sheffield, and Sheffield responded to these items by a song, sung by Mrs. Senior
of the Grammar School, which London heard quite well.  The initial charges were
threepence a call up to twenty miles; sixpence up to forty miles; every further
forty miles cost another sixpence; and the call to London cost two shillings.
The first electric light installation by Mr. John Tasker was made in 1878, and
for several years the supply was given from Sheaf Street. In 1891 the business
was turned into a limited company; in 1894 the Sheaf Street Station was made;
and in 1898 the Corporation acquired the business for £299,348.

William Johnson Clegg.-A romance of Sheffield life comes with the consideration
of the career of Alderman William Johnson Clegg.  His, for many years, was one
long struggle, but the indomitable perseverance and pluck of the man overcame
everything, until he took the highest honours Sheffield could give him.  He was
born in Earl Street, and died at Cliffe Tower on June 15th, 1895. Educated at
Carver Street National Schools, he opened his business career in the offices of
Mr. Vickers, solicitor, father of Mr. C. E. Vickers, and later became Collector
of Rates for Sheffield. Retiring from that position, he became an accountant in
Chapel Walk. Shortly afterwards came his great chance, and he grasped it with
all the vigour of a very energetic mind. In co-operation with Mr. C. E.
Broadbent he threw himself into a new occupation, that of arranging and settling
claims against the Water Company by those who had suffered through the flood,
and night and day work gave very many people compensation from the company which
they might not otherwise have secured. The success gave Mr. Clegg a broader
ambition, and he decided to become a solicitor. It was no easy step which he
took, for he had a wife and many children dependent upon him, but he left them
in Sheffield and, going to London, took two small rooms there, and joined the
staff of a firm of solicitors.  He sacrificed himself entirely to his ambition. 
He rose at five in the morning, and studied until it was breakfast time, then he
spent the day at business, condensed his dinner, tea and supper into one meal,
and again devoted himself to study.  So in 1868 he passed his examination when
42 years old, and began life afresh in the town of his birth. In 1883, on the
passing of the Bankruptcy Act, he became Sheffield's first Official Receiver,
and by that time his sons were able to take charge of the business which he had
built up in Figtree Lane.  He was a pleasant man, spare in build, with keen grey
eyes and a thin beard, a man of great intelligence, tremendous activity and
resolution.  A militant and aggressive temperance advocate, he led many
campaigns against the "trade." His greatest triumphs came in municipal life, and
in the Council he was a very frequent speaker, a dialectic duellist with Mr.
Herbert Bramley, and his keen instinct and ready humour gave him many successes.
Into that Chamber he took a style which, sometimes dictatorial, was generally
convincing.  Altogether there were few abler debaters in the Council, and his
judgment was sound and reliable, whilst his impartiality during his mayoralties,
which extended over two and a half years, was acknowledged very freely by his
opponents.

1896. Rev. Henry Arnold Favell.--The death of the Rev. Henry Arnold Favell,
Archdeacon of Sheffield and Vicar of S. Mark's, came very suddenly when only 51
years old.  He was member of a very old Yorkshire family, his father being Dr.
C. F. Favell, and his grandfather Dr. John Favell, who died at Ackworth in 1840,
and who had retired after a residence in Sheffield dating back to 1790. A
century earlier, members of the family were resident at Normanton, and a section
of that body came to Sheffield and settled here. Mr. H. A. Favell was born in a
house opposite to S. Paul's Church, his early education being at the Collegiate
School, whence he went to Caius College, Cambridge. In 1867 he was ordained
curate by the Bishop of Worcester to a church in Birmingham, the then vicar of
the church being Dr. Wilkinson, formerly vicar of S. Mary's, Sheffield.  In
1873, on the death of the Rev. W. Mercer, the living of S. George's was offered
to Mr. Favell by Dr. Sale, then Vicar of Sheffield, and that was the last
preferment made by Dr. Sale, whose death came a month later. For ten years Mr.
Favell remained there, taking a great part in the life of the town, endearing
himself to everybody by the cheeriness of his manner and unfailing nod as he
passed down into the town, proving himself a preacher of power, but always
afflicted by one of the most unfortunate ailments, that of recognizing an
individual without being able to recall the name.  In his ten years stay at S.
George's he found the parish changing very greatly; a working class population
was creeping up, but the new conditions found the Vicar ready for them.  Always
he was a man who preached to men, his nature was extremely lovable, and the
working people grew to have a great affection for him. In December, 1893, the
resignation of the Rev. W. Milton created a vacancy at S. Mark's, and Mr. Favell
went there, the gift being with the Church Burgesses of the town.  There also he
was eminently successful, and was made Archdeacon on the death of Archdeacon
Blakeney.

Sir John Brown.-There is ample justification for the claim that Sir John Brown
was one of the great townsmen of Sheffield in the 'sixties and onward; actually
it is not easy to distinguish between the great Sheffielder and his
contemporary, Mr. Thomas Jessop. It was John Brown who first rolled armour
plates, and armour plates became of international importance. In civic life he
was the more conspicuous, though Mr. Jessop also filled the town's great
Offices, the position of Master Cutler and of Mayor.  He was born in 1804,
whereas John Brown's birth occurred in 1816, and each was in the full flush of
manhood in the 'sixties. Sir John Brown died at Shortlands, in Kent, then
staying with friends in the hope that he might recover his early strength, but
he was 80 years old, and recovery was beyond him.  He was born on December 6th,
1816, in Favell's Yard, in Fargate, a part of the town then very much favoured
by people in good position for residence.  He, however, claimed no social
advantages; his start in life was very humble, and his early schooling took
place in a garret.  However, that garret was touched by romance, for it is
recorded that on the seat opposite to young Brown sat Mary Schofield, destined
to become his wife. School ended at 14, and at that age John Brown's father
proposed to apprentice him to a linen draper, but the youngster had a soul above
a counter.  "I want to be a merchant," said he, and, argue as the father might,
he had his way. "Why," cried the perplexed father, "do you want to be a
merchant"  "Because a merchant trades with the whole world," was the answer. The
result was that indentures were taken out with the firm of Fail, Horton & Co.,
factors, of Orchard Place.  For two years the boy drew no wages, and in the next
three years six shillings per week. When he attained his majority his father
gave him the usual suit of clothes, his blessing, and a sovereign--and the world
was open to him. Prior to this, in 1836, his firm had embarked in the making of
steel in Rockingham Street, and when he was 21 young Brown was offered a share
in this Hallamshire Works business.  Disappointment faced him at the start, for
he could not command the money required, but Mr. Earl offered him his factoring
business, and offered to provide part of the necessary  funds for carrying it
on.  That generous offer was accepted, the father and uncle found security for
£500, and a horse and gig took that proud young head of a business among his
customers. Very soon the horse and gig became a four-wheeled cab, so quickly did
the trade increase. He made his own cutlery, and success again jumped at him; he
looked into steel, and in 1844 began to make it, and, whatever he had done
before, that step in 1844 formed the start of his world-career.  This steel
making establishment was in Orchard Street, and, like all John Brown's ventures
of those days, was instantly successful. The factoring business was disposed of,
and new premises acquired in Furnival Street for the making of railway springs
and files. It was in connexion with railways that he had his first chance of
handling really big money as his own; he had been prospering for years, but his
invention of the conical spring buffer brought him such wealth as to make all
future schemes and ambitions possible to him. As with most big inventions, this
was quite a simple thing. It really was a case of who thought of an obvious
benefit first. The railways of those days provided little comfort for
passengers; the seats were hard, the trains were slow, and progress was
punctuated by painful jars and concussion.  So, to ease the rude shock and pain
caused by the impact of two carriages, came this conical spring buffer.  John
Brown sold it as fast as he could make it in Ireland and Scotland, and
eventually sleepy old England realized that there was a good thing on the
market, and the L. & N.W. Railway was the first English company to adopt the
invention. There had been jarred spines and bruised shoulders by the thousand on
English railway systems in the intervening months. So the John Brown enterprise
flourished. Once, when up in Scotland, the head of a great municipal undertaking
asked him for goods that had to be made, but it was essential that they should
be delivered in five days. By some uncanny miracle of perseverance and pluck, by
ceaseless work by himself and everyone on his works, by himself undertaking
carriage and partial shipment of the goods, the order was carried through in
half a day less than the time stipulated, and the result was that, for years,
the John Brown firm had the monopoly of the work required for most of the
Scottish railways.  Extension of his large premises was inevitable.  Already he
had distributed his shops over a wide area. He had converting furnaces in Holly
Street, he made springs and buffers in Furnival Street, had a spring making shop
in Hereford Street and another in Backfields, and the town-a village in reality
with long ends--was becoming visibly interested in the dominating force that had
arisen for its benefit. In 1856 came the great forward movement, Queen's Works
in Savile Street being acquired, and all the various branches centralized.  The
works in question had been built by Messrs. Armitage, Frankish & Barker on one
acre of land, with another couple of acres, the property of the firm, still
untouched. The original cost was £23,000; the works were sold for half that sum,
and on January 1st, 1856, the Atlas Works--the new name--were started by the
firing of cannon, the cheers of the workpeople, 200 in number, and the waving of
flags.  In those days master and man, in most of Sheffield's works, were akin to
a family; Trades Unionism had not stepped in to restrict output, the master as a
rule was generous to a fault in the treatment of his men, and no hours were too
long for the men to work in repayment of such kindness. This family business
down in Savile Street grew apace; very soon its works covered 30 acres.  In that
year the head of the firm, as he looked from the window of his counting house,
saw acres of blue wild hyacinths waving in the sun, and over acres of trees, and
saw woods coming close up to the clanging of iron and the rush of steam. 
Brightside was then a singularly pleasant suburb, an open and fragrant country
side. In 1857 the insatiable zeal of John Brown took on a fresh effort, the
manufacture of iron suitable for conversion into steel, and very soon he found
it necessary to buy land on the other side of the Midland Railway. Three years
later the new works there on the south side were finished, and here, as Sir
Henry Bessemer said, "when the whole world was sceptical as to my process, John
Brown, my friend, looked into it and approved it." All things were leading up to
the one industry which gave the Atlas Works a world-wide fame.  Already the
owner had fulfilled his boyish ambition of being a merchant "because a merchant
traded with the whole world, but his ambition was not satisfied. He became the
pioneer of the armour making industry in England. Once, travelling in France,
he--once the little boy who sat on a school bench in a garret and dreamed
dreams--visited Marseilles and there saw the French warship La Gloire. She was
an armoured ship, and he found opportunities of looking at her armament pretty
closely.  At that time France was making marked advances in armour plating, but
his investigations, the investigations of a practical man who had no need of a
note book, showed him that the plates were hammered, and he came back home with
the intention of seeing whether they could not be rolled. Rolled they were, as
smooth as the surface of a cabinet, and in 1862, at the Admiralty tests at
Portsmouth, four Government plates were smashed up, whereas a John Brown plate
remained intact after it had been struck by nine projectiles. His plates gave
him the gold medal at the Great Exhibition of 1862, and were awarded very many
honours and distinctions from abroad. The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, came
to Shirle Hill, and visited the Atlas Works in 1862, there seeing an armour
plate rolled weighing six tons.  A year later a new rolling mill was built for
even thicker plates, and the Lords of the Admiralty came down to see the rolling
of a plate 15 feet by 20, and 12 inches thick. In 1864 the firm was turned into
a limited company, with a capital of one million sterling, and one of its later
enterprises was in connexion with chrome steel. Like the present head of the
firm, Sir William Ellis, Sir John Brown, despite the enormous responsibilities
of the business he had built up, found time for work in the affairs of the town.
 In 1856 he became a member of the Town Council, he was an alderman three years
later, and Mayor in 1861. In that year a banquet was given to him in honour of
the dignity conferred upon him, and honour to the guest was paid by the
attendance of Lord Palmerston (the Prime Minister) and other distinguished
Parliamentarians. Re-elected Mayor in 1862, he was presented by the Corporation
with his portrait in 1863, a picture painted by Richard Smith and now hanging in
the Town Hall. Eight years later he left the Council. When he began business
Sheffield was almost wholly the home of "little mesters," the people who had
flourishing businesses of which very little was heard, but where magnitude was
from time to time revealed by the amount of money their owners left behind them,
and Sir John Brown left his native city a hive of imperial industry, and very
truly--in more senses than one-- "a place in the sun." It was lamentable that
his own end should have been so clouded owing to heavy losses in the Bilbao
silver mines in Spain, in which he was deeply concerned. As an educationist he
took a high place. He became first chairman of the Sheffield Board; he was
Master Cutler in 1865 and 1866, and he was a devoted and very generous
Churchman, the All Saints' Church and Schools, which cost him over £12,000,
being an ever-present tribute to his munificence.


William D. Allen.--One of the many men who had much to do with the prosperity of
Sheffield was Mr. W. D. Allen, who, 71 years old, died at Endcliffe Crescent in
1896.  Of all Sheffielders, he and Mr. R. F. Mushet had the most intimate
relations with Sir Henry Bessemer, and, associated with him for many years,
deceased perfected the new method of steel making and made it a commercial as
well as a scientific success. He was born at Chalfont, Bucks, and, Mr. Bessemer
marrying his sister, the youngster was apprenticed  to  the  great  discoverer
when  15, experiments then being carried on at Baxter House, St. Pancras, and in
1854 he was sent to the States to superintend the establishment of Bessemer's
machinery for crushing sugar cane.  Returning, he took over the practical part
of the scientist's work. How it was that he selected Sheffield as the most
suitable place for its development one does not know, but he did.  He came here
in 1858, and laboured with great assiduity and unremitting energy to improve the
quality of steel. Cold-shouldered at first in Sheffield, save by Sir John Brown,
things improved till, after 12 years, it was found that there was 100 per cent
for every two months of the twelve years on the capital expended. The partners
in that firm were Messrs. Bessemer & Allen, with Longsden & Galloway of
Manchester.  In 1877 Mr. Allen took it all over, and formed a private family
limited company, but in 1889 shares were put on the market, and the public was
admitted to continued good profits, Mr. Allen retaining the post of managing
director.  When he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Iron and Steel Institute in
1890 he said he firmly believed that what had been done had only just opened the
gates of a wide field of progress for Sheffield.  He was a believer in outdoor
sports, revelling in lawn tennis up to an advanced age, and earlier being an
ardent follower of Lord Galway's hounds; he was fond also of fishing and
shooting.

Thomas Ellison.--Judge of the Sheffield County Court was Mr. Thomas Ellison, who
died in April, 1896, son of Michael Ellison, who for 45 years was agent to the
Duke of Norfolk, the period being 1819-1860, and Mr. Michael Joseph Ellison was
deceased's elder brother. Judge Ellison was born at Worksop when his father
occupied the Manor as agent, and though passing his examinations as solicitor,
he never practised. He was called to the Bar in 1844, and was appointed Judge of
the Sheffield County Court in 1863. His predecessor was Judge Walker, who had
been in that position since the Court was opened in 1847, and Mr. Ellison's
appointment came about under the provisions contained in the County Courts Act
1846, which were unique, and had an entirely local application. In old times
there were Courts of the Baronies of Sheffield and Ecclesall, where small
actions were tried by a jury of twelve persons, and each such Court had
jurisdiction only over the debts incurred in its own district, so persons at
that time were in the habit of moving from Sheffield to Ecclesall, or vice
versa, to avoid being sued. Acts were, however, passed in 1756, and also by
George III, to regulate such proceedings. By the last Act, Commissioners
succeeded the older jury system, and power was given to them to recover debts
irrespective  of the district in which they had been contracted.   The Lords of
the two Manors appointed the necessary officials of the Courts. In 1847 those
Courts were abolished by the general Act of the previous year establishing
County Courts.   Mr. Ellison was a judge scrupulously fair, but severe and
possessed of a biting sarcasm, and many a little litigant was sorely frightened
by his demeanour. The coal trouble which arose in 1879 was referred to him for
settlement as umpire, the arbitrators having failed to agree. The owners had
demanded that the men should agree to a drop in wages of 12 and a half per cent
in steam collieries, and 7 and a half per cent in the Silkstone pits, and four
months were occupied  over  the  arbitration.   The  umpire's  award  eventually
 was  as follows: "It seems to me that the wages now received by the miners are
barely sufficient to enable them to live decently, and, considering the arduous
nature of their duties and the constant risk to life, their wages cannot be
called excessive.  I award and determine that there shall be no present
reduction in wages of the miners within the area of this arbitration."

William Unwin.--Mention of the death of Mr. William Unwin at Machon Bank, in
1896, recalls a very tragic incident in the life of a well-liked man. He was a
solicitor, who, boasting that he never knew the meaning of pain, was stricken
with paralysis in 1894, and though he lived till 1896, he was never strong
again, dying when eighty-one.  He was born in Heeley, his father being in the
steel department at the Little London Forge, and he was articled to Mr. John
Ryalls of North Church Street.  Everything smiled on him when he commenced to
practice in Queen Street, his suite of offices being sumptuously fitted and
furnished.  He was a man of artistic tastes, fond of the company of artists,
actors and literary men; he had a magnificent gallery of paintings; he was
faultless in his dress, a brilliant conversationalist, very fond of sport,
owning racehorses himself; and a dabbler in the science of steel, making
discoveries which left the trade of the town his debtor. He was a specialist in
conveyancing and estate law, very sound in Chancery and bankruptcy, and a fine
advocate. Known as " the poor man's lawyer," he defended many a man knowing well
that he had no hope of a fee. Yet this man came to grief ! He was associated
with the Albion Steel and Iron works, and when that firm got into difficulties,
advanced £40,000 to it, and gradually took a very personal interest in the
management.  He eventually found himself inextricably involved and his
bankruptcy followed, the estate being scheduled at over a million sterling.
Unhappily, during the proceedings he was guilty of infringement of the
Bankruptcy Act, was tried at Leeds Assizes and sent to prison for nine months
though he had at once admitted the offence, of which nothing but worry could
have made him guilty. Many years later, in 1882, after one application had
proved futile, he was restored to the rolls as a solicitor, practically every
public man in the town signing affidavits in his favour, and Lord Justice
Manisty, one of the Judges who tried the application, said that if such
affidavits as had been put in proved unequal to success, it would be hopeless
for any man to dream of being able to show that he had recovered his
trustworthiness and character. Mr. Unwin resumed in his old offices until, in
1884, he transferred the business to Mr. J. E. Wing, who had served his articles
with him.

William Wake.-The death when seventy-seven years old of Mr. William Wake was
largely hastened by the passing away, within a very few weeks, of his son, Mr.
William Robert Wake, and his brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Ellison.  He died at
Osgathorpe House, in April, 1896, full of years and one of the best known, and
also one of the greatest of Sheffielders.  His grandfather was steward of
Worksop Manor, which then belonged to the Duke of Norfolk; and his father, Mr.
Bernard John Wake, well-known as a solicitor in Norfolk Street, and later in
Watson's Walk.  Mr. William Wake was articled to his father in 1835, and five
years later became solicitor, and on his father's death in 1842 he shouldered
the business alone. At that time, however, his brother Bernard was passing
through his articles, and when he in turn became solicitor, the two carried on
in partnership as W. & B. Wake. That particular partnership remained in being
until 1876, when Mr. William Wake went to Bank Street, and his brother removed
to Castle Court in the same thoroughfare, those offices being burned down in
1893. Mr. William Wake was regarded as father of his profession in Sheffield; he
was a loyal and faithful servant to the Gas Company, and steward of many manors,
carrying several Bills through Parliament on behalf of the Company just named,
and in 1888, being presented by the Company with his portrait, the work of
Hubert Herkomer.  That was in October, 1889.  Mr. William Wake's principal
appointment was that of Registrar to the Sheffield County Court, and also of the
Chesterfield County Court, his jurisdiction lasting from 1847 to 1894. When, in
1894, he appeared for the last time, the Court was crowded by those who wished
to do him honour--barristers, solicitors and many others who had had business in
the Court during Mr. Wake's lengthy reign, and many delightful speeches were
made. Mr. William Wake was owner of the freehold on which the County Court is
built. He was a gentleman of many attainments--a master of mathematics, a man of
great legal attainments, possessing unfailing good humour. There have been other
Registrars of the Sheffield County Court whose demeanour has not been so wholly
urbane; but Mr. Wake's long reign was one of courtesy and pleasantness.  As a
Churchman, he was tolerant, generous, and broad-minded, and in later years of
his life he attended the then newly formed Church of S. Michael and All Angels,
at Neepsend, which had just been built, and it was his pleasant custom, at a
time when there was no prosperity for that Church, to make himself practically
the balancer of its accounts each year. 1897. Herbert Bramley.--Mr. Herbert
Bramley, son of the first Town Clerk of Sheffield, and himself a Town Clerk of
admirable ability, died at Brussels in 1897.  He was only fifty-five years old,
but had managed to crowd a great deal into even that short life. He had an
elaborate education. At that time, well-to-do people in Sheffield were sending
their sons to Germany for educational purposes, Saxe Meiningen being a favourite
place, and it was here that young Bramley went after his early schooling.  He
stayed there two years, and afterwards added to his knowledge through a sojourn
at Le Mans in France, coming back to Sheffield to take over an equal-rights
partnership in the firm of Gainsford & Bramley, one which his father had
reserved for the son on his own retirement. He had the high esteem of his
professional colleagues through his career as a solicitor, and held all the
honours which the local Society could give him.  However, it was his work for
the Municipality which counted most, and for twenty years he was a very eager
and earnest worker in that and the political circles of the town.  In early life
he was an ardent Liberal and acted as agent to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain during
that gentleman's efforts to become one of Sheffield's representatives. In the
Council he did excellent work, especially in Committee, and it was said of him
that he scarcely ever missed a meeting to which he was summoned. For a long
period he acted as a most successful whip to the Conservative party, became Town
Clerk in 1595, and was absolutely impartial and sound in that position.  In
returning thanks for his election, he said: " I intend to know no party, only to
recognize the welfare of the city, and the good Government of our Corporation
business," and in that aspiration it was generally agreed he succeeded.  He was
a great lover of the fine arts, but above all else in his private life was his
love, almost a craze, for books on logarithms.  He spent thirty years in making
his collection which was one of the finest in the country, including works in
English, Dutch, Latin, Italian and German, and one or two copies of great value,
having two hundred books on this subject altogether.  In manner very abrupt, he
had an almost querulous voice, but it is recorded of him that he was ever an
honourable antagonist who wore his heart upon his sleeve, but always fought hard
and honestly.

Sir Frank Lockwood.--Sir Frank Lockwood, bon vivant, brilliant barrister, a
great wit, a notable Parliamentarian, died in London. He was a tall, well
proportioned, healthy sportsman; highly gifted with his pencil, a master of
caricature, possessed of the keenest intellect and vigour.  Such a life ended at
51. He was born at Doncaster in 1846, educated at Manchester Grammar School,
thence going to Caius College, Cambridge; being member of Lincoln's Inn in 1872,
and Q.C. ten years later.  He was Recorder of Sheffield from 1884 to 1894,
relinquishing that position when he took office as Solicitor General.  He held
one unique distinction in his parliamentary life in that he held the position of
Solicitor-General under a Liberal and also a Conservative Prime Minister.  That
came about through the fact that he was in possession of the office when the
Liberal Government went out of office, and when the incoming Premier, Lord
Salisbury, could not find the successor to Sir Frank he desired.  So the Premier
besought him to retain office pending the new appointment. Few of the really
great law cases were heard without Sir Frank being briefed on one side or the
other.  He had a most distinguished manner in Court, an air of impartial
confidence in the result; and as a cross-examiner he stood without a rival.  He
acted alike in criminal and civil cases and always, whilst the Court was
sitting, caricatured prominent figures with the skill and sureness of a genius. 
 The sketches he made on his briefs, on the backs of envelopes, on any odd scrap
of paper, were very greatly treasured; and, had he been so minded, he could have
made a great name for himself in art.  Perhaps Mr. Justice Day, a ready subject
for caricature, and Mr. Murphy, Q.C., were the most frequent subjects of his
remorseless pencil. He dabbled in journalism whilst waiting for briefs, and once
tried his fortune on the stage as " Mr. D. Macpherson," blazing through the
provinces with the Kendals.

1898. James W. Baldock.--The death of James W. Baldock, probably the finest
painter of Highland cattle that Sheffield has known, took place in 1898 at an
advanced age. For many years he was an official at the School of Art, and an
annual exhibitor there. He lived in Nottingham in his later years, and Sherwood
was always a happy hunting ground with him for his pictures. As an animal
portrait painter he had a very considerable vogue, especially in horses and
dogs, but some of his landscapes were also greatly admired, especially those
painted during his summer holidays on the Trent.

Rev. George Sandford.--The Rev. George Sandford, long Vicar of Ecclesall, was a
much-loved man in Sheffield, and his death was greatly deplored. He was 81 years
old. In his earlier life in the town he had been instrumental in getting S.
Jude's Eldon Church built, a feat in architecture worth recalling as it was
necessary to build thirty pillars through a coalpit underneath so as to secure a
solid foundation. The Sandfords claim a very notable descent. The name of the
founder occurs in every known copy of the Battle Abbey roll, and he came over
with the Conqueror.  Sir Richard de Sandford fought at Cressey; his son was
knighted on the field of Shrewsbury in the wars of the Roses, and died the same
day.  Nicholas de Sandford declared against the Crown, and his rich lands were
all laid waste by Henry IV. Mr. Sandford died in September, 1898.

Michael Joseph Ellison.--When one considers the development of the town, fitting
tribute must be paid to the work of Mr. Michael Ellison, who, like his
well-remembered son, was agent to the Duke of Norfolk's estates in Sheffield,
and who died at Beech Hill in 1898. The father occupied that position 41 years,
commencing when Duke Charles--who died in 1815--had impoverished his estates by
selling much of his Sheffield possessions, notably to the south and west; land
which was sold for £100 an acre, and which was estimated in 1860 to have been
worth £3,000 an acre ! In the comparatively early days of Mr. Ellison's regime
the railway development arose, and, with it, formation of the North Midland
line. In spite of all he could do, Sheffield was left away from it, George
Stephenson preferring easy gradients, and saying that if towns wanted his
railway they must come to it!  The result was that Sheffield was hung out at the
end of a short and inconvenient branch of the main line. That defeat only
stirred Mr. Ellison, with all the Duke's influence behind him, in another
direction, and very largely through his prodigious efforts was the project of a
line from Sheffield to join the town up with the port of Liverpool carried
through. When it was nearing completion, extension to the North Sea was put
forward with the same powerful influences behind it, and here again success
resulted.  Once this was done, Mr. Ellison induced the Great Northern Railway to
put Sheffield on its main line to London.  During his stewardship the
development of the ducal estates was very great.  The sylvan character of
Brightside vanished, miles of new streets were laid out, hills were cut through,
valleys filled up, and immense factories found a new town around them. What the
Duke thought of him may be estimated from a letter written in 1844, when he had
completed 50 years service, and was presented with a service of plate.  The Duke
then wrote saying that he could not by word of mouth or by letter at all express
how strongly he felt, or how grateful he was, for Mr. Ellison's unwearied
efforts on his behalf.  Mr. Ellison was on the Improvement Commission in 1861 ;
he headed the poll at the first School Board election, totalling 17,057 votes,
5,000 ahead of the second on the list; was chairman of the Sheffield Building
Company, always keenly interested in South Yorkshire Navigation schemes, and 25
years a member of the local Yeomanry.  A great lover of sport, he was for
generations President of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and an unwavering
supporter of the game, whilst it is on record that he never missed a "Twelfth"
on the grouse moors from 1832 to 1897--a record quite probably unequalled
anywhere.

Sir John Fowler.--Sir John Fowler died in 1898 when eighty-one years old, a
renowned civil engineer, who though all through his long life he lived on the
fringe of trade, never dabbled in it.  When seventeen years old he was pupil to
Mr. J. Towlerton Teather, of London, that gentleman being the engineer for the
Sheffield Waterworks Company, and young Fowler obtained his first knowledge of
reservoir construction within very few miles of his home. Whilst still a pupil
the young man made a survey of the rocky districts of Wharncliffe at a time when
railway enterprise was just beginning to expand and when the M.S. & L. Railway
was being pushed forward.  So he became resident in Sheffield in the office of
J. W. Rastrick, who was at that time responsible for the construction of many
new railways; but after two years of the most vivid experience he returned to
town, shortly afterwards becoming resident engineer of the Stockton-Hartlepool
railway, and then at the age of twenty-six he began an independent career. He
held the position of chief engineer to the M.S. & L. Co., especially in its
extensions eastwards; he was concerned in the Severn Valley Railway, the London
Tilbury and Southend, and the great work in connexion with the Central Station,
Liverpool, and the miles of approach cut through solid rock, an enterprise which
even to-day stands as monumental.  He also had to do with the Inner Circle of
the Metropolitan Railway in London, the Victoria Bridge and Pimlico; he was
engineer for the Sheffield and also the Glasgow Water Works schemes, the
construction of St. Enoch Station in Glasgow, the Millwall Docks,and the Channel
Ferry. As a permanent appointment he was chiefly associated with the
Metropolitan Railway in London, and in the early days of that wonderful
enterprise was faced by enormous difficulties.  He surmounted them all and also
the very acute opposition which came from every quarter. It was in connexion
with the Pimlico Railway that the first railway bridge was thrown across the
Thames, that being under the superintendence of Sir John, and the greatest of
all his triumphs came in the building of the Forth Bridge, over which from first
to last he exercised a personal and close supervision, and the Baronetcy which
was conferred upon him by Queen Victoria on completion of the work was well
deserved.  He sprang from an old and honoured family whose home was at
Wincobank.

John Jackson.-The death of few men in Sheffield has been more deplored than that
of Mr. John Jackson, Chief Constable of Sheffield for 40 years. It took place in
1898 at his home in Collegiate Crescent after an illness of 24 hours.  His rise
in the force was remarkable.  Born in the Lake district he became a member of
the Lancashire Constabulary when quite young, and at Oldham took an active part
in the great Manchester riots and the suppression of Chartism.  He became the
first Chief Constable of Oldham, came to Sheffield in October, 1858, and took
charge as Chief on New Year's Day, 1859, the Sheffield Force then consisting of
190 men as against 400 on the day of his death.  Very quickly he manifested
abilities of a very high order, his organizing powers being remarkable, and no
other Chief Constable of Sheffield has ever reached the abnormally high standard
of efficiency which he maintained with almost striking ease. Government
Inspectors who visited Sheffield were loud in their eulogies, and there came to
be no more familiar figure in the Sheffield streets than that of the Chief, a
tall, rather gaunt figure, a man with a firm, rather stern face though with
kindly eyes, and a profile not altogether unlike that of the Great Duke. Whoever
was being specially honoured in processions there was always a very warm
reception for "the Chief " as he rode along, and, stern as he was in the
suppression of crime, there was no class in the town by which he was held in
greater respect---one had almost used the word affection--than that of the
systematic wrong-doers. When he had served the town 25 years his jubilee was
celebrated by a public meeting in 1895, and gifts were made to him "in
recognition and high appreciation of the valuable services he has rendered." 
There were 400 subscribers to the presentation fund, over £600 being obtained,
and he was given his portrait painted by Herkomer, with a replica for the city,
and a brougham. At the gathering Mr. Waddy, as Recorder, said that never was
recognition of able and conscientious service more worthily given, and he
congratulated Sheffield on having had the prolonged help of one whose
experience, skill, integrity and courtesy were unsurpassed by the qualities of
any Chief Constable in England.  The Duke of Norfolk made the presentations, and
Mr. Jackson was made C.B. after the Queen's visit to the city in 1897. Many
years before--in 1864--the Water Company made a grant to Mr. Jackson of 100
guineas for his indefatigable work at the time of the Sheffield Flood, but the
town regarded that as an insufficient reward for such heroic services, and a
town's presentation of £700 was made to him. The story of the great flood in
1864 proved a chapter in his life. The work here of the Chief Constable has been
termed heroic, and it was surely nothing less.  When it was reported to him that
fatal night that the dam bank had burst, and that the flood was roaring through
Little Matlock and down the valley of the Don, he went out on horseback, and all
through that night stayed there doing wonders, curbing the fears of those who
were preparing to leap from their windows to a certain death; he was often up to
the saddle in water and in great danger of being drowned.  It was an enormous
work he did, not only in helping and rescuing, but heartening others during that
bitter night, and it was work which could only have been done by a man of
indomitable will. When Lord Alfred Paget came to Sheffield at the express desire
of Her Majesty Queen Victoria to show the Royal sympathy with the town and
sufferers, he found the streets full of mud and rubbish and ordered them to be
cleared for fear of an epidemic of fever.  Into that work the Chief threw
himself with renewed and extraordinary energy, and so thoroughly were
Sheffield's streets cleansed that the then outlying districts of Hillsborough
and Owlerton sought and received his aid for like duties.  So efficiently and
rapidly was the work done that, throughout the whole area, not one case of fever
arose which could be attributed to the flood. That was one of what may be termed
the spectacular incidents of his long career.  The other came in connexion with
the Broadhead or Trades Outrages in the town in 1866.  His treatment of the
witness Hallam was the turning-point in the work of the Commission, and Mr.
Overend afterwards spoke in the warmest terms of the work of the Chief
Constable: "an officer of the utmost value."   Not Sheffield alone had reason to
be proud of him; any town without such an officer and in danger of such
lawlessness must be in the greatest jeopardy. The formal report of the
Commission made special reference to "the great services rendered by Mr.
Jackson, to whom in no small degree was due whatever success had been secured."

1899. Edward Birks.--The death of Mr. Edward Birks occurred in April, 1899, at
Torquay, when 70 years old.  He was essentially a product of old Sheffield, and
his father a parish constable in the town when there were only three or four
such for the entire town protection. Mr. Birks was self-educated, but  in  early
 manhood he  busied himself very much with the formation and success of the
People's College, assisting in this work James Wilson and Thomas Rowbotham. All
his life he was engaged in banking. First of all he joined the staff of the
Sheffield & Retford Bank, but that very soon came to grief in the general bank
smash, and when 17 years old became a clerk with the Sheffield Banking Company,
becoming chief cashier, and then in 1874 being appointed manager, a position
which he filled until his retirement in June, 1898. He was careful to a fault,
and competitive banking, as known in his later years, had no pleasure for him.
Apart from his professional life, he had many interests. He was Warden of the
Parish Church through the Vicariates of Dr. Sale, Dr. Rowley Hill, Mr. Blakeney,
and Mr. Eyre, a total period of thirty years, retiring in 1896; for many years
he was President of the Athenaeum Club; he was one of the oldest members of the
Literary and Philosophical Society, and, outside these things, devoted himself
to much research.  Thus he contributed the chapter on local botany in Hunter's
Hallamshire, and frequently lectured before the members of the local medical
school on that subject, and his notes on Sheffield flora remain an authority in
local literature.  He was also a great Shakespearean scholar, and all these
things gave to him a culture and a charm which made him one of the most popular
men in the city.

John Daniel Leader.--Mr. John Daniel Leader died on December 30th, 1899, on the
very edge of the new century.  He had lived a life of quiet, strong influence in
the town and on its townsfolk.  He had succeeded to the editorial chair of the
Sheffield Independent at a time when that paper was very strong and influential
through the personality of his father, Mr. Robert Leader, nor did it fall away
during the editorship of the cultured son. At the time of his death Mr. S. O.
Addy wrote an appreciation in the Telegraph, in which he pointed out that about
1872 Mr. J. D. Leader commenced publishing in the Independent a weekly article
on "Notes and Queries" of very great interest to those who read it.  Apart from
Mr. Leader's own scholarly contributions to that column, there were other very
notable contributors, such as Henry Bradley, who wrote under the pen name of
"Leopic," and who afterwards gained a world fame at Oxford. Others were Dr. H.
J. Hunter, Dr. Gatty, Mr. Arthur Jackson, Mr. David Parkes, Mr. Bedford (an
erudite gentleman who died young), Dr. Sykes (of Doncaster), and Professor
Skeat.

Thomas J. Flockton.--Mr. T. J. Flockton, one of Sheffield's best-known
architects, died at Woodleigh, Worksop.  His grandfather was a builder in
Sheffield in the early days of the town's progress, and the father, Mr. W.
Flockton, a well-known architect.  The gifted son was educated at Wesley
College, and entered his father's office when twelve years old. Then he spent
two invaluable years in London, with Sir Gilbert Scott, and afterwards travelled
a good deal amplifying his knowledge.  The Gothic revival was just appearing and
the young architect became a profound follower of it. In 1862, he started for
himself with Mr. G. L. Abbott, and in 1878, the latter retiring, the firm of
Flockton & Gibbs was established.  As an adviser to the Corporation, Mr.
Flockton did invaluable work especially with regard to street improvements, and
he acted for that body in negotiating purchases of property which was acquired
with conspicuous success. He was seventy-five years old at the time of his
death, but he had left behind him many notable examples of his skill.  These
included Endcliffe Hall, Oakbrook, Tapton Hall, Kenwood, Holy Trinity Church,
Christ Church, Pitsmoor; S. Thomas's, Brightside; S. Matthew's, S. Stephen's,
All Saints, Sale Memorial, S. Barnabas's, the Church in the General Cemetery;
and with Mr. Gibbs--S. John's, Ranmoor. The restoration of the Parish Church was
carried out under his supervision and advice; he built the New Connexion Chapel
at Broomhill for Mr. Mark Firth; S. Andrew's, Sharrow; the premises of the
Sheffield Banking Co. in George Street, the Sheffield and Hallamshire, and the
Sheffield and Rotherham Banks; Cockaynes' and Coles' business premises, and the
University College.

1900. John Nowill.--Mr. John Nowill died at Sandygate House, in 1900; senior
partner in the firm of John Nowill & Sons, Scotland Street, when eighty-two
years of age, and was one of five brothers.  It was pointed out at the time of
his death that the firm was granted its trade-mark by the Cutlers' Company in
1700, on April 26th, that being to the founder, Mr. Thomas Nowill, then carrying
on business in Meadow Street.  Dr. Hunter, in his Hallamshire, declares that the
firm at one time made a knife which Sheffield experts declared was never
surpassed for excellence.  Mr. John Nowill who was an extremely well-read man,
had nine sons and two daughters. Whilst speaking of the antiquity of his
business, it is worth while pointing out that Joseph Rodgers & Sons, then of
Hollis Croft, obtained their trade-mark sixty years later-in 1760 to be precise.

Thomas W… Jeffcock.--An interesting chapter of early Sheffield enterprise was
told when Mr. T. W. Jeffcock, aged sixty, passed away at Shire House,
Ecclesfield, in 1900.  He was a mining engineer in Bank Street, but his forbears
had had much to do with Sheffield's enterprises in the search for coal.   His
father, Mr. Thomas Dunn Jeffcock, was one of four brothers of whom one was
Sheffield's first Mayor in 1843, and his grandfather, with Mr. Dunn, opened the
Dore House Colliery, Handsworth, hoping to work the Barnsley seam. Luck was
against them, however, and the enterprise was abandoned, but they had made
history, as theirs was the first Joint Stock Company in the district. Twenty
years later, the colliery was reopened with better results, under the style of
Littlewood, Sorby  & Jeffcock, and in 1820, a new lease was granted to Holy,
Wilson & Co., those associated in the movement being Messrs. T. B. Holy, John
Wilson, Thomas Dunn and William Jeffcock. Mr. T. W. Jeffcock, whose demise is
here referred to, was a man of many-sided activities--Major in the W. Y.
Yeomanry, a noted cricketer and footballer in his youth, a regular follower of
the Fitzwilliam Hunt, a member of the Bradfield Game Association, and a very
ardent fisherman, accustomed to spend long holidays at his fishing lodge,
Canisky, near Fort William.

1901. William Smith.--About many of Sheffield's best-known public men there has
been a personal charm which has added very much to their general popularity, and
unquestionably this has to be said of Ald. William Smith, whose death occurred
January, 1901, at Westwood House in Brocco Bank. He was seventy-eight years old,
and very much of his long life had been spent in the service of his native town.
 Essentially a broad-minded man, he was in constant touch with all schools of
thought, had a long and enduring association with local and national education,
and was a fervent believer in the religious education of the young.  His father
resided at Dam House, and it was to him, " our well-beloved William Smith," that
the charter of the town's incorporation in 1843 was directed: and he was
Returning Officer in the election of Sheffield's first Mayor. The subject of
this notice was educated in Sheffield (a fellow schoolboy being Frederick Thorpe
Mappin), and he was early articled to Mr. Robert Rodgers the solicitor.  When he
opened his first office, he was joined by Mr. William Pashley Milner, father of
the subsequent owner of Totley Hall, and later the firm took the title of
Burberry & Smith, the father of James Pashley Burberry having built offices in
Campo Lane.  Later still, the firm took the title it still possesses, William
Smith & Sons. Whilst engaged in his profession, Mr. Smith found many
opportunities of taking part in town affairs.  He was an ardent believer in
local self-government, and very strongly opposed the introduction of politics
into municipal elections.  In 1845, he contested the Ecclesall Ward, but only
obtained thirty-two votes, and shortly afterwards was appointed Clerk to the
Improvement Commissioners, who carried on independently of the newly  formed
Corporation. He only held the appointment eleven months, however, then being
himself appointed a Commissioner.  In 1855, he was returned at the head of the
poll for Ecclesall, and when Mr. Edward Bramley retired from the position of
Sheffield's first Town Clerk, in 1859, it was confidently expected that of the
five candidates, Mr. Smith would secure election. However, the honour fell to
Mr. John Yeomans by twenty-five votes to twenty-four for Mr. Smith, the salary
at that time being £400 a year, and, excellently though the defeated candidate
would have performed the duties, ensuing years proved that no one could have
fulfilled them better than the one whom the vote favoured. Mr. Smith was made
Town Trustee in 1878, and became Alderman in 1884; he was also a Church Burgess
and Capital Burgess for four years, and had a long and favourable connexion with
the Chamber of Commerce, being its Secretary in 1861, and in 1870 recipient of a
magnificent solid silver candelabrum. He became President of the Chamber in
1872, and was re-elected. Amongst his greatest friends he counted Sir W.
Sterndale Bennett, whilst his lectures in Sheffield on musical subjects were
cultured and always suggestive of great research.  A staunch supporter and
President of the Sheffield Church Lecture Society, he was responsible for
bringing many celebrated Church dignitaries and preachers to Sheffield.  It was
in his office that he wrote the original prospectus for the Athenaeum Club,
whose first general meeting was held on April 7th, 1847, and whose first session
opened in a private house in Norfolk Street, near the present Savings Bank. At
that time the only library in the town was that of the Mechanics' Institute in
Watson's Walk.


Sir Henry E. Watson.--The passing of Sir Henry E. Watson, though he had reached
the advanced age of eighty-five, caused a profound shock in the town on February
16th, 1901. A man of much personal charm, equable spirit, and great benevolence,
he had exercised a powerful interest for many years in the town, and though a
strong party man, those of the opposite camp held him in high affection because
of his sterling honesty. He brought back to life very many memories of old
Sheffield; his father lived at Shirecliffe Hall, then spoken of as "on the road
from Sheffield to Penistone." That was not the Hall spoken of in Hunter's
Hallamshire, but one which the father built for himself, and who also acquired
the Broomhall estate with its mansion, the most ancient part of which dates back
to the time of Henry VIII.  He bought that in 1800, and for twenty years used it
for agricultural purposes.  The Park was one such as deer might browse in, and
was full of glorious old timber.  In 1820, the growth of the town suggested to
Mr. Watson the advisability of putting the estate to more profitable purposes;
it was cut up, and in 1829 the first building lease was granted, that was to
Ald. William Hutchinson. Mr. Watson also made considerable purchases of
freeholds from the Duke of Norfolk, and he had material possessions in Watson's
Walk. The youngest of his four sons was Henry E. Watson, and at the time of his
childhood, Sheffield was very pleasant, but, carrying on a trade which quickly
made wonderful progress, water became less pure and fish less plentiful, when
the Sheaf Works and other great manufactories sprang into being. Sir Henry was
educated at Pipe's School, Norton, and partly at Sandal, near Wakefield.  He was
a Conservative by conviction, never shaken in his beliefs, and was a great
worker for Mr. Overend when that gentleman contested Sheffield; he also
introduced Mr. Stuart Wortley to the town. When he was seventy years old, the
Conservatives presented him with an illuminated address ; he was elected to the
Carlton Club in London for distinguished political services, and he held all the
public honours in Sheffield, save those of the Municipality His hospitality was
unbounded and his benefactions extended over a very wide area.  He was often
asked to stand for Parliament, but always declined.  In 1886, he was given the
honour of Knighthood to the general pleasure of his townsfolk, and on April 4th,
1891, was presented at the Cutlers' Hall with his portrait, painted by Hubert
Herkomer, Archdeacon Blakeney occupying the chair. In his response, Sir Henry
spoke of the corn fields which, when he was a boy, extended almost all the way
up to the Hospital, and when a very like distance further on was considered a
long way out of the town.  The high road to London, where S. Paul's Church now
stands, was so deep in mud that coaches stuck up to the axles, and the Wicker
was almost as bad. Attercliffe, however, was a particularly pretty village, and
the Salmon Pastures were then rightly so called.  It was quite a rarity to find
a man in High Street wearing a black coat, or even a mechanic who could read or
write. In social matters, Sir Henry was always a leader.  He had a very long
connexion with the Sheffield Club, being one of the founders, and in January,
1894, being chief guest at a dinner held there in his honour; and amongst his
earliest and laughingly-told reminiscences was that of the founding of the
Sheffield Bank in his father's offices where he was an articled pupil.  The part
he played in that formation consisted of carrying in the chairs.

Henry Hoyles.---Mr. Henry Hoyles, of Upperthorpe, had a well-deserved reputation
as a modeller and designer.  He was born at Spilsby, but was a wood carver in
Sheffield until 1850, the School of Art then being in the old Bath Buildings,
where he studied under Young Mitchell.  His sideboard design sent by the School
to the Great Exhibition in 1851 secured a bronze medal.  In 1850, he went to the
Green Lane works as assistant to Mr. Alfred Stevens, and remained there fifty
years, more as a practical man than an accomplished technical modeller.  Really,
the Green Lane works did great things for Sheffield's fame in those days, as is
shown in these pages.

Charles J. Innocent.--Mr. C. J. Innocent, who died at Wellesley Road in 1901,
left his mark on the town of his birth.  Under the first School Board, he built
many of the first schools; he designed for the Guardians, and was responsible
for the Montgomery Hall, Glossop Road Baptist Church, and S. John's,
Crookesmoor.  The great work of his life, apart from that of his profession, was
associated with the Sunday Schools, by which he deserves to be long remembered
in the city.

1902. Sir William Christopher Leng.--Sir W. C. Leng's death occurred at Oaklands
in 1902, and by everyone, by political opponents as well as friends, his passing
was genuinely deplored.  In his own paper his career was amply dealt with, the
notice of his life extending over seventeen columns, and all other notable
newspapers of the United Kingdom had sympathetic references to the death of one
who, strong in his principles, strong in his likes and dislikes, had been a
giant in journalism and a brilliant writer.  The story of his journalistic life
was afterwards circulated amongst his staff. Born in Hull, January 25th, 1825,
his father served on H.M.S.Termagant in the Napoleonic wars.  The son became a
chemist, but later drifted into journalism, until he was eventually attracted to
Dundee where his brother, afterwards Sir John, was established.  There the new
comer, amongst other things, revealed himself as a great advocate for freedom of
footpaths, and became a great friend of Mr. George Gilfillan, the Scots critic
and essayist. It is possible that that friendship had something to do with the
moulding of a style which, in later years, through its irony and fervour, became
such a power in Sheffield and the North of England. In 1864, Mr. Frederick
Clifford, a barrister and a fine speaker, who had bought the Sheffield Telegraph
from Mr. H. Bradey, invited Mr. Leng to join him, and at the end of the year
named, a long standing and important association began between the two.  They
became joint proprietors with Mr. Shepherdson and another, Mr. Leng being editor
with full power; and he was the first newspaper editor in the provinces to bring
out his paper daily, even though the total issue only amounted to a few thousand
copies per week. In his early writings, the new editor revealed all the strong
Imperialistic tendencies of his sire, who had grounded him well in Hull.  He
never truckled, never sought popularity, never took the popular side because it
was popular, and by sheer force of talent, inexhaustible energy and hard work he
won through. There was a very real earnestness about all that he did on behalf
of his paper; no trouble was too great.  His library, dispersed by Messrs. Bush
& Sons after his death, consisted of four thousand volumes, and he used to
declare that he knew them all, and gave shelf room to none that was not of use. 
Beyond question, he had a mighty pen, and his honesty of purpose was generally
held to be beyond question. There was no time for dallying with little things in
such a life; he fought great issues, never dreading solitariness in his
opinions, and more than once achieving great ends by an unaided energy. Of his
value to the Conservative cause there could be no question. What Conversatism is
in Sheffield to-day is very largely owing to his zeal at a time when the town
was Radical to the core. His sarcasm was described as a two-edged sword, cutting
whichever way it flashed; he seldom praised, so that every word of commendation
be gave was treasured--by his staff at all events, by whom he was greatly
beloved. Politics were first to him at all times, but there were occasions, as
when holidaying, when he dipped into the descriptive, and so produced articles
which were like poems in their vivid picturesqueness and pleasant rhythm. When
he came to Sheffield, he found it a hotbed of pro-Southern sympathy in the
American war, of Trade Unionism and Radicalism, and all three things he attacked
with every atom of his strength  It is a matter of history that the Commission
on the Trade Union outrages was obtained almost wholly through his exertions. 
The story of those outrages and the Commission is told elsewhere, but it was an
often told office story, that during the days when he was making his searching
enquiries, the result and report of which brought about the Commission, he used
to return up High Street to Aldine Court, smoking his cigar and marching between
two constables with a third behind. One result of this, and apart from the
tremendous kudos which came to his paper, was the presentation of his portrait
to Mr. Leng on April 28th, 1868, 600 guineas being subscribed and the painting
being the work of H. F. Crighton of Sheffield  It now hangs, bearing a full and
eloquent description of the causes which brought the gift about, in the Town
Hall.  Lord Wharncliffe was in the chair when the presentation was made. In
1887, the honour of Knighthood was conferred on Mr. Leng, and in celebration of
this, one of the best remembered of all the Telegraph, social functions was
held, the staff being entertained by the proprietors. In private life, Sir
William was the soul of kindness and generosity, as his staff realized, and his
relations with the whole of his workpeople were perfect. His personality was
described by Charles Reade in Put Yourself in his Place, in the character of Mr.
Holdfast--" Not above middle height, a clean built, symmetrical man with a
remarkable chest, broad and deep; a mouth of iron resolution with a slight and
humorous dimple in the corner. He had a craving for work which was insatiable
and the power to do it seemed unlimited." When interviewed on behalf of The
World's Celebrities at Home, he declared: "Every day is a hard race between time
and me, with not a minute to spare." Harking back to the days of 1855, he used
to speak of the opening sales as quite good, though so much of the money came in
copper--too heavy for the tables--that a heap was made of it in one corner of
the room and was covered with old newspapers.  The paper was carried on for some
years by Mr. Pearce, without, at all events, entailing a loss until, in January,
1864, came Mr. Frederick Clifford, at that time assistant editor of The Times,
and subsequently the engagement of Mr. Leng. The first copy of the new paper was
issued on June 8th, 1855, and very soon there were two thousand subscribers. 
Each page was 16"x14", and it was printed on a hand-press at two hundred per
hour. Within a month, steam was introduced, with a turnout of one thousand
copies per hour. In January, 1856, Mr. Pearce enlarged the paper; in 1857 came
further enlargement; in 1858, Mr. Shepherdson of Edinburgh joined it, and Mr.
Leng on the last day of 1863.  The policy of the new paper was declared in the
issue of January 1st, 1864--"So far as in us lies, we mean to make the Sheffield
Daily Telegraph inferior to none in England, in vigour of the management, and
the literary ability employed upon it." In June, 1886, a move was made to Aldine
Court, which later was purchased by the firm, from Hartshead to High Street. Mr.
Leng threw himself and the increasing influence of his paper-"my paper," as he
used to call it-into the maelstrom of many Imperial and world-convulsing
questions.  His tremendous work on the side of the North in the American Civil
War was cordially acknowledged both by Cobden and Bright; he was whole-heartedly
on the side of the Turk as against Russia, and had what has been well described
as "a brave unbreakable spirit"--he was a political individualist. It was not
inaptly said that, at the time of his death, the state of Conservatism in
Sheffield was his memorial, and the many broadsheets which were issued from his
offices, like so many political whirlwinds, assisted the party all over the
country, as records in his publishing department showed.  He fought the Liberal
opposition to the Ten Hours Bill which that party declared would cost the
country millions of money, and also fought the "Liberal millocrats and
coalowners" who urged that the coal trade would be ruined if the practice of
sending little boys and girls to work down the pit was stopped. Sedulously, he
set himself to destroy the country's faith in Liberalism, and in so far as he
succeeded in that, he built up Conservatism- At all times in Sheffield, he was
first to be consulted respecting political candidates for the borough, and later
for the borough's divisions. The last contributions to his beloved newspaper,
under the nom de plume of "Arcturus," appeared on Saturday, February 8th, 1902,
and Saturday, February 15th, each being dictated in the sick room at Oaklands,
Broomhall Park.

James Henry Barber.--Mr. J. H. Barber passed away at Broomhall Park on Christmas
Day, 1902, and curiously enough was born on New Year's Day 83 years before. He
was one of the foremost figures in the city, and beloved by everyone for his
sterling worth. He was spoken of as "one of the most upright, honourable and
worthy of Sheffield's citizens."  Singularly undemonstrative, he was unsparing
in his unselfishness and a true friend of any deserving call upon him.  Born in
London on January 1st, 1820, he came quite unknown to Sheffield. His father was
apprenticed to Richard Sutcliffe, who then had a pharmacy in Shalesmoor.  Then
he migrated to Scarborough, and then to Canada, where he manifested considerable
ability as scientist, and was a well known and fine speaker. In the meantime
James Henry, the son, lived with an aunt at Kirkstall, and was educated at
Ackworth, the Friends School and Leeds Grammar School.  His first business
appointment was with the Yorkshire District Bank in Leeds, a bank which quickly
became the most popular in the country, but one whose business was so quaintly
conducted that, in the brief space of five years, it lost over half a million of
money, and on an average it made a bad debt of £700 every week.   Its total
losses were declared as representing five-sixths of its paid-up capital.  Two
priceless years young Barber spent in its bad debt department, one says
priceless because of the experience gained, and then for three months in 1843 he
was in the United States winding up its consignment accounts there. In the year
named he came back to Sheffield and joined the Sheffield Banking Company as its
second officer.  In Samuel Bailey and Edward Smith that bank had rigid, splendid
men of business, and the bank prospered greatly under them, whilst the new-comer
benefited equally through the experience he gained.  Five years after joining
the staff he was made manager, and on January 1st, 1874, was appointed managing
director. He was with that bank altogether for 50 years, a time of which it was
then said that in no similar period of years since Queen Elizabeth's days, when
the poor cutlers came here from the Netherlands, had Sheffield's population so
increased or the town so prospered or broadened.

1903. Frederick W. Martino.--The death occurred in Parker's Road, Broomhill, on
December 7th, 1903, of a very famous inventor, Mr. Frederick W. Martino.  He had
lived in Sheffield for many years, and was a Florentine by birth. His invention
of the Martini rifle giving breech action caused a great sensation, superseding
the Snider in the 'seventies, but he also introduced great improvements in
umbrella frames, worked in scientific research with Lord Kelvin, was one of the
greatest authorities on nickel, and patented a notable invention for extracting
nickel from ore. Another of his notable discoveries was a method for conversion
of basic slag into manure, but the supineness of people in this country allowed
that to get into German hands.  He was a great linguist, a conversationalist of
much more than ordinary type, a frequent and welcome visitor at the Vatican in
the days of Pope Pius IX, and an intimate friend of Mr. McKinley during that
gentleman's Presidency.

Rev. Alfred Gatty.--A fine old Englishman died in January, 1903, in the Rev.
Alfred Gatty, the venerable Vicar of Ecclesfield. He was 89 years old.  He was
last in Sheffield at Lord Kitchener's visit, and little more than a week before
his death he preached in the Ecclesfield Church; as he had done for over 60
years.  He lived "a life at one living"--at the Minster of the Moors. His book,
published in 1884, is full of local history. Born in London, member of a Cornish
family, he was educated at Charterhouse, Eton, and Exeter College, Oxford.  At
Charterhouse he met and became great friends with Hallam (Tennyson's
much-lamented friend), and afterwards became well acquainted in London with
Disraeli and Gladstone.  He was first in charge of a chapel of ease at Bellerby,
in North Yorkshire, and then went in 1839 to Ecclesfield. There he was locum
tenens till the son of the late Vicar Ryder came of age.  When that event
happened the son chose the army, and so the Ryder family, in whose gift the
living was, offered it to Alfred Gatty. He has described how he made the journey
by stage coach down Goit Lane to the church, "a grand old medieval building," a
township of 78 miles, a population of 8,832, and chapelry of 5,318 people. "I
found the church," he has written, "sad and desolate, the chancel cut off and
hidden. Heavy galleries shut out the light, a fine old rood-screen had been
glazed in, the arch above it boarded, and the entrances to the side chapels also
boarded up.  The whole edifice was roughly used and uncared for."  Two hundred
years before, Dodsworth had declared this to be "the fairest church he had ever
seen for stone, wood, glass, and neat keeping." Very soon, under the inspiration
of the new Vicar, exhaustive schemes of restoration were planned and in
progress; and in November, 1893, after 40 years, they were completed at a cost
of £6,000, the church then being dedicated by Archbishop Maclagan. "No longer
were the unsightly galleries blocking out the windows on three sides; the beauty
of the interior was manifest and imposing."  Altogether 13 decorative windows
were presented by friends of the church; the pulpit, a very fine specimen of oak
carving, was given by the Dixon family, of Page Hall; the seating in the nave by
Mr. Bernard Wake, and the reredos by the Smith family, of Barnes Hall, and many
Sheffielders to whom Ecclesfield Priory Church held dear memories. The entire
fabric of the church had been most carefully strengthened ; almost the whole of
the tower, which had threatened to give way, was taken out piece by piece and
made good, and the walls and pinnacles were completely and faithfully restored.
When Dr. Gatty went there trade was extremely bad, with depression everywhere,
save that there was the wildest speculation in railways. The filecutters of the
village took their wares to Sheffield by Southey; the stocks stood on Stocks
Hill, and it was a common sight to see chained bodies of prisoners walking along
Ecclesfield common from Sheffield to the Wakefield prison. Shiregreen
schoolhouse in those days had no roof, and in the kitchen the caretaker, a
patriarch 80 years old, made aeolian harps and did some little teaching to two
tiny children.   He was the superannuated clerk of S. James's Church, Sheffield.
The Chartist disturbances of 1840 were a source of great uneasiness all over the
district, and Dr. Gatty had vivid memories of seeing the Chartists tried in
Sheffield, whilst he had equally clear recollections of another incident,
personal to himself, when he went to Bishopthorpe, York, for the purpose of
induction, and there found Archbishop Harcourt, booted and spurred, waiting for
him with biscuit and sherry by his side. The Archbishop was just setting out for
a ride, though then 82 years old, "and for grandeur of physique I have never
seen his equal," said Dr. Gatty. The old ceremony of placing hands between the
prelate's knees took place, and back came the new Vicar to his living and the
Archbishop went on his ride. When Dr. John Hunter died, in 1861, Messrs. W. F.
Dixon, Samuel Roberts, William Butcher (the Town Regent), and J. W. Dixon bought
from his literary executors for £60 a large paper edition of deceased's
Hallamshire, very richly annotated in anticipation of a second edition. This the
gentlemen named unreservedly placed in the hands of Dr. Gatty, with results in
which all acquainted with Hallamshire are fully cognizant. Dr. Gatty's jubilee
was celebrated on September 26th, 1889, when he was presented with his portrait,
painted by the London artist, Mrs. Waller.

1904. Charles Castle.--Councillor Charles Castle, who died in 1904, was much
more than a Councillor of Sheffield. He went from his file making straight into
the British Army when 18 years old, and his regiment, the 7th (Queen's Own)
Yorkshire Hussars, saw much of the really stern fighting in the Indian Mutiny.
Before he had been in the army a year he was in the thick of the fighting at the
repulse of the enemy's attack on the Alumbach, through the siege and relief of
Lucknow, was with Hodson's Horse when the dashing leader of that unit was
killed, and all through 1858 and 1859 was with Sir Hugh Rose and Sir Hope Grant
in pursuit of Nana Sahib. His official service record speaks for itself: Wounded
at Nawab Gunge, in the advance on Fysabad, the repulse of the enemy at
Sultanpore, the "affair" of Dourpore, the pursuit from Kandoo Nuddee, the
pursuit to Faler Ghat, the attack on Hyderghur, the attack on Fort Meejeedia,
the attack on Bankee, and the operations in Nepaul. Altogether he was in upwards
of twenty engagements, yet passed through them with only one wound, though out
of 78 men with his troop who advanced to Lucknow, only thirteen survived at its
relief. After the war he was sergeant of the escort which accompanied Lord and
Lady Canning and Sir Colin Campbell on their tour through the Punjaub and the
North-West Provinces.  In Sheffield he became intensely interested in the
Sheffield Crimean and Indian Mutiny Veterans Association, a body which, thinning
sadly as the years passed on, used to visit Ranmoor Church once a year and
listen to a special sermon. He regarded himself as an Imperial Liberal, and few
dared to dispute his right to that term.  He died in 1904, and for years
previously had been associated with Mr. Batty Langley in Sheaf Street.

John Thomas Cook.--Mr. John Thomas Cook, who died on December 18th, 1904, was
assuredly one of the greatest head masters ever possessed by the Sheffield
School of Art, phlebitis being the cause of his death.  He was born in
Cheltenham in December, 1852, educated in that town and, later, in London and
Paris, and in 1881 became head master of the Sheffield school. When he joined it
the attendance was poor, and the interest shown very small, but the seats were
gradually filled under a very inspiring leadership, and in the story of the
Technical School, told elsewhere in this volume, is also told the story of Mr.
Cook's early efforts in Arundel Street at the School of Art.

W. S. Coleman.--A very accomplished worker, at one time associated with Stevens,
was W. S. Coleman, who died in 1904, very well known through his skill as a
designer, and also being quite celebrated as a painter in water colours.  He was
London born, but came to Sheffield with another young man of talent in
Whittaker, and for some time Coleman was draughtsman with Messrs. Hoole in Green
Lane. He also worked for several silversmiths in the town at a time when beauty
of design was a feature of the Sheffield silver plate industry. He made for
development of his usefulness many superb detailed studies of flowers and plants
from nature, and many books issued by the firm of Routledge were illustrated by
him in this way, one well-remembered example being "Our Moorlands," and another
"Our Hedges and Heaths."  It was generally understood at the time those books
appeared that they owed their appearance more through the beauty of Coleman's
illustrations than because of any especial value in the text.  Mr. Green, with a
full knowledge of Coleman's enterprises, said that that artist was also
responsible for those very beautiful subjects issued by Messrs. Pears for their
Annuals, very beautiful Eastern scenes which in later years were so greatly
treasured.

Colonel Hutton.--One of Sheffield's many notable Volunteer officers was Colonel
Hutton, who died in July, 1904, at Tapton Croft.  He was born in Sheffield in
1843, and, following an education in Switzerland, filled many notable positions
in the town.  He was a member of the Cutlers Company, for 33 years an officer in
the Volunteers, President of the School of Art, and President of the Sheffield
Master Silversmiths Association, but he could never be prevailed upon to take
any of the more important civic positions. It is on record that it was almost
wholly due to Colonel Creswick and himself that the Sheffield Artillery
Volunteers were formed, and Colonel Hutton was repeatedly thanked for his
services in it.  He received the Volunteer officers' decoration in 1892, being
one of the earliest officers to receive that distinction. Apart from his
Volunteer duties, he was a, very well known figure in commercial circles, being
head of William Hutton & Sons, of West Street, established by his grandfather in
Birmingham in 1800, and carried on there until 1832, when it was transferred to
Sheffield, where in January, 1839, the firm's work was carried on in three small
rooms on South Street, Moor, the staff consisting of twelve.  In 1842 larger
premises were secured in Surrey Street, where the Birmingham speciality in
spoons and forks was added, and electro-plate work followed a year later.   In
1845 removal occurred to 27 High Street, where the firm's first steam hammer was
put down. In 1864 Colonel Hutton joined the firm, and from that year the
greatest prosperity was secured.  Twenty-one years later the works in West
Street were completed, with the staff then increased to 500.

Sir Henry Stephenson.--The death of Sir Henry Stephenson occurred in August,
1904, the year preceding the opening of Sheffield's University, for which he had
done so much.  The whole of Sir Henry's manhood and most of his youth had been
passed in the doing of useful work. He was born in Allen Street--in those days a
pleasant place enough--in one of many roomy, well-built houses in that
thoroughfare, with a garden, pleasant fruit trees, and some semblance of an
orchard. Sir Henry was born in the days when "the little mester" was common in
the town, when workmen secured knowledge and, on their own initiative, began to
discover things.  Mr. John Stephenson, father of the future Sir Henry, was one
of that character.  He had some skill as a designer, and was ready with his
pencil, whilst with his hands he was able to turn this talent to account, both
as maker of pierced fenders and as an engraver.  He was also interested in
mathematics, and thus secured the precision necessary to type founding, which,
even in his young days, was not unknown in Sheffield, as a firm named Bower
Bros. had a small foundry in Sheffield in 1810. When, therefore, in 1819, a
member of the Blake family in Sheffield, in association with a Mr. Garnett,
aspired to purchase the London Type Foundry carried on by William Caslon, letter
founder to His Majesty, it was to Mr. John Stephenson they turned for advice. 
As a result the foundry was purchased by Blake, Garnett & Co., with Mr. John
Stephenson engaged as designer and engraver.  In 1830 he was taken into
partnership, the firm becoming Blake & Stephenson, whilst in 1841 Mr. John
Stephenson became head of the firm of Stephenson, Blake & Co., and as such it
has been known ever since. Amongst the many improvements in the art of type
founding introduced by Mr. John Stephenson were gauges for measuring type to the
5,000th part of an inch, as well as for measuring angles, together with lathes
which could be set to corresponding measurements and angles, thereby reducing
the method of manufacture to mathematical precision. Mr. John Stephenson retired
from the business in 1860, leaving his son, Sir Henry, in command. That
gentleman entered the Sheffield City Council by an election in St. George's Ward
in 1883, his sponsors being such politically opposed gentlemen as Mr. Percy
Rawson and Mr. David Ward.  He became Mayor in 1887, succeeding Mr. J. W.
Pye-Smith, and it was by his casting vote that the Council decided to petition
Parliament to grant a Royal Commission to enquire into questions of false
trading, and to secure amendment of the Merchandise Marks Act. On those matters
he headed a deputation to London which went before the Board of Trade. Education
finally claimed Sir Henry. He was a great friend of Sheffield's University, and
in addition to previous contributions, gave in three successive years to that
institution sums which in the aggregate amounted to £15,000. In 1900 he was
presented with his portrait by the town, this being painted by Mr. A. S. Cope,
and became one of Sheffield's first Freemen, the others being the Duke of
Norfolk and Sir Frederick Thorpe Mappin. Also a Town Trustee, Sir Henry remains,
in the memory of all who knew him, one of the many Sheffielders who have touched
every part of Sheffield's largest life, and very richly he deserved all his
honours.  To journalists he was a notable friend, dining them at his home, and
one of the best known patrons and officers of the Sheffield Press Club.  One
still visualizes him walking down to business, a man with kindly eyes and
flowing whiskers, a very gentle gentleman indeed.

J. D. Ellis.--The romance of industry contains few more striking chapters than
is provided by the life-story of Mr. John Devonshire Ellis, of the Atlas Works.
He was 80 years old on April 20th, 1904, and it was then said, that as he walked
through his great works his step was as light as ever, his keenness of vision
unimpaired, and he was alert and very active.  Yet it is history that as far
back as 1854 he had joined with John Brown and William Bragge in premises at the
Queen's Works in Savile Street, an establishment covering three acres, and
through successive decades he saw that comparatively humble establishment grow
and grow until its reputation spread to the very fringes of the world and until,
on his 80th birthday, Mr. Ellis controlled an establishment where 16,000 hands
were employed and where a weekly wage bill was paid amounting to £20,000. Those
are pretty big figures even in connexion with a modern armament works. Fifty
years before the date referred to, the total value of the works was about
£150,000 with its three acres; in 1904 the acreage had increased to thirty-four,
and the capital stood at £2,627,753; and through all the manifold and mighty
changes involved in those comparative figures Mr. Ellis had gone, a great figure
in local life, and yet never quite as well known in the public life of the town
as his early partner, John Brown. Mr. Ellis was ever foremost in engineering
research, and he was responsible for many inventions and very valuable
improvements.  Sir Henry Bessemer, speaking at the meetings of the Iron and
Steel Institute in 1889, when the gold medal was awarded to Mr. Ellis, said,
that the most intelligent of all the great steel men in Sheffield was Mr. Ellis,
a man who was first in the town to regard the Bessemer process as really worth
considering.  At that time Mr. Bessemer's premises were quite close to John
Brown's works. Mr. Ellis called in, saw the new method and straightway took out
a licence. Thus the first Bessemer premises outside the inventor's own were
built in John Brown's works. The progress made by John Brown & Co. was of an
all-round character. Armour-plating was first used for the protection of
floating batteries at Sebastopol, and those were supplied from the Parkgate
works, whilst France was the first nation to use armour-plates on her ships for
protection. That was a few years only after the Atlas Works had really been
started on the larger enterprises.  Those plates were hammered.  Mr. John Brown
went over to France and there saw the wonder ship, La Glorie, and, without the
object of his visit being suspected, saw sufficient to realize that the plates
were hammered.  He came back full of the idea that such a process was all too
slow and laborious, and a mill for the rolling of armour-plates was at once put
down at Atlas Works. Later, after armour-plates had immensely strengthened the
reputation of the firm, the attention of other firms to guns gradually brought
home the fact that these weapons of attack were becoming too mighty for the
others of defence, so Mr. Ellis cheerfully faced the music. He went into the
question of the plates which were being pierced by these heavy guns, and brought
out in due season the Ellis compound plate. Again was the superiority of the
heavy gun checked, and for a long time this plate held the field. Then came the
Harveyized plate, for the gun makers were gradually and insistently increasing
the power of their guns, and so the great rivalry and competition went on.  In
1891 came the Ellis-Tresidder chilled compound plate, very successfully
produced; but even then there was no finality in the struggle, and just before
the head of the Atlas Works reached his 80th birthday in 1904 came the Krupp
plate which took the lead in armament. Later came the principle of cementation
and chilling, which produced the highly successful Ellis-Tresidder plate, which
had its first trial at Shoeburyness in 1891, achieving a remarkable success. In
addition, there came the Ellis-Eaves system of induced draught to remove the
smoke nuisance, and other inventions which marked a half century's activities at
the Atlas Works, and gave the firm its world-wide fame.  From 1871 to the day of
his death Mr. Ellis was managing director, and it is an interesting fact that
when Mr. John Brown formed a volunteer company at his works, and himself became
captain, Mr. Ellis took the rank of ensign. A man of very great tact, Mr. Ellis
never showed the priceless gift more clearly than in 1882, when there was a
great strike pending at the Aldwarke and Rotherham collieries of the company and
when his influence induced the men to resume work without any semblance of
trouble.

1906. C. W. Kayser.--One of the most astonishing instances of German doggedness
and perseverance that Sheffield has ever known is to be found in the life-story
of Mr. C. W. Kayser. He finished up as sole proprietor of a great steelworks in
Sheffield after coming to the town a poor but well-educated lad from Solingen,
bent on discovering what he could of English, and especially Sheffield, methods
of business, and remaining in Sheffield to the end of his days, a patriotic son.
 He died in April, 1906, at his stately home, Endcliffe Grange, then being
absolute head of Kayser, Ellison & Co. and one of Sheffield's acknowledged steel
magnates. He was born in Solingen in Rhenish Prussia and educated in the
commercial schools there, and, with his elementary schooling done, he embarked
on a visit to this country in 1860 with the distinct and avowed purpose of
examining Sheffield Cutlery methods so far as he could, and especially the
manufacture of and trade in steel.  He returned to Solingen, there to put into
practice much of what he had seen.  He was back in this country later, having in
the meantime learned the trade of scissor smith, and was then engaged in that
capacity by R. F. Mosley & Co., their works being in Randall Street. Young
Kayser was at all times moving busily, and when in Randall Street he sedulously
picked his employers' brains, according to his own later-told story of his life.
 He saved money there as well, even when he was only making 10s. a week; he
found it possible to attend evening classes and perfect his English, and with
that difficult task accomplished he offered his services to Cocker Bros. and
became their traveller.  In the next two years the whole of his visions and
purposes underwent great change. Up to that time his one dream had been of a
fortune made in Sheffield and a happy and prosperous career in his own country,
with wealth waiting for him and all the secrets of Sheflield trade in his
pockets. The change came with his connexion with Cocker Bros., and from that
moment he cut adrift the idea of going back to Prussia, and after doing good
work for Cocker Bros. he settled down with Wilson, Hawksworth, Ellison & Co.,
still in the capacity of traveller, though destined to become absolute master.
This firm was founded in 1820 by Mr. John Wilson, father of Lady Mappin, and
when the young man from Solingen joined it the partners were Messrs. T. B.
Hawksworth, J. B. Ellison and Simeon Hayes. Mr. Hawksworth soon retired, being
succeeded by Mr. Michael Hunter.  When he was appointed traveller Mr. Kayser,
still possessed of high ambitions, had told his masters that at the end of three
years he would expect a partnership provided that his work had been
satisfactory, or the alternative that he must leave. There was never any real
question as to his demands being rejected; he was a magnificent "knight of the
road," his energy and tirelessness proved extremely valuable to his masters, and
before 1872, the date when partnership or resignation was to be placed before
the partners, he had been given his place, having in the previous years been
earning a big income on salary and commission. When the great transference came,
which also came to many other big works in the 'seventies, that from cutlery to
steel, he threw his energies into it with complete success.   Mr. Hunter had
retired as far back as 1868, and in 1893 Mr. Ellison and Mr. Hayes leaving, the
firm eventually came into the sole control of this one-time Prussian boy.  Even
then he remained traveller, doing prodigious work.  He became famous in the
making of crucible steel, which perhaps was his one great hobby.  He lived out
in the country on the Brushes Estate, Sheffield Lane Top; he was a firm friend
of the movement which culminated in the Sheffield University, and the Volunteers
found in him a ready friend.


James Veall.--Mr. James Veall died at The Elms, Collegiate Crescent, in August,
1906.  He was educated at the famous Milk Street Academy and apprenticed to the
cutlery firm of Messrs. H. G. Long & Co., Rockingham Street.  Incidentally, it
may be mentioned that going through the history of these fifty years it is very
obvious that, in the earlier half, Rockingham Street was a very favourite
business centre, especially for cutlery works, right away from the Moor to Broad
Lane, and many very large businesses were built up in that brick-built region.
After his apprenticeship Mr. Veall joined Messrs. T. B. Needham & Co. of which,
at the time of his death, he was managing director.  When he joined it the staff
was thirty strong, when he died it had risen to 1,000, and when the enquiry on
False Marking was held in Sheffield Mr. Veall was the first witness.  He had
previously lived at The Summer House, Norton, and was grandson of Mr. James
Cleverley Veall, Lord of the Manor of Burlesdon and Dodswell, Hants.

1907. Henry Pawson.--The founder of the business of Pawson & Brailsford was not
Sheffield born, Mr. Henry Pawson, who died at Oakhill Road in 1907 when 87 years
old, being born at Makerfield. He was there apprenticed to Nicholls, a printer
of wide reputation, and afterwards worked on the Leeds Intelligencer, now known
to everybody as the Yorkshire Post.  Realizing what his future was likely to
become, young Pawson set himself to conquer the mysteries of phonography, and,
mastering it thoroughly, found it of very great use in his future life.  Coming
to Sheffield he took up a position on the Mercury, but later Mr. Willett offered
him a position of greater responsibility on the Sheffield Times, where the young
man worked side by side with Mr. Samuel Harrison, and in 1853 these two
purchased the property of the Sheffield Times from its proprietor. In the new
partnership Mr. Pawson took over control of the reporting side of the paper, his
partner looking after the commercial responsibilities, and it was said that Mr.
Henry Pawson set a style in reporting which was very widely noticed, his command
of English being admirable.  In the year of the Great Exhibition, 1851, he wrote
a series of interesting and very accurate articles on Sheffield's exhibits, many
of these being copied into the London papers and, what was perhaps more
astonishing in those days, securing an honest acknowledgment. In 1857 there dame
a dissolution of partnership, and in due time the establishment of a
partnership, Henry Pawson and Joseph Brailsford.  Mr. Pawson had many other
interests in later life, and was foreman of the jury which heard the enquiry
into the tragedy of Dale Dike.  He was a notable Churchman.


John Francis Moss.--The "Father of Education in Sheffield," as he was called,
Mr. John F. Moss died in June, 1907, when 62 years old, at his home, Edgebrook
Road, and certainly he well deserved the title. He was born near Rotherham, and
in early life became attracted to newspaper work, holding a position on a
Rotherham newspaper for some time and eventually joining the reporting staff of
the Sheffield Telegraph, becoming chief reporter in a very short time.  When he
was appointed Clerk to the Sheffield School Board he made it his business to
study continental methods, devoting many of his summer holidays to visits to
cities abroad, and so securing his knowledge at first hand.  Sheffield's
Educational progress was remarkable and drew to the town many experts. The later
University Extension Schemes also found in the clerk an ardent advocate, and
when, in 1875, a committee was formed in connexion with the movement, Mr. Moss
and the Rev. Samuel Earnshaw acted as joint secretaries and worked hand in hand
to secure a great success, the ultimate issue being the foundation of Firth
College. He was placed on the Executive of the newly-formed Association of Board
Schools with fifteen members all told, and honours were given him all the more
striking because they coincided with the presence in the town of such stalwart
educationists as Canon Moore Ede (Gateshead), Professor Anthony (Plymouth), and
the Chairmen of the School Boards of Blackpool, Liverpool, Wolverhampton,
Leicester, Derby, and Birmingham, and the Chairman of the London School Board,
and not one of those gentlemen gained as many votes as Mr. Moss.  He was
frequently summoned to London to place his views on vexed questions before the
Board of Education, and gave evidence before many Royal Commissions and
Parliamentary Committees.  The later years of his life were sadly clouded.  He
completed thirty years of unsparing service to education, nationally as well as
in the interests of Sheffield, and very shortly afterwards there came symptoms
of the grave calamity which afterwards overcame him, for he passed his closing
years completely blind.  However, he had given to Sheffield a great lead in the
march of education, and he was accorded something in the nature of a public
funeral when he died, having crowded twice the work which most men do in a long
life within the compass of fifty-five years.  The presentation of his portrait
to Mr. J. E. Moss on completion of thirty years work as Clerk to the School
Board was made on November 28th, 1900, the Rev. F. G. Sandford in the chair. The
portrait, which hangs in the Board Room, was the work of Emest Moore.

Sir Alexander Wilson.--The death of Sir Alexander Wilson took place in 1907 at
Archer House.  He was a Fifeshire man, and a great fisherman, getting away from
his toil in Sheffield as often as he could to fish the lochs and streams of his
native country.  His brother George preceded him in coming to Sheffield, where
he became one of the greatest business men the town knew, and was at times
referred to as "the Bismarck of Sheffield." That, of course, was in connexion
with the Cyclops Works, and the younger brother, in 1857, was given his chance
of winning his spurs, being sent on a very important mission to the States to
represent the firm.  He did so with signal distinction, remaining there for two
years. The firm was turned into a limited company in 1864, and when Mr. Cammell
died, in 1879, Mr. George Wilson became chairman and Alexander managing
director, retiring from that position in 1901, but retaining. the chairmanship,
which had reverted to him some years before. He was one of the first men in
Sheffield or elsewhere to foresee the possibilities of armour plates, and there
arose a great discussion in business circles when it became known that Cammells
had rolled an iron plate 4‡ in. thick and weighing seven tons. That was in 1862,
and Mr. Alexander Wilson was practically in at the start of the long battle
between armour and shell, and introduced the Wilson compound plate, a backing of
iron with face of steel. He never disregarded what was being done abroad, and
learned many valuable lessons from our great rivals.  It was during his year as
Master Cutler that Queen Victoria paid a visit to the Cyclops Works, a bulkhead
plate for H.M.S. Ocean being rolled in her presence, and that is still regarded
as the greatest day in the history of the works.  In 1900 the King of Norway
also went there to see the rolling of a plate for one of his own ships. In life,
whether at the works or in the town, Sir Alexander was a man of old-world and
very charming courtesy, and extremely well liked.

1908. A. R. Ellin.--Mr. A. R. Ellin was Master Cutler in 1901, and in the direct
succession when he died in 1908, inasmuch as his father had occupied that
position in 1841, and his grandfather in 1833.  Mr. A. R. Ellin was senior
partner in the firm of Thomas Ellin & Sons when his death took place.  He was
born in a house quite close to the works near Sheffield Moor. The business had
been begun in 1784, and the founder, originally a farmer, transferred his
affections to manufacture and prospered.  At the very start the founder cut down
a field of ripe corn so that he might get his goods on the market, and so get on
with the building of his works in Eyre Street. Those premises quickly proved
insufficient, and removal was made to Sylvester Gardens.  This firm was the
first in the town to use circular saws for the cutting of ivory, bone, and horn.

Henry Clifton Sorby.--General and genuine grief in Sheffield followed news of
the death of Dr. Henry Clifton Sorby. He passed away on March 9th, 1908, at his
home in Beech Hill Road; was 81 years old, and had a reputation absolutely world
wide as a scientist.  Born at Woodbourne, May 10th, 1826, he was sufficiently
well endowed with riches to ignore the need of a profession, and was able to
devote himself all his long life to the advancement of science.  For all that,
he was quite self taught, followed no routine, was full of originality and self
reliance, and, striding ahead after making his many discoveries, was content to
leave them for others to exploit. At the same time he had an amazing genius for
taking pains; he was chemist, geologist, Egyptologist, naturalist,
archaeologist--and master of them all.  He was one of the eighteen foreign
members of the Academy of Lynxes in Rome, the oldest scientific society in the
world, and the one to which Galileo gave many of his discoveries.  In 1872 he
received the great gold Boerhaave medal, the first to receive this, which,
according to its foundation, was to be given once in every twenty years to the
foremost scientist of that period.  The Geological Society gave him the gold
Wollaston medal for his microscopic work in the study of rocks, and he was
president of that society in 1878.  The Royal Society in 1874 awarded him the
Queen Victoria gold medal, and he was on the Council in 1877.  He was president
of the Royal Microscopical Society in 1875, and in 1877 first president of the
Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland.  Russia, Holland, Brussels,
New York, and Philadelphia also showered honours upon him at different times. He
was always bent on getting further back to first causes than his predecessors in
scientific research, and was hard at work to the day of his death, his brain
active and alert.  He really began in animal and vegetable chemistry, and wrote
papers on those subjects in 1847.  He was then living at Woodbourne, not far
from the Don, and where the Rother at its broadest passed through his estate. 
Great alluvial deposits were there, making a happy hunting ground for the young
scientist, and he worked on until he eventually drew maps showing how each of
these streams had diverged from its original bed.  In 1850 he began his
investigations in current structures, finding the Isle of Wight and the coast of
Dorset a harvest field to his hand. The idea of applying the microscope to
geology came to him in 1849, and was sympathetically laughed at by his
contemporaries. They quoted Saussure against him, that it was not proper to
examine mountains with microscopes.  That profound remark did not disturb Henry
Clifton Sorby-he wanted to know something about those mountains which the
microscope would tell him, at all events which he could not discover in any
other way, and his first paper on this had, as its subject, calcareous grit as
found on the Castle rock at Scarborough.  It was read before the Geological
Society in 1850, and, to a large extent, convinced the unbelievers.  Whilst
working down that coast he paid especial attention to the microscopical shells
along "Burlington Crag"--now covered by the sea wall at Bridlington. In later
years, beginning with 1851, he devoted himself to the subject of slaty cleavage,
and upset all previous theories, though he was against all the experts of the
Geological Survey.  Researches in limestone brought him nearer home, and further
researches were made possible through his invention of the spectrum microscope,
facilitating his investigations of the immense collections he made from the seas
and the estuaries, of the distribution of animals, researches which were made
possible through many excursions on his yacht, "The Glimpse."  He was a member
of the Commission on the Drainage of London in 1882, spent 240 days on his yacht
investigating questions of silting up and erosion, and his voluminous pamphlet
of evidence which resulted being of the greatest benefit to the commission. So
great a man, so busy a worker, found plenty of time for the service of his
native town, and in 1883 he was one of the promoters of the first Technical
School.  Dr. Sorby became its first chairman and a great benefactor to it.  He
was also president of the School of Art and the Mechanics Institute.  Not all
his discoveries proved palatable.  On one occasion, after he had made infinite
researches, he read a paper before the British Association at Bath, and spoke of
the benefit of microscopical investigation into the structure of iron and steel,
and he was laughed at. However, 23 years later, the Iron and Steel Institute
asked him to write a paper for it, and this has since been regarded as one of
the most important things in practical science. He was father of microscopical
petrography, and was greatly honoured at the centenary gathering of the
Geological Society in London. Dr. Sorby was the tenth Englishman to have
conferred upon him the Wollaston gold medal of the British Geological Society. 
This was on February 22nd, 1869, at a meeting of the society at Somerset House,
the President, Professor Hunter, in the chair.  He said it was conferred in
consideration of patient and painstaking investigations into various departments
of physical geology over 18 years, and his researches into rocks, minerals, and
meteorites.  The full value of those researches would not be realized by Dr.
Sorby's contemporaries, but it was striking how the tone of his researches were
in union with those of Dr. Wollaston, who was so noted for the minute yet exact
character of his experiments. Dr. Sorby's will was proved for £45,643.  He left
£10,000 for a Professorship of Geology at the Sheffield University, £15,000 to
establish fellowships and professorships for the carrying on of original
research by the Royal Society in London in conjunction with the Sheffield
University, £500 and books to the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society,
£1,000 to the Geological Society of London, £1,000 to the Sheffield Royal
Infirmary, and his books and instruments to the Sheffield University and the
Corporation. That was in 1887, but it had been far away back in the 'sixties
that the great scientist originated the science of metallurgy, and it was in
those days, in proving that various kinds of iron and steel were varying
mixtures of well defined substances, and that their structure was in many
respects analagous to that of igneous rock, that he gave cause for an American
writer in 1900 to conclude a biographical sketch of Dr. Sorby's career and
researches with the words: "Whatever has been accomplished since, in microscopic
metallography, has been done by following in his footsteps.  To Dr. Sorby, and
to him alone, is due the pioneer's honour." Perhaps a personal note may be
forgiven here, to show the many sided-ness of the great scientist here referred
to.  I happened in the later 'eighties to be secretary to a well-attended
literary society in connexion with Mount Zion Chapel, and, amazingly busy as he
was, he visited that little circle three or four times, giving of his best,
providing experiments and taking a marked interest in what after all was a very
small thing.

1909. Arnold Muir Wilson.--Pathos and power passed hand in hand through the
career of Mr. Arnold Muir Wilson, whose death in Vancouver on October 1st, 1909,
excited no small amount of pity in Sheffield.  He had gone abroad for health's
sake, for, during the last year or two of his life in Sheffield, he had been a
very pathetic storm-centre, waging war against recognized authority in the
Courts, the Town Hall and elsewhere, and many things he did were rightly
attributable to his overstrung and always fretful disposition.  Unhappily there
were many who only knew the contentious, very acid buffoon which misrepresented
Arnold Muir Wilson at the close. An ungratified ambition, a restless craving to
be in the limelight, and constant tilting against authority, had made him very
sour. Yet, when news of his death came from far away Vancouver, Mr. S. Gardner
Harrison wrote to the Telegraph pointing out that there were two Muir Wilsons.
"Actually, he was a most generous-hearted man, full of human sympathy and
kindness, a very lovable man, and strong." True enough, as those of us know who
had the pleasure of meeting "Muir" in private life; yet, so fully had fate
gripped him in the later years that not one man who knew him only towards the
close of his life in Sheffield could credit him with any one of the attributes
with which Mr. Harrison endowed him. Born at Sherwood Mount in Glossop Road, in
1857, he was educated in Sheffield and Germany, articled to Mr. Joseph Binney,
and, when 21, admitted to his profession as a solicitor, being prizeman of
Clifford's Inn. For five years he was partner with Mr. Binney, and later, for
himself, built up an enormous practice in the Police Court. " Muir Wilson for
the defence and Arthur Neal for the prosecution" was a daily bill of fare to
those who sought excitement and the delights of the dialectic duels.  He was
past-master in procedure, and revelled in fighting out obscure points of law. As
a speaker he was fluent and resourceful, at his best perhaps when conducting a
cross-examination; and on one occasion at Leeds Assizes, when conducting his own
defence in an action for libel, he was complimented from the Bench on his
conduct of the case. He was told by friends that he might have done very well at
the Bar, and retorted that he was quite content with his £2,000 a year as a
humble solicitor. His ready tongue carried him on to all sorts of platforms--he
was "the Randolph of debate." His admirers contended he, with Mr. R. E. Leader,
had much to do with the early triumphs of the Sheffield Amateur Parliament, and
in 1883 he took up politics seriously, having been for many years a member of
the City Council. However, about 1903 came the change. He began hitting out at
everybody, even his best friends scarcely knew when they were safe, and an
impaired health, an enfeebling frame, found life's torch blazing instead of
burning.  His efforts to secure a Parliamentary seat in Attercliffe were full of
sadness to his friends; everybody, liking "old Muir," as he was still
affectionately called, sought to save him from himself, but failed; and in 1907
he started on the trip round the world from which he was fated never to return. 
Never was there a Sheffielder with so many irons in the fire, so ready to do
anything he could to give help in any possible way.

F. Percy Rawson.--Rigid as a line in his principles, a born fighter, and
absolutely uncompromising to the end of his busy life, Mr. F. Percy Rawson died
at Kenbourne Road.  A man tall and very spare in figure, he passed through many
phases of local life, and though his candid fearlessness and his fondness for
calling a spade a spade made him many enemies, no one could deny him that
attribute of honesty of purpose, and he was an honourable fighter.  How many
political fights were hatched in the upstairs office at his Carver Street
warehouse cannot be said; he was almost the head-centre of Radicalism for close
on half-a-century so far as Sheffield was concerned. He was Justice of the
Peace, on the Education Committee, on the Technical Council of the University,
and also a member of the City Council for 12 years; whilst, going out of
Sheffield in quest of Parliamentary honours, he contested the Stamford Division,
but without success.  Born in  1843,  he was member of a very Old Sheffield 
family which dated back 500 years, Mr. John Rawson being the second Master
Cutler of Sheffield.  A flash of the native wit which always characterized the
Sheffielder gave him a curious nickname, and he became known to many as " Rawcy
Person," a nickname which tickled the groundlings at any rate.

Dr. W. H. Dallinger.--A great moral and intellectual force passed away when Dr.
W. H. Dallinger, F.R.S., died at Lee, in Kent, on November 7th, 1909.  He was a
powerful preacher, a profound thinker, and a great figure in the Wesleyan
ministry, appealing to a very wide circle, and few preachers addressed
congregations drawn from so many different bodies. His sermons were marked by
great insight, a wide culture and a lofty eloquence, and, a broad-minded man, he
always cherished the idea of Christian unity. He was born in Devonport in 1840,
and his first appointment was to Boughton, Kent.  Then in turn he was appointed
to Cardiff, Clifton and Liverpool, and in 1880 was made Governor of Wesley
College, where he remained for eight years, and subsequently became a special
preacher of the Wesleyan body.   Of the delight which his many lectures gave to
Sheffield people it is unnecessary to speak, save to say that they formed an
educational adjunct to the great wave of higher thought which was then
enveloping the city. His love of nature was intimate, especially that of its
most minute creatures, and from bees, ants and spiders he evolved most
delightful lectures.  He delivered a long series of most instructive lectures on
biology in Sheffield, and in one of them said he had himself struggled in a
period almost to a point of black Atheism, and so he was in perfect sympathy
with those in difficulty and doubt.

Thomas Wilkinson.--One of the romances of Sheffield's trade surely is to be
found in the rehabilitation of the fortunes of the firm of W. Cooke & Co., Ltd.,
of Tinsley, and with that work Mr. Thomas Wilkinson, who died at Ivy Lodge,
Crabtree, on December 15th, 1909, aged 65, had almost all to do. He became
secretary of the company in 1872, and in 1873 it was formed into a limited
company.  In the following year its £50 shares were quoted at 18 and half £.  In
1878 they had dropped almost to nothing, the market price being 30s., and 25s.
in 1877.  It was then that the long-continued zeal of Mr. Wilkinson had its
reward. A period of twenty years passed by without a dividend at all, and then
one of three per cent was declared. That proved the long looked-for turning
point. Reconstruction came in 1898, with capital of £150,000 in £1 shares. In
1899 the dividend was 12 and a half per cent, and for the ensuing six years up
to 1906 it averaged 7 and a half per cent, then rising afresh to 12 and a half
per cent.  Mr. Wilkinson was a noted traveller for the firm, spending long and
successful periods on the continent, especially in Russia, but also carrying his
firm's interests into Turkey and Asia Minor.

1910. Sir Frederick Thorpe Mappin.--Born in 1821, Sir Frederick Thorpe Mappin
rose to a position of great influence and affluence in his native city, and
betrayed his possession of a wide vision and just appreciation. He died in 1910,
and touched the life of the town at very many points. He was earnest in its
religious life, he was head and foremost in the great educational struggles of
the 'eighties and thereabouts, he was assuredly one of the very best known men
of business in Sheffield, he was a politician and a Parliamentarian, and played
a very large part in securing for Sheffield its University. Also he was a
notable pioneer in preserving the amenities of the Fulwood Road, and making that
district a suitable home for himself and others in the town to whom hard work
had given great wealth. It was said at the time of his death that "in a special
sense he was Father of the Sheffield University," but the intervening years have
made it clear that to no one man in particular, but rather to a group, did the
University owe its origin. Assuredly, however, Sir Frederick Thorpe Mappin was
in the very forefront of the movement, but there did come a day when, as
Alderman Styring has declared, even his optimism was checked, and for the moment
the success of the whole project hung in the balance. Long before it was dreamed
of, Sir Frederick, who was first Pro-Chancellor of the University, interested
himself very greatly in one of the factors which brought the University scheme
into being, that was the foundation of the Technical School.  From the very
first this idea gripped the man who, throughout his business life, had realized
the shortcomings, the cramped environments of the workman, and he threw himself
into the new scheme with rare assiduity. He gave to its first funds a sum of
£2,000, with £100 per annum for five years, and £1,000 to its prize fund, and
all through the long struggles to get the school firmly established he was an
enthusiast.  How far he identified himself with it may be gathered from the fact
that, to the time of his death, he was chairman of the Applied Science
Department of the University.  A Nonconformist in early life, he then worshipped
at Queen Street and Mount Zion Chapels, but afterwards became a member of the
Church of England as a reforming Churchman of tolerant views. Honours such as
the town could give were very freely bestowed upon him.  In 1855 he was Master
Cutler, and joined the Town Council; in 1863 he became a director of the Gas
Company, and ten years later was its chairman; in 1871 he was elected Town
Trustee; in 1877 Mayor of Sheffield, and his portrait was presented by the town;
in 1893 he was appointed Town Collector, and in 1900 he became one of the three
first Freemen of the City, the others then honoured being the Duke of Norfolk
and Sir Henry Stephenson. Son of John Mappin, cutlery manufacturer, he left
school when 14 in order to join his father in business, and, the latter dying in
1841, the sons resolved the business into Mappin Bros., the subsequent Sir
Frederick being head of the firm before he was 21 years old.  He withdrew in
1859, then becoming senior partner in the firm of Thomas Turton & Sons, Sheaf
Works, retiring from business in 1885 because of his political ambitions. He had
then been member of Parliament for East Retford five years, and in 1885, after
the Redistribution Bill, was elected M.P. for the newly-formed Hallamshire
Division, occupying that position ten years and retiring in 1905, the year which
saw the University established. Reverting to his services to the University, Sir
William Clegg said that Sir Frederick had everything to do with the institution
of the scheme of scholarships whereby it was possible for a pupil in the Central
Schools and the district Evening Schools to reach the University, and Sir George
Franklin declared that when the history of higher education in Sheffield was
written two names should be written in letters of gold, those of Sir Frederick
Mappin and Sir Henry Stephenson. The Rev. T. W. Holmes went further, expressing
the view that Sir Frederick had done for Sheffield what the Florentine merchants
had done for their city, left its name and "importance safe for all time." Sir
Frederick was one of the very few public men of Sheffield who had the felicity
of celebrating a diamond wedding. He took to wife the daughter of Mr. John
Wilson, of Oakholme and Sycamore Street, and the sixtieth anniversary of their
marriage was celebrated in September, 1905.

Jonathan Taylor.--Mr. Jonathan Taylor died at Bournemouth. He was born at
Holmfirth where his father, an eager Chartist, frequently had meetings in his
house.  In 1863 the youngster came to Sheffield already strongly imbued with
Socialist tendencies, becoming very prominent at the old pump in West Bar.   He
quickly became a great admirer of Plimsoll's fiery eloquence, and claimed some
share, though not very clearly, in the introduction to Sheffield of Mr. Mundella
and Mr. Chamberlain. He first entered public life in Sheffield in 1879, becoming
an enthusiast for free education, and in 1885 he secured such a hold on the
working men that he was asked to stand for Parliament for the Central Division,
but declined. The Association for Better Housing of the Poor originated with
him, bringing about removal of the insanitary area of the crofts.  He left
Sheffield in 1906.   He proved himself a very real benefactor when he became,
comparatively speaking, well off; and in the early 'nineties, when distress was
acute in the town, he daily took up to his house some 200 men, providing them
with soup and bread.  When better times came, the town was not unmindful of such
kindness and he was presented with a cheque- and a fur-lined coat !

Thomas Robert Gainsford.--Mr. Thomas Robert Gainsford, whilst building up his
fortune, contrived to spend very much of his life in the service of Sheffield. 
He was born in Sheffield in 1844, and died in July, 1910.  Educated at Oscott
College and in London, he entered the Sheffield Council in 1871, the same year
as Mr. Batty Langley and Mr. William Henry Brittain, and twelve years later he
became alderman.  It was in 1886 when his services to the town first became
really prominent, that being with the Corporation's purchase of the Sheffield
Water Company's undertaking. A special committee was appointed to carry the
transaction through, with Alderman J. W. Pye-Smith as chairman, and when that
gentleman succeeded Mr. John Yeomans as Town Clerk, he was succeeded as chairman
of the Water Committee by the subject of this review.  Mr. Gainsford kept that
position for twenty years, resigning through illness in 1907. The task was very
difficult during the early years, but Mr. Gainsford carried the work through so
satisfactorily that his reputation was quickly established.  Certain Corporation
officials had made a dead set against the transfer of the undertaking, but the
new chairman was resolved that what had been successful as a private monopoly
should be successful as the first municipal undertaking, and into its success he
threw all his tireless energy and skill. The transfer had cost Sheffield two
millions in money, exclusive of professional costs, which had been very heavy,
but, up to the time of Mr. Gainsford's death, the undertaking never cost the
ratepayers a penny. He showed a great thoroughness in dealing with the lead
poisoning scare, and at the first sign of danger set on foot a complete
investigation and took the utmost personal pains to ascertain the cause.  It was
proved that a slight acidity in the moorland water had attacked the service
pipes, which were of lead, but the simple application of carbonate of lime to
the waters in the dam neutralized the acidity and the trouble ended.  Mr.
Gainsford saw the enormous growth of the undertaking, the reconstruction of Dale
Dike, the making of Dam Flask, the carrying through of the Little Don scheme,
and, above all else, the origin and development of the vast scheme known as the
Derwent Valley Water Works at Bamford. He was chairman of the Board of that
undertaking, and at the time of his death and for long afterwards the
Corporations of Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester were reaping the benefit of his
wise chairmanship and control. At the date of the 1864 disaster the Water
Company was supplying 50,200 houses with water, and the entire length of the
pipes laid by it was 162 miles. In one speech the Alderman pointed out that, as
he spoke, £144,037 had been paid into a sinking fund towards the redemption of
the initial purchase price of £2,092,014, and that the revenue of the
undertaking was still expanding satisfactorily. At the time of his death a
population of 525,376 was being supplied with water, in addition to the towns of
Rotherham and Doncaster, and also the requirements of the vast manufacturing
interests of so important an area.  Alderman Gainsford's commercial activities
embraced a life-long association with the Sheffield Coal Company at Woodthorpe,
and, in that connexion, it is interesting to recall that when the great strike
occurred in 1893 he permitted the men at his Birley pits to work when every
other district was standing out.

1911. Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge.-It is fairly safe to say that practically
half the citizens of Sheffield at the present time know nothing of Mr. Emerson
Muschamp Bainbridge, yet in his day he was assuredly one of Sheffield's big men.
 He died May, 1911, in London, when 66 years old, member of a North of England
family, and claiming a relationship, distant to be sure, with Ralph Waldo
Emerson.  He was educated at Doncaster and afterwards articled to mining
engineering with the Marquis of Londonderry in Durham College, and his early
studies were carried on at Durham University.  His association with Sheflield
began in 1870 when he was manager of the Sheffield and Tinsley Collieries, and
soon afterwards he was in charge of the Nunnery pits for the Duke of Norfolk. 
They were turned into a limited company in 1874, and he then became managing
director with a controlling interest. He had always maintained his studies, and
in 1873 was awarded the Hermon prize for an essay on the prevention of mine
explosions. Gradually he spread his influence over a great part of the Midlands,
and the development of Bolsover was entirely due to him--the colliery and also
the model village.  He took a deep interest in railway movements in this
district, and the directorships which he held were very many, including the
Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, the Sheffield District Railway,
Hardy Patent Pick Co., New Hucknall Colliery, Yorkshire Engine Co., Wharncliffe
Silkstone Colliery, to mention just a few.  He was head of a noted firm of
mining consulting engineers, was a strong supporter of the Sheffield Canal, and
in 1889 lectured in the town on the possibility of getting big vessels right up
the canal into Sheffield. He became known as a philanthropist when he provided
considerable money for the Y.M.C.A. scheme, which brought about the present
Association Buildings Co. Ltd. and the present head-quarters, and in 1881 he
entertained the whole of the members at Chatsworth.  He built and founded the
Jeffie Bainbridge Home for Waifs and Strays at the corner of Norfolk Street and
Surrey Street in memory of his wife, the building being opened by the Duke and
Duchess of Portland. He was a great supporter of the project for an East to West
railway from Sutton-on-Sea to Liverpool, but only the eastern portion was
completed.  Turning his busy mind to politics he became M.P. for the
Gainsborough Division from 1895 to 1900, in which year he was defeated by Mr.
Ormesby Gore. He was a fine shot, a notable sportsman, and owned a great deer
forest in Ross-shire, containing 40,000 acres, with much red deer. In 1905 he
built, as a potential home for his later days, a magnificent villa, Roquebrune,
between Mentone and Monte Carlo, but he made small use of it.  Assuredly, though
of many other Sheffielders the same might be said, it is most true of Emerson
Bainbridge that he burned the candle at both ends.

Ebenezer Hall.--The life story of Mr. Ebenezer Hall is to a large extent the
story of at least one definite period of Sheffield trade.  He died in 1911 when
90 years old, and, in early life, married Miss Wilkinson, a lady who was closely
associated with James Montgomery's time and in friendship with him, and she
survived the nonagenarian now referred to.  Mr. Hall lived a life closely in
touch with silver plating and cutlery in Sheffield.  He began business as an
apprentice to a firm which ultimately took the title of Martin Hall & Co. at
Shrewsbury Works, and eventually became head of that concern.  He was educated
at Cromford, and came to Sheffield in 1836. His apprenticeship was to Mr. John
Roberts, silversmith, who at that time had, as partner, Mr. Henry Wilkinson,
father-in-law of Mr. Ebenezer Hall. The youngster quickly made good; in four
years he was traveller and manager, and subsequently partner, and became the
accepted pioneer in the silversmith's art.  When Mr. Roberts rewarded the young
man with his partnership he had had the business in his own hands for 47 years,
and from that point it became known as Roberts & Hall. In 1852 it was
amalgamated with the firm of Martin & Taylor, whose premises were in Fargate,
and about 1859 Mr. Joseph Hall, brother of Mr. Ebenezer Hall, joined the firm,
which, to the end of 1865, became known as Martin, Hall & Co. In January, 1866,
it was turned into a limited company, Mr. Bernard Wake being chairman and Mr.
Hall and Mr. Martin managing directors, Mr. Hall becoming chairman on the death
of Mr. Wake in 1891.  His steam stamp, the first of its kind used by
silversmiths for production of metal bodies, gave the company a great advantage
over its rivals, and he was associated with many other local concerns in
directorships on the boards of local banks, and chairman of Sandersons Ltd., and
also of S. Newbould & Co., those being afterwards combined as Sanderson Bros. &
Newbould Ltd. at Newhall.

Rev. Samuel Chorlton.--Sudden as the death was of many a well-known Sheffielder,
very few were quite as tragic as that of the Rev. Samuel Chorlton, Vicar of
Christ Church, Pitsmoor, death occurring at the vicarage as he was preparing for
morning service.  His father was clerk to the Court of Jurisdiction at Chester,
and the son born at Runcorn, graduating at Trinity College, Dublin, taking his
M.A. in 1865 and Orders in 1866, and being ordained priest by the Archbishop of
York in 1867.   He was then appointed head master of the Sheffield Royal Grammar
School, and, whilst undertaking that work, also acted as curate for S. James's
Church. In 1872 he was offered the living of Christ Church, Pitsmoor, and there
remained to the end, a man of most engaging personality, with tremendous energy,
a lovable disposition, and a preacher of power and attractiveness. When he had
been at Christ Church for sixteen years the rich living of Jesmond was offered
to him, with a stipend of £700 a year and a vicarage as beautiful in situation
as any of the mansions at Ranmoor, but Mr. Chorlton's heart was in Sheffield,
for, as he said, when a testimonial was made to him at this point, he loved his
people.

Stuart Uttley.--The first Labour representative in the Sheffield City Council
was Mr. E. Memmott, of Attercliffe, and certainly the first to be elevated to
the aldermanic bench was Mr. Stuart Uttley (obiit. 1911), a very well-remembered
gentleman whose early life was one long struggle, with perseverance crowning it
in the end.  He was one of the same bull-dog breed as the Duke of Norfolk, whom
he resembled facially to a considerable extent, the likeness possibly being
heightened by the similarity in beards, but none the less striking. Mr. Uttley
began as a file cutter, and ended Alderman of the City, a Justice of the Peace,
and amongst other offices holding the position of secretary to the Federated
Trades Council.  He was no toady, yet he held during most of his life the
goodwill and often the friendship of men of all parties and different classes in
the community  His energy was tireless, his pluck beyond question, for he had
much fighting with fortune to get through during his life, dying a thoroughly
respected man when 74 years old. He was then the strong man of Labour inside and
out of the Council, and for thirty years was very prominent in Trade Unionism.
He was the son of a local builder, and engaged in file making when only 13 years
old, and when 18 he joined his union. The first great move came to him in 1869,
when he gave up file making, having been asked by Sir John Brown to undertake
special duties for him at the Atlas Works. The great firm at that time had
introduced the Bessemer process, and Mr. Uttley was asked to go there and
undertake the task of testing and sorting the steel manufactured by the firm
under that process. Following on that special duty he went through the offices
of the Atlas Works, but, after a further six years, quitted Sheffield, being in
Scotland over a year, and when he returned to Sheffield he again took up the
making of files.

1912. William Rolley.--Mr. William Rolley, who died at Woodseats when 74 years
old, was a recognized leader of the advanced school of thought in the early days
of the Labour movement in this country.  He was born at Bonsall in the Peak, in
1839, and when a boy worked at Arkwright's mill at Cromford.  Afterwards he
became a policeman, an engine driver, a steel melter, and a farrier, until, with
most of his life spent, he settled down as Conservative agent, after many years
service in the Liberal ranks.  He organized the Trade Unions and fought the
cause of the working man in Sheffield.  It was said at the time of his death
that he was responsible for the appearance in Sheffield's 1874 election of Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain--and of many another man has the same thing been said.  That
gentleman then was Mayor of Birmingham and he came to Sheffield on short notice,
though his adoption meeting in the famous square was one of the largest ever
seen there.  In that year, 1874, Mr. Rolley was President of the Trade Union
Congress then held in Sheffield.

Rev. J. R. Eyre.-Archdeacon J. R. Eyre died at Belmont, Sheffield, in 1912, and
was born at Bury St. Edmunds in January, 1845.  His education was begun at
Blackheath School; thence he went to Clare College, Cambridge, to study for the
ministry.  He became a divinity and classical prizeman, and obtained
second-class honours in the classical tripos in 1868. His first curacy was that
of S. Paul's, Liverpool, in 1868, and he remained there for six years. Thence he
went to S. Luke's in the same city, after declining the Precentorship in Ripon
Cathedral.  He took his M.A. when at S. Paul's, in 1872 was associated with
Chester Cathedral, and two years later was surrogate of the Liverpool diocese. 
In 1882 the Bishop of Liverpool appointed him to the Rural Deanery of Toxteth,
and three years later he was made canon of Liverpool Cathedral.  Following on 18
years work in Liverpool, he accepted the living of S. Helen's in 1886, whilst in
1890 he accepted the living of Tiverton, whence he came to Sheffield in
succession to Archdeacon Blakeney.  He left behind him a family of three sons
and six daughters, and the best known of his sons was Mr. C. H. Eyre, captain of
the University cricket team at Cambridge in his year, and who was killed in the
early days of the Great War.

H. I. Dixon.--Mr. Henry Isaac Dixon died in his sleep in 1912, the natural end
for one whose disposition was so sunny and attractive, for to such a one long
suffering was unthinkable.  There was an irresistible charm about him as he
passed through his works and in his chats with the workpeople, which made him
beloved from end to end, until Cornish Place became something of one great
family. He was the last surviving child of Mr. James Dixon, of Page Hall, being
born on June 30th, 1820, at Broom Lodge, then his father's home. He was educated
at Black Lamb Lane, a dame's school, that thoroughfare in more modern days
taking the name of Broomhall Street.  The youngster, having emerged successfully
from his first educational trial, was sent to a ladies school at Doncaster, and
afterwards returned to Sheffield, being sent to Broomhall School, where Mr.
Wilkinson exerted an iron rule. So in various ways education came to the lad. He
was only 14 years old when he entered the works at Cornish Place, which had been
built by his father, whose previous business head-quarters had been in Silver
Street. He accompanied his father on the first journey made in search of orders
undertaken by the firm.  Father and son travelled in the family carriage, heaped
up on top with samples of Cornish Place productions, the carriage drawn by four
post horses to Barnsley. Later came a more enterprising trip of the same kind,
when Mr. James Dixon, using his own horses and carriage, pushed on to York, and
so to Scarborough and the undiscovered North-East coast.  It was at that time
sparsely inhabited by people in little towns and many villages. Thence father
and son travelled across the Pennines to Southport and the Lancashire border,
finding Southport nothing but a village, and Manchester was reached with the
carriage top still packed with samples, and Cornish Place working hard in
fulfilment or the orders which that journey brought. The young man's first trip
to Paris was in company with Mr. William Fawcett at a later time, the journey
being made by coach to the sea coast and thence by steamer to Boulogne. The
adventurous pair then travelled by diligence to Paris, where were no footpaths
to the streets. It was in the days of Louis Phillippe, and only in such
thoroughfares as the Rue de Paix and the Boulevard des Hellenes were any
footpaths to be found in what later became one of the great cities of the world.
Oil lamps across the streets provided the only lighting, and all the streets
were tortuous and narrow. There was enterprise in the capital nevertheless, and
the travellers returned to Sheffield with pocket books bulging with orders and a
great prosperity ahead of Cornish Place.

1913. Sir Walter Wragg.--In October, 1913, Sir Walter Wragg died, then 72 years
old.  He was a man for whom no trouble was too great so long as he achieved his
purpose; he possessed an infinite capacity for taking pains. Before he had
reached the age of ten he was a capable Greek scholar, and when appointed a
Judge in Ceylon his scrupulous sense of duty enabled him to invest that
appointment with distinguished success.  He so devoted himself to the thorough
carrying out of his duties that before he left the Bench he could speak to the
Singalese in their own tongue, a thing never before known in Ceylon, where
claimants in many languages were wont to appear, and where the law was very
complex. Afterwards he was given the position of Judge in Natal, and during his
stay there divorced himself from all social life as a necessity for the
successful carrying through of his duties. He was born in Sheffield in 1842, son
of a Sheffield working cutler, educated at the Sheffield Grammar School, then
situate in Charlotte Street, and afterwards went to the Collegiate School in
Broomhall Park. When 21 he won an open classical exhibition to Lincoln College,
Oxford, and an open classical scholarship to Worcester College four years later.
 He took first class honours in classics and became M.A. and D.C.L. of his
University. He was Police Magistrate and Commissioner in Ceylon, and Director of
Public Instruction there, rising to District Judge from 1872 to 1883. Whilst he
was in Natal it became part of his duty to try the Zulu chiefs after the fall of
Cetewayo, and he retired from official life in 1898.   He was, in his youth, a
great athlete and a good class cricketer.  Whilst in Ceylon he made many
valuable researches in the historic caves. He was knighted by Queen Victoria on
June 1st, 1891.

Sir Charles Skelton.--Sir Charles Skelton died at Morecambe in 1913 following a
stroke.  In the obituary notice which followed he was spoken of as a modern
Puritan, and probably would have regarded that definition as sufficiently
accurate.  For most of his long life he was prominently identified with the
Methodist New Connexion body in Sheffield, and the spacious Sunday School in
connexion with South Street Chapel on Sheffield Moor was almost wholly due to
his generosity.  He was on the Highways Committee of the City Council at a time
when that body was engaged with widening of central streets and introductions of
very many notable improvements. This committee in that era was the one great
spending department of the Council, and it was on the score of economy that he
fought the question of granite setts in the Council, frankly admitting that he
favoured it because of its great durability, but he carried his proposal against
feverish opposition until most of the central thoroughfares were laid down with
that material. So strong did the opposition become that eventually an
anti-granite association was formed, with Sir John Bingham at his head, and over
a series of years the agitation was waged against what was generally regarded as
noisy and often dangerous substance.  Sir John eventually triumphed, and wood
took the place of granite, though not until Sir John had suffered his serious
accident.  In 1895 Mr. Skelton (as he then was), became Mayor of Sheffield, and
during that year on three occasions he had to declare a rival to himself elected
when he was nominated for a vacancy on the aldermanic bench, being defeated
successively by Mr. Hamer Chalmer, Mr. Alfred Taylor, and Mr. Charles Sharman.
It was as Deputy Mayor in the period which followed, when the Duke of Norfolk
was Lord Mayor, that he received the honour of knighthood on the occasion of the
visit to Sheffield of Her Majesty Queen Victoria in 1897, a dignity which was
acknowledged on all hands as well deserved, Sir Alexander Wilson at the same
time receiving his baronetcy. Such is the summary of the life of one of the
really big men in the city, big because of his integrity and thoroughness and
his unswerving honesty of purpose.  He was spoken of at the time of his death as
"a product of Nonconformity, a Radical of the old school of Manchester thought
and thoroughness, whose ideal of statesmanship was afforded by the career of
John Bright, particularly in its opposition to militarism, a teetotaller, an
unbending opponent of the liquor traffic, and a very moderate supporter of the
Liberal Party in its Socialistic leanings."

1914. Batty Langley.--The death of Mr. Batty Langley, M.P., occurred in 1914,
when in his eightieth year. Not born in Sheffield, he came to the town in his
eighteenth year, was a self-made man, and became one of its foremost citizens,
and Member of Parliament for its Attercliffe Division.  His life story contains
many chapters of usefulness.  Born at sleepy Uppingham in 1834, on arriving in
Sheffield he promptly joined Queen Street Chapel, very soon taking charge of its
Sunday School, holding the positions of secretary or president for thirty years,
whilst round about the growing town he became a very acceptable local preacher.
He was not narrow in his religion, though staunch in his adherence to Free
Church principles, and was always a kindly critic of the Church.  He became
President of the Yorkshire Congregational Union in 1896. So far as business was
concerned, he stood as architect of his own fortunes.  He began here in 1861 in
the timber trade, and ultimately the Sheaf Saw Mills became one of the best
known in the country, whilst politics largely swayed him during his life.  He
was a keen Liberal; in 1871 he became representative for Brightside without an
election, later he represented the Park, and eventually, on the death of
Alderman Hobson, he was elected alderman, though only after a very close contest
with Mr. Herbert Bramley, who lost by 28 votes against 30 given to Mr. Langley.
In 1892 he was Mayor of the town, and it was during that year that Sheffield
secured its greatest dignity, being then raised to the rank of city. In 1876 he
became a member of the Sheffield School Board, heading the poll three years
later, and resigning in 1885.  He entered Parliament as member for Attercliffe
when the silver-tongued Bernard Coleridge passed to the House of Lords on the
death of his father; he was one of the very early advocates of Old Age Pensions,
but in 1909 Mr. Langley resigned his seat. Dark days came upon him towards the
close of his life, but always he retained the friendship of Sheffield people. 
He was one of the first, if not the first of all, to make use of the delightful
upper reaches of Manchester Road for residential purposes, building his handsome
house Lang Hill.

Henry Joseph Wilson.--Mr. H. J. Wilson died at the end of June, 1914, in his
eighty-second year, a man of intense honesty and true manliness. Sir William
Leng, opposed to him as he was in almost every phase of life, once wrote: "Call
him what you like, I wish we had half-a-dozen Conservatives as little afraid of
being singular as he is.  He is a man of war.  He is a manly type of man
compared with those gelatinous vertebrates which, like so many jelly fish, put
on irridescent tints whilst drifting with the tide. He was a magnificent
fighter, one who took no account of any foeman, yet gentle hearted and very
kind, a man who, though he saw defeat assured, would not by that knowledge be
persuaded that ultimate victory would not be his.  His political methods were
those of a battle axe. He never stooped to dissimulation or finesse, and thus
for most of his long life he ploughed a lonely furrow." It was not unnatural
that he should always be in revolt, a passive resister as far back as 1873; he
differed strongly with those who worked with him on the Royal Commission on the
Indian opium traffic; he was a pro-Boer of the most uncompromising kind, and,
though that attitude caused his majority in certain elections to come down very
rapidly, he remained unmoved.  He sought no honours, and when, in 1909, Mr.
Asquith offered him the dignity of a Privy Councillorship, he prefered to remain
simply Henry Joseph Wilson, and so remained to the end.  He was essentially an
inconoclast, yet, uncompromisingly as he fought, he retained the regard of every
decent thinking man. He was son of Mr. William Wilson, of Sherwood Hall,
Mansfield, and through his mother, daughter of Mr. Joseph Read, of Wincobank
Hall, was connected with a family widely known for its strong Nonconformity. The
Reads had for many years been identified in the refining of precious metals,
first introduced by John Read, who settled in the town in 1765, and, in 1869,
Mr. Wilson came to reside in Sheffield and engage in that business, his brother
Wycliffe being associated with him, and the concern eventually being turned into
a limited company. He was one of the most prominent temperance workers in the
city, and in every good work he took a share.  He became a member of the School
Board in 1876, retiring in 1888. He took a pronounced interest in the building
of the Central School, the first institution for higher education erected in the
country under the Education Act of 1870, whilst he was member of Parliament from
1885 to 1912, representing the Holmfirth Division.