On the picturesque borderland of Yorkshire and Lancashire, at the foot of the Blackstone Edge range of hills, lies the thriving town of Todmorden, which, since the latter part of the last century, has been notably identified with, and has grown in proportion with, the fortunes of the Fielden family. It was in the County Palatine that the cotton-manufacture of England was cradled; and Todmorden, which is partly in that county, assisted largely in its development, thanks to the energy, enterprise, and ability of the Fieldens. This family had long been creditably known in the district. They could trace an unbroken descent from a Fielden who lived in the time of James I., one Nicholas Fielden, who held a farm at Inchfield in Walsden, under a deed dated 1612. Nicholas was described as a yeoman, and yeomen the Fieldens continued to be from that period down to the concluding years of the eighteenth century. The family had always lived on the hills round about Todmorden, employing themselves in the farming of land and the manufacturing of woollen cloth. In this way, the Joshua Fielden who may be regarded as the founder of the fortunes of the later generations of

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXIII.

Fieldens employed himself. His farmhouse was situated on the heights above Todmorden, and was known as Edge End, which may be taken as in some measure descriptive of its position. Here Joshua Fielden farmed his bit of land-which would not be of the most fertile kind-and here he kept his two or three hand-looms, at which he and the members of his family worked at such times as they were not needed in the field. It was a quiet uneventful sort of life, its main relief being afforded by the periodical journeys which Joshua had to make to Halifax market, with his cloth on his back. For years he trudged this distance on foot, over a rugged road, thinking little of the twenty-four miles of ground his feet had to cover in those expeditions; for men were hardy in that day, and inured to physical exertion. There would be one or two houses of call by the wayside, where he would halt for a rest and a chat; but the one bright spot to him in these passings to and fro was a farmhouse called Rodwell End, in the township of Stansfield. This farm was kept by James Greenwood, whose daughter Jenny had set the heart of the young farmer-clothier aflame with love. Next to the selling

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So matters continued until somewhere about the year 1782, when Joshua Fielden was suddenly fired with a new ambition. A fresh era of industry was dawn ing. The great cotton-spinning inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright had begun to make their impress on the trade which they had been designed to help; and the steam-engine was gradually being brought into use as a motive-power. Crompton was just on the eve of perfecting his mule, and the industrial world altogether was in the throes of transformation. It was then that Joshua Fielden, with the pioneer's instinct, resolved to relinquish the dual occupations of farmer and cloth-maker for that of cottonspinner; and, with that view, he removed himself and his household belongings from Edge End to a quiet little place called Lane Side, down in the Vale of Todmorden. It is said that his wife Jenny was greatly depressed at the thought of having to leave her home amongst the hills, where she had been so happy, and often remarked that it would have given her far greater pleasure to move higher up than to go lower down, where she would miss the healthy moorland breezes and the far

stretching prospect. But sentimentalism has never been an overwhelming influence amongst the race of commercial explorers; and Joshua Fielden was not the

man to turn back from a great business idea for the mere sake of indulging a love of place. So to Lane Side they went, and entered into the occupation of three two-storied cottages, with little gardens in front, bordering the highway. Of one of these cottages they made their living place; of the other two they made working places. Those three cottages, heightened by an additional story, still remain to mark the startingpoint of the great industrial career which followed.

At first they confined themselves to the hand-spinning of cotton, and managed to keep in constant employment, which was considered a clever thing to do with Joshua Fielden's large family of five sons and four daughters. But there was wonderful unanimity of purpose amongst them; as the country people had it, 'they all pulled one way.' The sons were Samuel, Joshua, John, James, and Thomas, all of whom were imported into the business as they got old enough to take part in it. As time went on, and their operations extended, it became necessary for them to have larger premises; but, with the cautiousness which has always been a characteristic of the Fieldens, they did not do it by unmanageable strides. To begin with, they simply added a story to the three cottages; then, after a few more years, when they decided to avail themselves of steampower, they erected a stone mill of five stories, seven windows in length, adjoining the cottages; and by this time they were fairly embarked in the cotton-manufacture, and began to count for something in the commercial world. Each of the sons was allotted to a special department, and the father exercised a general superintendence over the whole. Joshua