May 3 – Daniel Chadwick, millwright, died. In December the Reverend Joseph Galland commenced his ministry at Greenacres Chapel. We are told by Mr. G.G. Waddington that on the second Sabbath in December, 1805, Mr. Galland commenced his stated labours here. He was the son of the Rev. Robert Galland, minister of the Independent Church, at Ilkeston, in Derbyshire, at which place the younger Mr. Galland was born on the 29th of June 1778. The family afterwards removed to Holmfirth, in Yorkshire. Joseph received his early education at Tintwistle, in Cheshire, under Mr. Hudson, minister of the Independent Chapel there. The following account of his ordination is given in the “Evangelical Magazine” for November 1806:- August 20th Mr. Galland, late student at Rotherham Academy, was ordained pastor of the Independent Church at Greenacres-lane. Mr. Coles, of Stand, introduced the service by reading the Scriptures and by prayer. Mr. Meldrum, of Hatherlow, discoursed on the nature of a Gospel Church. Mr. Blackburn, of Delph, engaged in the ordination prayer. Mr. Cockin, of Halifax, gave the charge from Acts xxii., 23 and 24. Mr. Roby, of Manchester, exhorted the church and congregation to be zealous, and Mr. Evans, of Stockport, concluded with prayer. Until the year 1822 Mr. Galland was the only Independent minister, and the chapel at Greenacres, the only Independent chapel in the parish of Oldham,. The character of Mr. Gallant’s ministry is appropriately described in a handsome marble monument which was erected to his memory in the old chapel, and which has been re-erected in the new chapel. The monument bears the following inscription:- Sacred to the Memory of Mr. Galland left a widow and an only child. Mr. Robert Galland survived his father scarcely two years. He died on the 2nd September, 1845, in the 33rd year of his age. Mrs. Galland was truly a helpmeet to Mr. Galland, and rendered efficient service to the cause of Christ by the influence of her example and her judicious counsels. For a fuller account of the life of Mr. Galland, I must refer my readers to “Historical and Biographical Notices,” by G. G. Waddington, 1886.
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Mr. John Mackie, in 1805, a Scotchman, erected the first iron foundry ever established in Oldham, which was situate adjacent to Buckley Mill, Manchester-street. According to E. Butterworth, Mr. John Mackie remained the only iron founder in Oldham till the year 1816, when Mr. Samuel Lees established a mill near Fowleach for the making of rollers. During this year, though we are not told at what date, Mr. Humphrey Nicholls obtained the situation of parish clerk at the Collegiate Church of Manchester. Oldham Church bells rang a merry peal to celebrate the event. He was born at Greenfield Gate Farm, now called Green Bank, in Oldham. The parish clerkship of Manchester Collegiate Church was an incorporeal hereditament vested in the De Trafford family. The De Traffords had the appointment of the parish clerk, whose office in the earlier part of the century was a very lucrative one on account of the numerous marriages and other offices which were performed at the Collegiate Church. Like an advowson, the clerkship of Manchester was a marketable article, and in the year 1805 the next presentation for this office was offered for sale, and was bought by Humphrey Nicholls’ father for his son Humphrey, then only a youth of fourteen years of age, for £1,000. This was purely a speculative purchase, as it appears Humphrey did not take office until 1818, thirteen years after the purchase. It seems to have been considered a good bargain, as we are told the sale gave the purchaser but a poor opinion of the vendor’s power of calculating chances. The father seems to have been so overpowered with joy at the purchase that he set the Oldham Church bells ringing a merry peal to celebrate the event. Humphrey Nicholls was born in Oldham in 1791, and tradition says that in the earlier part of his career he entered into partnership with a man named Short, and the two carried on the business of Manchester porters, carting goods from one Manchester warehouse to another. Humphrey held the parish clerkship till 1835, when he sold his life interest, paying a deputy a part of the fees. Humphrey Nicholls was a man of very unpretending and careful habits, and by this means, as well as by laying out his money in safe investments at a moderate rate of interest, he accumulated a vast fortune. When he had accumulated as much wealth as he cared for he began to give away large sums of money to local charitable institutions, and in this respect he became a veritable Peabody. His benefactions in this direction are said to have reached the magnificent sum of £100,000. Many are the interesting accounts of the unpretentious manner in which he gave away his money. His solicitor was the late Kay Clegg, Esq., of Oldham, to whose son he is said to have left a handsome fortune, having no children of his own. Humphrey Nicholls died on the 31st October, 1875, aged 84, universally respected by all who knew him. |
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June 17th – The committee of the United Friendly Society fled. August 24th – A new pole was erected at Failsworth. In a previous annal the erection of the first pole at Failsworth is stated. September 1st – The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel at Royton was opened. December 5th – Was a thanksgiving day for Lord Nelson’s Victory at Trafalgar on the 21st October. I regret that Rowbottom’s annals for this year are lost, so that we cannot see the effect of Nelson’s victory on the warlike Oldhamer. We have only a bare record of the thanksgiving day being observed. I may sum up here the list of events which led up to this battle. Bonaparte was contemplating invasion from Boulogne. England, we are told, was dissatisfied with the lukewarmness and the unpreparedness of the Addington Government for war, and Pitt was again called to the head of affairs. Green says:- The peril of the nation not only united all political parties, but recalled Pitt to power Pitt proposed to include Fox and the leading Whigs in his Ministry, but the king would have none of it, and Pitt had to face the difficulty almost alone. A Spanish alliance had placed the fleet of Spain at Napoleon’s disposal, and he sought to unite it with that of France in a scheme to crush the English squadron protecting the English Channel ports under Cornwallis – and thus to get a landing under cover of his fleet of vast armament on the English shore.
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We shall soon see what this scheme was. But meantime, Pitt was moving his men on the diplomatic chequer board. He had formed a new league on the continent. Napoleon had annexed Genoa, and this gave a pretext for an alliance between Russia, Austria, and Sweden, to wrest Italy and the low countries from the grasp of Napoleon. Napoleon waited in vain for the appearance of the French and Spanish fleets in the channel. Admiral Villeneuve had mistaken Napoleon’s orders. In drawing away Nelson’s fleet as far off as possible, Villeneuve had led Nelson a trounce to the West Indies, and then had suddenly turned back with the idea of joining the Spanish ships at Cadiz, leaving Nelson behind, of course, and thus smashing with his united fleet the English vessels under Cornwallis, which were protecting the English Coast. Nelson’s one eye was too wide awake for this however. Headlong pursuit brought Nelson up with Villeneuve before his manoeuvre was complete. The two fleets met on the 21st of October, 1805, off Cape Trafalgar. Then was written in blood that song which stirs the heart of every true Englishmen to-day:- “‘Twas in Trafalgar Bay, “England has saved herself by her courage.” Pitt said, in what were destined to be his last public words.: “She will save Europe by her example.” It seems from Green, that Napoleon had abandoned his dream of invasion even before the battle of Trafalgar, to meet the coalition in his rear. He swung round his forces on the Danube. Then followed Austerlitz. “Austerlitz,” wrote Wilberforce, in his diary, “killed Pitt.” |
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