a person of local consideration in his day, 1747, being a cotton manufacturer on the old system, and a benefactor of the town. There was a James Nield, of Oldham, as early as 1486. A plain yeomanry-like dwelling, in Bent, was for a long time the abode of the Smethursts, a relative of whom John Smethurst, yeoman, was resident in Chadderton in 1681. Richard Smethurst, yeoman, of Oldham, was living in 1688. The present William Smethurst, Esq., of Stock-brook, Chadderton, seems to be descended from the Smethursts, of Chadderton. Priest Hill numbered amongst its principal residents the Hobsons: this family appears to have come from Coventry, and to have settled in Oldham about the period of the introduction of the hat manufacture from that city. Nathaniel Hobson, Esq., was mayor of Coventry in 1662. Mr. Thomas Hobson, draper, of Oldham, living in 1759, was father of James Hobson, Esq., merchant, who married Margaret, grand-daughter of Theophilus Ogden, yeoman, of Lane-end, Greenacres-moor: this James Ogden, was the only gentleman resident in the town, who, at that period, run his own carriage. He inhabited a mansion in the vicinity of the church; whilst his brother, Thomas, who died in 1789, was an opulent draper, at Priest-hill. The present Hargreaves House, stands on the site of an ancient yeomanry dwelling, which bore the same name in 1702, and still retains it. ln 1752, a Mr. Dawson was its owner (probably Mr. Dawson, of Glodwick), but, in 1758, it was possessed by Peter Whitehead, yeoman, apparently ancestor of Mr. Edmund Whitehead,of Coldhurst-lane, hat manufacturer, who died in 1821, and was grandfather of Mrs. Bellott, now of King-street. Hargreaves House became the property and residence of Thomas Henshaw, Esq., hat manufacturer, the highly munificent founder of the Blue Coat School, Oldham, and Blind Asylum, Manchester. For many years subsequent to Mr. Henshaw's death, the place was the abode of his son-in-law, John Taylor, Esq., hat manufacturer. It is

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