Fawcett, during the period of whose long ministerial career of forty-three years, the place underwent an extraordinary change, from the position of a mere village, to that of one of the most populous towns in the kingdom. Several small silver coins of early date have been discovered at different periods in digging in the interior of the ancient church, and a groat of Edward the Fourth (l46l—l483), struck off at York, was met with shortly before 1816, in Cudworth's chapel.

The more modern history of local ecclesiastical affairs will be treated of in another portion of the work, to which the reader is referred.

MANUFACTURES.

In a hilly tract of country like that of the greater part of the parish of Oldham, where the soil is too thin to be even ordinarily productive to the plough, it was at a remote period converted to a large extent into sheep walks, and thereby gave birth to the woollen trade, first in a handicraft way, and afterwards by machinery.

Manchester and Halifax being constituted principal seats of the woollen manufacture several centuries ago, and Oldham occupying a favourable position betwixt the two, the place would necessarily participate in the commercial resources of the adjacent marts. Well situated, therefore, as respected a supply of native grown wool, affected likewise in no inconsiderable degree by the vicinage and intercourse of two important manufacturing towns, and possessed of abundance of motive power, in the form of fuel, the district of Oldham became at a comparatively early period a seat of the woollen trade. Although the streams of the parish were not sufiiciently large to justify the erection of a great number of the woollen mills, still several manufacturies of that description were established

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