ness of fancy, and who possessed a cotton spinning concern at Mount pleasant mill in 1816, died February 5, 1817. The cotton mills at Lower and Higher Sheepwashes ceased to be such at this period, the former in 1814, and the latter in 1815. Messrs. James Collinge and John Lancashire, who became the principal master cotton spinners in the parish, established a small cotton manufactory at Vineyard, Greenacres moor, in 1817. Mr. Collinge, a native of Boarshaw, near Middleton, was in the cotton business on his own account at Mumps, in 1815. The concern at Vineyard was considerably extended in the succeeding ten years; and about 1818 the firm introduced the first power-looms set in operation at Oldham. The progress of the power-loom was, however, very slow for several years, and owing to its want of effectiveness, and the opposition it met with, power loom mills were extremely rare previous to 1824. In 1833 the extensive and well conducted manufactory of Messrs. Collinge and Lancashire, Commercial mills, consisted of two mills, which employed 444 power-loom weavers, 338 spinners, carders, and their assistants, and 71 mechanics, roller coverers, &c., occasioned by the building of a new mill, total employed 853. The aggregate hours during which the mills worked in the month ending May 4, 1833, was 276, and the aggregate net earnings of the hands for working that number of hours during the same month amounted to £2096 3s. 6d. In 1846 this enterprising firm possessed 48,270 mule spindles, 3536 roving and doubling spindles, 828 power- looms, and three steam engines of the aggregate power of 145 horses. The amount of raw cotton consumed weekly was 258 cwt., and the average amount of goods and yarn produced weekly was 226 cwt. The number of sacks of flour consumed yearly in this concern alone for the dressing of warps for the power-loom amounts to 280, and 12 tons of tallow are consumed annually. The weekly consumption of coal amounts to 130 tons, and the annual consumption of cannel to 250 tons. The entire number of hands employed by the firm at the last

175