which will connect Oldham by direct and efficient routes with Manchester, Huddersfield, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Rochdale, as well as with the adjacent populous villages of Shaw, Royton, Hollinwood, Lees, Mossley, and Hurst. The act of parliament incorporating the Oldham Alliance Railway Company, received the royal assent, July 22nd, 1847.

The town of Oldham continues to increase in the number of its buildings, and such was the extent of its population in 1841, that it had attained to the rank of the seventeenth provincial borough in the kingdom, with respect to the aggregate amount of the inhabitants.

The number of cotton mills erected in the township of Oldham, from 1840 to the present year 1847, has been nine, namely: Crimble mill, Millbottom, Mr. John Haigh; Primrose bank mill, Messrs. Joseph Hartley & Co.; Highfield mill, North moor, Mr. John Chadwick; Chamber mill, Hollinwood, Mr. George Barlow; Bankside new mill, Mr. Whitehead; Bent field mill, Mr. Mark Nield; Union ground mill, Mr. David Heyes; Hollinwood mill, Messrs. John Worthington and Sons; and North moor mill, Mr. John Jackson. Within the same period two machine making mills, and two hat manufactories have been transformed into cotton mills, and six of the factories already existing have been considerably enlarged. The new cotton mill recently erected by Messrs. John Worthington and Sons, at Hollinwood, is built upon the most modern systematic plan of any similar edifice in the district, and may be justly ranked amongst the principal manufacturing establishments in this part of the country. The several processes of the manufacture, are fully carried out in due succession in the respective departments of the mill which are allotted to them, the whole forming an extraordinary scene of combined industry and order.

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