By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 59 
payment of these last-named poor persons, for some time no less 
than £70 was required weekly. Poor rates rose to ¢en shillings in 
the pound; distress was universal. Many noble efforts were made 
to meet the exigencies of the distressed weavers. An emigration 
fund of large amount was formed, by which many of them were 
enabled ‘to seek in foreign lands employment which here was no 
longer to be obtained. By degrees others were helped on their 
way to Wales or to the North of England, or to other places more in 
our immediate neighbourhood, that there they might earn subsistence 
by the labour of their hands for themselves and their families. For 
several years there was in some sort an ‘exodus’ of its working 
population engaged in manufactures from the town of Bradford. 
In the short space of ten years its population had decreased nearly 
25 per cent.,! and in 1851 the number of factories at work was less 
than a fifth of those at work in fifty years before. It was a dark 
period of depression, and yet one marked by several deeds worthy 
to be remembered, one of which certainly was the erection, at his 
own expense, of those excellent schools attached to the District 
Church of Christ Church, (which had itself been built but a few 
years before,) which will be a lasting memorial of one whom it was 
indeed a privilege to count amongst our fellow-townsmen, even 
though for a comparatively short period, the late Captain S. H. 
Palairet. 
Within the last three years, however, our townsmen have given 
good proof that public spirit is not yet extinct amongst them, for 
in 1855 they erected at the cost of several thousand pounds a large 
and handsome Town-Hall, in which it gave them all sincere plea- 
sure, to welcome, and that, too, heartily, the members of the Wilts 
Archeological Society in August, 1857. , 
? According to the Census, the population of the whole parish was 
C1 NNER ame i ai eer es a aL 10,102 
ARR EERIE as Ee a a 10,418 
Rr eh eta 8,958 
This represents a decrease in the whole parish (including the chapelries) of some 
17 per cent, In the rural districts, however, there was probably little alteration 
between the numbers in 1841 and 1851. On this calculation the population in 
the town and immediate neighbourhood which, in 1851, was 5331, was ten years 
before no less than 6781, thus showing a decrease in that short period of nearly 
one fourth, or some 25 per cent. 
