JAMES SHANKS 227 



such splendid service in connection with 

 popular education in St. Helens, made it a 

 very important and most valuable agency. 

 It supplied the town with a good public 

 building, fine assembly-room, a public library, 

 numerous classes, and regular series of public 

 lectures. 



This was the excellent public work which 

 Shanks did in St. Helens, it was congenial 

 to him in every respect, it was work for 

 which he was admirably fitted. He never 

 accepted any public position in municipal 

 affairs, but spent his energies in philanthropic 

 and religious work. Shanks was a Baptist, 

 and he did much to promote the formation of 

 the Baptist Church, which has grown to be a 

 community of great usefulness and consider- 

 able influence in St. Helens. 



He was a great admirer of the Rev. Hugh 

 Stowell Brown, and every Sunday morning 

 his carriage might be seen rolling along the 

 highway through Prescot, taking him to 

 Myrtle-street Chapel, Liverpool, of which 

 congregation he was a member. Stowell 

 Brown and Shanks became intimate friends, 

 and when Shanks died his friend and 

 minister, together with Mr. William Windle 

 Pilkington, were his executors. Twenty-six 



