284 History of the 



the years 1750, 1751, and later years, of Dr. Richard Pocoke, 

 successively Bishop of Meath and of Ossory, published by the 

 Camden Society in 1888, vol. i., p. 205, the following entry occurs : 

 " Ascending the hills from Holme, we came to Bacup, a large 

 village, where they have a great manufacture of woollen clothes 

 which they send white to London. They are mostly Presbyterians, 

 and have, as they call them, two chapels, {b) We left the mountains 

 and came to Rochdale, which has its hame from its situation in a 

 narrow vale on the river Roche." 



There is another mention of the extent of the woollen trade of 

 Rossendale. The following is a copy of an advertisement which 

 appears in a Lancashire newspaper of isth May, 1746: — "This 

 is to give notice that the bay makers in and about Rossendale who 

 have formerly frequented Rochdale Market, intend for the future 

 to expose their goods for sale every Wednesday at Newchurch in 

 Rossendale. N.B. The Forest of Rossendale manufactures and 

 consumes a much larger quantity of the above mentioned com- 

 modities than any other place of its extent in Lancashire." In the 

 latter quarter of the i8th century Arkwright's inventions for 

 spinning cotton gave another stimulus to the woollen trade in 

 Rossendale as elsewhere, the machinery being equally well adapted 

 to the latter manufacture. But it was reserved for the application 

 of steam power to give that vast impulse to the employment of 

 machinery in manufactures, which, in its extent and adaptabihty, 

 has far exceeded the forecasts of the most sanguine. 



From forty to fifty years ago there were in the town (or village, 

 as it then was) of Bacup alone, eleven mills engaged in carding 

 wool ; and in the other parts of Rossendale, seventeen more mills 

 were at work. These places, as a rule, were of small dimensions, 

 because they were restricted in their use to but two branches of 

 trade— those of devilling and carding. The spinning, reeling, (c) and 



(i) The two chapels referred to are doubtless the Old School House, and 

 the original Baptist Chapel in Lane Head Lane. 



(c) In an old newspaper for 1777 I find the following " On Monday last 

 Betty, wife-of Robert Lee, of Burnley, kxiA Ann, ixife of John Harlling, of 



