58 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



CHAPTER III 



1851-1858. 



Return to England — Fleeming at Fairbairn's — Experience 

 in a Strike — Dr. Bell and Greek Architecture — The 

 Gaskells — Fleeming at Greenwich — The Austins — 

 Fleeming and the Austins — His Engagement — Fleem- 

 ing and Sir W. Thomson, 



Return to In 1851, the year of Aunt Anna's death, the family 

 "^ ^" ' left Genoa and came to Manchester, where Fleeming 

 was entered in Fairbairn's works as an apprentice. 

 From the palaces and Alps, the Mole, the blue 

 Mediterranean, the humming lanes and the bright 

 theatres of Genoa, he fell — and he was sharply 

 conscious of the fall — to the dim skies and the foul 

 ways of Manchester. England he found on his 

 return ' a horrid place,' and there is no doubt the 

 family found it a dear one. The story of the Jenkin 

 finances is not easy to follow. The family, I am 

 told, did not practise frugality, only lamented that 

 it should be needful; and Mrs. Jenkin, who was 

 always complaining of ' those dreadful bills,' was 

 ' always a good deal dressed.' But at this time 

 of the return to England, things must have gone 

 further. A holiday tour of a fortnight, Fleeming 



