vi Preface. 



looking at general progress amongst us and every- 

 where. 



There are men now living who could tell much 

 of the early members, and this volume may call them 

 forth. I pretend only to give the origin of the 

 Society and a sketch of its main work, and that to 

 a large extent in the language of the writers, so that 

 much of the book is made up of quotations from their 

 sayings, to which I have at times amused myself by 

 making replies as if taking part in a conversation. 

 I have often looked to the red -book of the late 

 Alderman Shuttleworth as a store of interesting 

 matter. As a boy he paddled about Medlock 

 Bridge, in Oxford Road, not knowing that it was 

 a skew-bridge, a kind which was said to have 

 been invented long afterwards ; and he climbed up 

 trees in St. Ann Square for birds' nests, as I have 

 heard him say. There are many persons in Man- 

 chester well able to search and to obtain much infor- 

 mation : I must be excused if I avoid almost all per- 

 sonal history^ making a slight exception in honour 

 of our founder, and in two or three cases where 

 information did not cost research. 



The names of a few living men have been men- 

 tioned, but no account has been given either of their 

 lives or their labours, with an exception where the 



