25G 



THE BRITISH ISLES. 



ingenious wasliing nKichiiics. lu the valley of the Worth,, which joins the Aire at 

 Keiglilev, is HairoHli, the home of the Brontes. Bhujlcij is engaged in the worsted 

 and woollen trades. Sii/faiir, below it, is a model town, and was founded in 18-53 

 by the late Sir Titus Salt, who first introduced the manufacture of alpaca into 

 England. Passing Shiph'i/, which carries on the same industries as Bingley, we 

 reach Leeds, the commercial and industrial metropolis of the whole district, by 

 right of its population the fifth town of England, but the first in the world for its 

 clothing trade. This branch of industry has been carried on here from very 

 remote times, and as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century the cloth- 

 makers of Leeds, instructed in their craft by Flemish workmen, sent their wares 



Fig. 125. — Leeds. 

 Scale 1 : 192,000. 



1^ 3C' W.of Gt 



ll°20^ 



■J Miles. 



into every part of England. Halifax at that time was the most important manu- 

 facturing town of the county, and its burgesses enjoyed the privilege of beheading 

 every maleftictor who stole any cloth from off the " tenters," a privilege of which 

 they freely availed themselves until its abrogation in 1650. By the end of the 

 seventeenth century Leeds had distanced all its Yorkshire rivals in the clothing 

 trade, and about the same period, in consequence of the introduction of coal into 

 its factories, it enriched itself still further by adding fresh branches of industry to 

 that which had first established its reputation. At the present day almost every 

 description of cloth is made at Leeds, but, besides this, there are huge flax-mills, 

 iron-mills, locomotive works, dye and bleaching works, felt factories, brass foundries, 



