14 Literary and Philosophical Society, 



CHAPTER III. 



DR. PERCIVAL. 



When Warrington was making this bold attempt to 

 rise, Manchester was really beginning to be important. 

 Active minds grew in it, and far-sighted men flocked there, 

 attracted by its decided advance just before the seventh 

 decade of last century. Lookers on previously did not see 

 which Lancashire city was destined to the most rapid 

 increase ; some had believed the most promising to be 

 Liverpool, others Ormskirk, but an influential class evi- 

 dently supposed it to be Warrington ; and there the 

 notable but short-lived academy was established. The 

 men who taught and those who learned were scattered, 

 but not before some of the spirit had passed on to Man- 

 chester, and especially in the person of Dr. Percival, who had 

 decided, after a very full medical education in Edinburgh, 

 London, Leyden, and Paris, to begin practice in this town. 

 He seems to have been a singularly pleasant man, and 

 one wonders what sort of people his ancestors were at 

 Thelwall near Warrington, when his grandfather left the 

 old family house and chose no longer to help the inmates 

 to farm their own ground. We have few dates, but this 

 must have been about 1670 or sooner. He (the grandfather) 

 studied medicine, and returned to practise at Warrington ; 

 his name was Peter Percival, and he died in 1701. Martha 



