Annual Report of the Council. \{ 



the first Sir Robert Peel having early erected a printworks there, 

 which was speedily followed by the establishment of many of the 

 most famous printing and Turkey-red dyeing works in the same 

 locality. Indeed, it may be said that most of the printworks of 

 the district were either direct offshoots of the works at Church 

 Kirk, or were founded by men who were trained there. With 

 this industry William Grimshaw was destined to be intimately 

 associated, first as a workman and eventually as a drysalter and 

 colour merchant on his own account in Manchester. Born in 

 very humble circumstances, Grimshaw's early life was extremely 

 hard, affording scanty opportunities for education in those days. 

 While still a youth, however, he obtained employment at the 

 Belfield Printworks, with which Dr. Edward Schunck, F.R.S., 

 was then connected. Many years after, on his election, February 

 7, 1888, as a member of the Manchester Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Society, Mr. Grimshaw expressed to the present writer 

 his special pleasure on entering an institution with which Dr. 

 Schunck had been so long and prominently associated, as it was 

 to Dr. Schunck's efforts for the intellectual advancement of the 

 workmen under his control at Belfield, by means of personal 

 instruction, that Grimshaw attributed his own success in life. 

 Whenever, in these recent years, there was a prospect of " the 

 Doctor" presiding at the Society's meetings, or taking part in its 

 proceedings, Mr. Grimshaw was certain to be found in his place 

 as an attentive listener. Dr. Schunck has been good enough to 

 give the writer of this notice an account of the Belfield period 

 of Grimshaw's life. " I first knew William Grimshaw," he writes, 

 "as an apprentice in the 'colour-shop' of the printworks with 

 which I was connected. I found him an intelligent youth and 

 one of remarkably open, ingenuous demeanour, in fact, decidedly 

 superior to the average youth of his class. Generally speaking, 

 the men working in the colour department of a printworks are 

 more intelligent than others, from the fact, I suppose, of their 

 meeting with phenomena which call for explanation from an 

 inquiring mind. Well, I formed a small class — I don't think 

 there were more than 14 — for reading and study, all of them 



