two years (act of 22nd Edward the Fourth, chap. 5), and this is probably the first instance of parliamentary opposition to the improvement of manufactures by machinery in England. It is probable, though there is no positive evidence of the fact, that the journeymen hatters of Oldham were amongst the number of those who petitioned Parliament, with some success, to forbid the use of the new machines. With respect to improvements in machinery, it may observed, that "the introduction of such improvements is frequently an evil, and sometimes a ruinous one to those engaged in the operative part of that particular branch to which the improvement is applied; but viewed as a public question, involving the interests of the nation, these improvements are beneficial, and to them, combined with the capital and enterprise of the upper, and the skill and industry of the labouring classes engaged in these pursuits, the manufacturing and commercial greatness of this nation is to be attributed." The hat fulling mills of the reign of Edward the Fourth were most likely moved by water power. Within the last forty years there was one of these small hatting mills existing in an obscure 'part of Derbyshire, which belonged to Mr. Thomas Chadderton, an inhabitant of Oldham. Notwithstanding repeated efforts to accomplish the fulling of hats by machinery, such a plan has never yet been successful, and at the present day this operation is effected by human labour, so true was the statement of the petition of 1482, that the hats were sorely bruised and injured by the other process.

The probable situations of the original woollen mills of the parish may be pointed out, but not with unerring certainty. The one nearest to the town was at Higher Sheepwashes. There were others at Glodwick clough, Lower Clarksfield, and Millbottom, in Oldham; Holebottom and Mill-croft, in Crompton; Thorp clough, and Heyside, in Royton ; and Walk mill, in Chadderton. These manufacturies were in

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