The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-11-02

merce, attached TO the utmost free
dom OF ind ostry, 80 Independent AMI dslnte,
rested, Goat he sacrificed the representation OF
HUI because ne would not support the claims
% the shipping interests to O reimpositlon OF the
old restrictions on navigation, favorable TO lree
dom OF trade in corn and freedom oil traae to
the East; cool, clear-headed, patient man OF
business, and of the most innexible integrity
and unstaned purity Of character"
All these Sykeses were of one stock, with
pedigree plainly defined. tits not clear whether
the many DenisOns contemporary with theu
we're all of common parentage, or members oil
several distinct families. Two branches oe'
tween whom no kinship can be traced, are
specially notable. One spraDg rom Wnllam
Denison, clothier. and merchana nv VINO no was IN
ming of the eighteenth century. Ot his two
sons, the Younger, Sir Thomas Denlson, was
famous LAWYER and Kings bencn Judge. The
elder. william, carried on his fathers trade
He was very rich, very generous to the
moor and somewhat eccentric. Four times
between 1894 and 1853, he was elected Mayor Of
Leeds, but refused to enter upon the duties of
the Office so that fresh mayors had to be
chosen in the last year the insulted corpora
lion brought an action against him for this per-
sistent rejection of their protlered honor, and he
al length agreed to take the title of Mayor on
condition that all the business should be done
by his brother In 1873 he was High Sheriff of
NottiD Dghamshire in which county he had some
time before bought the manor of 0ssngton. That
estate, with hall million Of money he left to
fund before making room for another John.
John Denison, the younger, was member OF
Parliament for Chichester and afterwards for
Nation. A daughter of his first wife married
Charles Manners Sutton, Speaker of the House
of Commons, and Afterwards Lord Canter
bury. Through second wife he had several
sons, one OF them the Bishop of Sails
bury, who died in 1864; another, the pre-
sent Governor-General OF Madras; while the
eldest has been Speaker OF the House OF Com
mons since 1851.
Another of the Denisons, named Joseph, was
born ut Leeds IN 1926. His parents were too
poor, 1t is said, to be able to teach him even to
read. But he managed to scrape together a
little knowledge by his own energy, aud then
he applied that energy to the making of great
fortune. He ran away lrom Leeds to London,
just in time to obtain a situation in the count
ing. house of John Dillon. of st, Mary Axe By
and then sole proprietor of the business, his
old master at last becoming his clerk. "By
unabated industry and the most rigid frugalty,
he worked himself" we are told "intO very
high credit and an increasing fortune" He was
about fifty when, in 1775, the old Heywoods of
Liverpool established their bank, and found it
eXpedient to employ him as their London
agent Here again, he steadily pushed himself
into the topmost place, bequeathing, in 1906,
the senior partnership IN the house of
Denison, Haywood Company, besides
more than million in lands or
money, to his SON. William Josepb Denison
y "
Sheriff OF Yorkshire in 1907 and uncle of the
first Lord LoDdesborough. When he died he
Was worth between two and three million
pounds.
Most OF the money-making Denisons left
Leeds to spend or hoard their wealth elsewhere.
The true merchant-patriots of town are those
who use the influence that it brings them for
its own advancement; and such pre- eminently
were Benjamin Gott and John Marshall, the
y9ag 9gaAaIs a I ct heeds during the last
0f thp mi ai
very nearly contemporaneous, and they were
associates in many good and charitable work.;
but In business matters they held different
courses. The one gave new life to the old
woollen trade OF the town; the other gave it
another staple source of wealth, by making it a
great cen tire of linen manufacture.
All the early prosperity OF Leeds, as we have
already observed, sprung from its trade in wool
len goods; yet in the middle Of the seventeenth
century, shortly before the birth of Benjamin
Colt, this trade was stlll in its infancy. Leeds
itself was, in comparison with its present con-
dition, an Insignificant town, hardly longer
than the length OF Briggate, stretching westward
no further than Trinity Church. and with Saint
Peters Church for almost its eastern limit
Saint Johns Church, with Free Grammar
School and HarTison's Almshouses adjoining,
formed lis modern boundary; and all the town
was contained on the north side Of the Aire
The old Norman bridge at the foot of Briggate
still sufficed for the weekly cloth market; the
traders of the town and the country manufac-
Lurers being called together by bell rung in
the quaint bridge chapel, and the merchants at
Huh, Boston, and similar places coming there
10 buy and carry down the cloths by way
of the river. BY l15S, however, the trade had
outgrown that old-tashioned mart, and accord
ngly, a commodious building, now known as
the Mixed Cloth Hall, was set up little to the
west of Trinity Church. This structure, thought
large at the time of its erection,
formed quadrangle three hundred and sixty
four feet long and hundred and ninety-two
ipnt broad brna
hundred and thirty feet by niDetY-slX. II was
accessible by seven doors, was lighted by
hundred and siXty-seven windows, and was
large enough, II was reckoned, to hold Gl09, 200
worth OF cloth at a time. Within seventeen
years from its opening, It was found necessary
10 build another meeting-place. The White
Cloth Hall, between Brggate and Saint Peters
Church, was completed i'll l775; and within a
few years, nine similar structures were opened
in all the trading towns Of the West Riding of
Yorkshire. All grew with the growth of Leeds.
In l775, Leeds contained IL, III inhabitants. By
1901 the population had increased to 3O690; in
1921 1t amounted to 81, FAC; and in 1865 ii was
estimated at 224,025.
One of the causes of that rapid growth was
the opening of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal,
begun in 1867, and steadily but slowly continued
down to its completion in 1916, AS early as
IVA, however, twenty miles of the canal ex-
tending from Bingley to Bradford, were ready
Tor use, and presented, according to the iudg-
ment OF contemporaries, ''the noblest works
oil the KIND that perhaps are 20 be found in the
universe, namely, fye-fold a three-fold, a
twofold, and single lock, making together
iall OF a hundred and twenty feet; large aque-
duct bridge, of seven arches over the river Aire,
and an aqueduct on large embankment over
Shipiey valley" There certainly was need
of improvement in the ways of traffic.
Down to 1853 the best roads between Leeds
and the neigh5oriug towns were narrow
lands. with Just room enough for
the ,old-fashioned wagons that were used
Tor burdens too heavy for conveyance i'm
the usual way, ON the backs of single horses
On those mack -horses the rau wool md ronll,l :.