The reports of the other and more modern charities are all more or less complete.

The material for a history of the dramatic art in Rochdale are wanting in the library, and one is led to ask-has no one collected the old playbills or scraps relative to the theatre? Certainly, as early as 1766, Rochdale had its theatre, and some of the brightest "stars" of the British stage have from time to time paid flying visits to Rochdale. In 1814, J. Stanton paid to Jonathan Fildes, the proprietor of the theatre in Ford Lane, 105 for twenty-four nights. About the same period J. Thornhill took the theatre, and engaged Miss S. Booth, of Covent Garden, for three nights, when an N.B. at the foot of the playbill announced "that the theatre would be well aired and good fires constantly kept," and that "there would be no admittance behind the scenes."* I glean these facts from letters addressed to Miss Lancashire, who acted as agent for the proprietor of the theatre.

And now the time allowed for a paper of this kind and your patience are alike, no doubt, exhausted, and I must conclude these rambling observations. In doing so, I may add that I have purposely avoided noticing works whose authors are still alive, and I am fully sensible that the selection of others has been almost made at haphazard. Indeed, I have found the subject so large that my greatest difficulty has been what to omit rather than what to include. If I have excited interest in the subject in the mind of any present, the books are there to speak for themselves, and I am sure will on investigation be found to yield a much larger harvest to those who care to gather it, than one might imagine, from the few bundles of tares and wheat which I have this evening placed before you.

*MS. letter in possession of H. Lancashire, Esq.

Proceedings.

SHORT COMMUNICATIONS AND ABSTRACTS OF

PAPERS.

SMITHILLS HALL AND HALL-I'-TH'-WOOD.

On the invitation of Alderman Greenhalgh, ex-mayor of Bolton, one of the oldest members of the Manchester Literary Club, the Council of the Club, on Saturday, the 27th of September, 1879, paid a visit to Smithills Hall, and were afterwards entertained at dinner in the Bolton Town Hall. For the visit to Smithills Mr. Greenhalgh had obtained the permission of the owner, Mr. R. H. Ainsworth, for the party to go through the hall and grounds. Arriving at Bolton in the morning, the visitors were conveyed to Smithills in an open conveyance. They were accompanied by Alderman Greenhalgh, Alderman W. W. Cannon, J.P., Mr. John Hall, public prosecutor of Bolton (a member of the Club), Mr. James Clegg, and Mr. Parkinson, of the Bolton Grammar School; and were received by Mrs. Ainsworth, who explained that Mr. Ainsworth was unavoidably absent. The oaken drawing room was first entered. The appearance of the black stained oaken walls of the room at once excited the curiosity of the visitors, who began to put to each other "a thousand and one" questions relative to the history and traditions of this fine specimen of an old Lancashire seat. Having been informed by Mr. Parkinson, who seconded Mr. Greenhalgh's efforts as guide to the party, that the richly-carved oak with which the walls were covered had been removed into that room from another part of the hall, the company minutely inspected the well-painted crests of the Ainsworth family, and also the crest of the old. Lancashire family of the Bartons.

The Bolton Chronicle, to which we are indebted for our account of the visit, gives an historical sketch of the hall and its associations. So far back as in the eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII. (1516) John Barton held the manor of Smithills, with other messuages in Egborden, Lostock, Flixton, Harwood, Sharples, Horwich, Turton, Bradshaw, Halliwell, and land in Bolton-on-theMoors. Subsequently we find, in the third year of Edward VI. (1548), that Andrew Barton held the manor of Smithills and other property. His son and heir was Robert Barton, the first husband of Lady Shuttleworth, and he was born in 1524. The acorn, the crest of the Barton family, is a prominent object amongst the carving upon the fluted oaken panelling upon the walls. Early in September, 1582, Sir Richard Shuttleworth went to reside at Smithills, and remained there until 1599. He was serjeant-atlaw and judge of Chester. It is believed that he was born at Gawthorpe in 1541, and was educated for the law. He became serjeant-at-law on the 4th July, 1584-two years after he went to reside at Smithills. When he received the honour of knighthood is not clear, but probably when he was elevated to the judicial bench. Sir Richard Shuttleworth is sometimes styled Chief Justice of Chester, and though there is no evidence that such. office or title existed, it is clear that he was the senior or principal judge. He seems seldom to have been resident in Lancashire for any long period, as in all probability his public duties in Parliament during its session, in the courts at Westminster Hall, and on circuit, whether as serjeant or as judge, would involve long absences from home. He was only once married, and left no issue. His lady was Margery, the youngest daughter of Sir Peter Legh, of Lyme and Haydock, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Thomas Gerard, Esq., of Bryn. She was first married to Robert Barton, Esq., of Smithills, and was his widow when she married Sir Richard, then Mr. Shuttleworth, of Gawthorpe. As his father (who died in 1596) was then living, the married couple seem to have taken up their residence at Smithills, where Sir Richard's youngest brother, Thomas, also lived, and, in the necessary absence of the head of the family, managed the estates and household. It appears that Lady Shuttleworth was very charitable to the poor, and that, like most gentlewomen of her time, she plied the spinning wheel. She died in April, 1592, and her husband survived her about seven years. Searches through the registers of Padiham, Whalley, Bolton, Deane, and Winwick (one of the family burial places of the Leghs of Lyme) have failed to show where Sir Richard and his lady had their last resting place; but the accounts as to her funeral almost clearly point to Winwick as her place of sepulture, and it is possible that her ashes rest among the tombs of her fathers in the Legh Chapel in Winwick Church. From the oaken drawing room the company were conducted