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 lamented. During his episcopate ninety-nine new churches, containing fifty-seven thousand sittings, nearly all free, and costing 685,000l., were consecrated, twenty churches were rebuilt at a cost of 214,000l., a hundred and nine new district parishes were created, and the whole fabric of diocesan machinery—conferences, board of education, and building society—had been created and was in perfect working order. The labour which his mere episcopal duties involved was prodigious; for the number of persons he confirmed was counted by scores of thousands. But in addition to this he threw himself into almost every social movement of the day. He was to be seen going about the streets on foot, his robe-bag in his hand; he addressed meetings several times a day; he spoke to workmen in mills, and to actors in theatres; he was diligent in attending his diocesan registry; he was a member of the governing bodies of Manchester and Shrewsbury grammar schools and of the Owens College, visitor of the high school for girls and of the commercial school, and president of the College for Women. ‘Omnipresence,’ said his foes, ‘was his forte, and omniscience his foible.’ Not being a born orator, or even a very good one, and speaking constantly on all topics without time for preparation, it is true that he said some rash things and many trite ones, and laid himself open to frequent attack; but his absolute frankness and fearlessness of speech won the heart of his people, and his strong good sense and honesty commanded their respect. He earned for himself the name of ‘bishop of all denominations.’ In 1874 he was chosen umpire between the masters and men in the Manchester and Salford painting trade, and his award, made 27 March, secured peace for the trade for two years. He was again umpire in March 1876, and in 1878, during the great north-east Lancashire cotton strike, the men offered to refer the dispute to him, but the masters refused. He always protested against the unwisdom of strikes and lockouts, and sought to make peace between the disputants. Outside the co-operative body he was the first to draw attention to that movement, having described the Assington Agricultural Association in his report on agriculture in 1867. When the co-operative congress was held in Manchester in 1878, he presided on the second day, and appeared in 1885 at that held at Derby.

He never was a professed theologian, but his views were on the whole of the old high church school. He had little sympathy with the tractarian high churchmen, and in all matters of practice he was extremely liberal, and more disposed to take a legal than an ecclesiastical view of such matters. His first appearance in convocation was to second Dean Howson's motion in favour of the disuse of the Athanasian Creed; his first speech in the House of Lords was on 8 May 1871, in support of the abolition of university tests; and he said characteristically to his diocesan conference, in 1875: ‘If the law requires me to wear a cope, though I don't like the notion of making a guy of myself, I will wear one.’ Yet he was fated to appear as a religious persecutor, to his own infinite distress. When first he went to Manchester the extreme protestant party looked to him for assistance in suppressing ritualism in the diocese. For some time he succeeded in pacifying them, and it was not until after the Public Worship Regulation Act was passed, of the policy of which he approved, that strife began. In 1878 complaint was made to him of the ritual practice of the Rev. S. F. Green, incumbent of Miles Platting. The first complaint the bishop was able to disregard, as wanting in bona fides; but in December the Church Association took up the case and made a formal presentation to him, and after some persuasion had been tried to induce Mr. Green to alter the matters complained of, the bishop felt obliged to allow the suit to proceed, upon a refusal to discontinue the use of the mixed chalice. The case was tried by Lord Penzance in June 1879, and was decided adversely to Mr. Green, who was eventually, in 1881, committed to Lancaster gaol for contempt of court. It was upon the motion of the bishop that he was at last released. The living meantime had become vacant, and the patron, Sir Percival Heywood, would present no one but Mr. Green's former curate, the Rev. Mr. Cowgill, whom the bishop had already refused to license. Mr. Cowgill declining to undertake not to continue Mr. Green's ritual, the bishop in December 1882 refused to institute him. The patron thereupon commenced an action against him for this refusal, which was eventually tried by Baron Pollock on 10 and 11 Dec. 1883, and judgment was given for the defendant. The bishop then presented to the living, and the contest closed.

On 24 April 1880 his mother, who had hitherto lived with him, died. Three months before he had married Agnes (to whom he had become engaged in 1878), daughter of John Shute Duncan of Bath, sometime fellow of New College, Oxford. In September 1885 he suffered from congestion of the veins of the neck, caused by a chill. He was obliged to curtail his work, and was thinking of resigning his bishopric when, on 22 Oct., he