Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/24

 a few of these volumes contain a fund of information relating to the domestic habits and family connections of our mediæval, and more recent ancestors. It is here that the labours of the plodding, careful antiquary make themselves felt; and it is thus that the value of his collections becomes known. He may have to wait long before his objects are accomplished; he may even be removed from earth before his works are duly appreciated; but sooner or later he will obtain his reward. This thought was ever present to the mind of the subject of this brief memoir; he knew the value of the volumes which he so liberally contributed to the Chetham Society, and although he has so recently "gone to his rest," it is already acknowledged that no one can hereafter write the history of this great county without being deeply indebted to the "Mamecestre," "The Shuttleworth Accounts," and his other works, for most valuable materials respecting families, places, men, manners, occupations, and prices; which are so plentifully scattered throughout those valuable volumes.

, says the Rev. Brooke Herford, "whose great-grandfather was an enterprising farmer and grazier, living near Dunkeld in the middle of the last century, was born at Hull, May 27, 1806." He was the eldest child of John Harland and his wife Mary, daughter of John Breasley of Selby. His father followed the combined businesses of clock and watchmaker, and jeweller, in Scale Lane, Hull; and issued a medal in commemoration of the peace and end of the war in December 1813. "It was mainly to his mother" that their son "owed the elementary instruction which was the only foundation on which he built up his various and extensive knowledge. At the age of fourteen he went, on trial, into the office of Messrs Allanson and Sydney,