LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FARADAY (JULY 27, 1857) WITH HIS HEAVY GLASS THAT SHOWED

JACOB'S WELL MEWS, THE EARLY HOME OF FARADAY, AS IT

NOW IS

3

7

THE BOOKBINDER'S SHOP IN BLANDFORD STREET AS IT WAS.

9

LIFE OF FARADAY.

76

CHAPTER I.

EARLY LIFE-ERRAND BOY AND BOOKBINDER'S APPRENTICE.

THE village of Clapham, in Yorkshire, lies at the foot of Ingleborough, close to a station of the Leeds and Lancaster Railway. Here the parish register between 1708 and 1730 shows that Richard ffaraday' recorded the births of ten children. He is described as of Keasden, stonemason and tiler, a separatist;' and he died in 1741. No earlier record of Faraday's family can be found.

It seems not unlikely that the birth of an eleventh child, Robert, in 1724, was never registered. Whether this Robert was the son or nephew of Richard cannot be certainly known: however, it is certain that he married Elizabeth Dean, the owner of Clapham Wood Hall.

This Hall was of some beauty, and of a style said to be almost peculiar to the district between Lancaster, Kirkby Lonsdale, and Skipton. The porch had a gableend and ornamented lintel with the initials of the builder (the proprietor); and the windows, with three or four mullions and label or string-course, had a very good effect. It was partly pulled down. some twenty

years ago, and a common sort of farm-house built in its place.

It is now little better than a stone cottage. The door opens directly into a kitchen, flagged with four large flags. What remains of the old Hall is, if

CLAPHAM WOOD HALL WITH MILL AS IT WAS.

anything, meaner than the dwelling itself. At this Hall Robert and Elizabeth Faraday lived, and had ten children, whose names and birthdays, and callings in after life, so far as they are known, were these:—

Richard, born June 16, 1757, was an innholder, slater, grocer.
John, born May 19, 1759, was a farmer.
James, born May 8, 1761, was a blacksmith.

Robert, born February 3, 1763, was a packer in a flax mill.
Elizabeth, born June 27, 1765.

William, born April 20, 1767, died in July 1791.

Jane, born April 27, 1769.

Hannah, born August 16, 1771.

Thomas, born November 6, 1773, kept a shop.

Barnabas, whose birthday is not known, was a shoemaker.