Macclesfield

“ Originally the trade of Macclesfield was principally in twist and silk buttons, but this has developed into the manufacture of all kinds of silk. Besides this staple trade, there are various textile manufactures and extensive breweries; while stone and slate quarries, as well as coal-mines, are worked in the neighbourhood. Recreation grounds include Victoria Park and Peel Park, in which are preserved the old market cross and stocks. Water communication is provided by the Macclesfield canal. The borough is under a mayor, 12 aldermen and 36 councillors. ”

“ Macclesfield obtained from the Royal Society in 1748 the loan of two object-glasses by Huygens, of 120 and 210 feet focus, and had one, or both, mounted at Shirburn Castle. Hard by he built a large chemical laboratory, supplied with furnaces and other apparatus.
Macclesfield was mainly instrumental in procuring the change of style in 1752. He communicated to the Royal Society on 10 May 1750 a preparatory paper entitled 'Remarks upon the Solar and the Lunar Years' (Phil. Trans. xlvi. 417) ; made most of the necessary calculations ”

“ Lord Macclesfield, who had the greatest share in forming the bill, and who is one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, spoke afterward with infinite knowledge, and all the clearness that so intricate a matter would admit of: but as his words, his periods, and his utterance, were not near so good as mine, the preference was most unanimously, though most unjustly, given to me. This will ever be the case; every numerous assembly is MOB, let the individuals who compose it be what they will. Mere reason and good sense is never to be talked to a mob ”

“ Conspicuous in this great assemblage were Charles Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield, an ancient Cavalier who had fought for Charles the First and had shared the exile of Charles the Second; Archibald Campbell, who was the eldest son of the unfortunate Argyle, but had inherited nothing except an illustrious name and the inalienable affection of a numerous clan; Charles Paulet, Earl of Wiltshire, heir apparent of the Marquisate of Winchester; and Peregrine Osborne, Lord Dumblame, heir apparent of the Earldom of Danby. ”

“ Southwards, near the foot of the Kerridge range, lies the old and somewhat dingy-looking town of Macclesfield, the view of which is, however, happily shut out by intervening plantations and the eminence on which stands Bonishall, for a time the residence of Lord Erskine, the grandson of the distinguished Lord Chancellor, and occupying the site of an older house, where, in the days of the Virgin Queen, a branch of the Pigots of Butley, had their abode. ”

“ On the 22nd of the latter month he dispersed near Stow-in-the-Wold the forces of Lord Ashley, the last important body of the royalists in arms. After the conclusion of the war he received the chief forestership of Macclesfield forest, and the seneschalship of the hundred of Macclesfield. He also obtained various grants of moneys and lands, among other properties which came into his possession being that of the archiepiscopal palace of Croydon. ”

“ And, if it gained as much in many mouths as I have since reason to suppose it gained in Farmer Kidd's, 't is little wonder it was soon believed an army of giants and magicians had crossed the sea in aid of the Protestant religion. The Earl of Macclesfield, who had come out of Holland with the Prince, leading a band of English gentlemen, two hundred strong, was with his following an object of wondrous admiration to Mr. Kidd, who would never tire, I thought, in telling of their great Flanders horses, their glittering armor, and their negro slaves, one to each man, in white and feathered turbans. ”

“ He was excused, on the ground of his personal friendship, from acting for the crown in the impeachment of Macclesfield in 1725, though he did not exert himself to save his patron from disgrace largely brought about by Macclesfield’s partiality for Yorke himself. He soon found a new and still more influential patron in the duke of Newcastle, to whom he henceforth gave his political support. ”

“ Well situated for a manufacturing seat, possessing ample communication, both by rail and canal, with other towns, and owning an abundance of cheap labour, together with many other advantages, somehow or another Macclesfield fails to attract capital. A site amid the bleak and mountainous regions of Yorkshire or Lancashire seems preferable to a town which is apparently doomed to industrial ruin. ”

“ Macclesfield successfully opposed the motion that Atterbury should be forbidden to make any defence to the Bill of Pains and Penalties in the House of Commons (ib. viii. 210) , and on 24 April 1723 he gave the thanks of the house to the committee of lords appointed to inquire into the Jacobite plot (ib. viii. 233) . In November 1724 a committee of the privy council was appointed to inquire into the funds of the suitors in the hands of the masters in chancery. ”

“ Lyme Park was originally included within the bounds of the royal forest of Macclesfield—a vast tract of country that comprised little of wood and much of wilderness—and so continued until the time of Richard II., when it was granted to an ancestor of its present owner. Common report says there was a house here as early as the reign of King John, but the story is unsupported by any existing evidence; if there were a dwelling at all it could only have been a kind of hunting lodge. ”

“ The places which it is the proper thing to visit, or “do,” as the phrase is, are all carefully mapped out for our convenience; but the literary finger-posts afford but little guidance to the true rambler, who knows that the fairest spots are those which are oftenest overlooked. Gawsworth may be easily reached from Alderley or Chelford; but perhaps the most convenient starting point is Macclesfield, from which it is distant a short four miles. ”

“ From 1730 onwards, until the date of acquisition by the Freemasons, the occupants of the house were as follows:—
George Parker, second Earl of Macclesfield, was born in 1697. He married in 1722 Mary Lane, [372] and succeeded to the earldom in 1732, at which time he was resident in Soho Square. [373] He had a great taste for mathematics, in which he had been instructed by Abraham de Moivre and William Jones, and, aided by James Bradley, who afterwards, by his influence, became astronomer-royal, erected about 1739 an astronomical observatory at his residence at Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire. ”

“ Macclesfield was elected president of the Royal Society in 1762, and discharged the duties of the office with great assiduity during twelve years. An account of his observations while at Shirburn of the earthquake in 1755 appears in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' xlix. ”

“ After holding the office of master of the rolls for a little more than ten years, he died on 13 Nov. 1764, aged 61, and was buried in the Rolls Chapel. From the dates of his admission to St. Peter's College, Westminster, and to Trinity, it is clear that he was not the son of Sir Edward Clarke, lord mayor of London in 1697, who was called to the bar by the Middle Temple on 8 Feb. 1705, as suggested in Foss; while the evidence of his old schoolfellow Bishop Newton is sufficient to disprove the notion that he was an illegitimate son of Lord Macclesfield. ”

“ The wife of every other lord is addressed as "My lady," whilst she is never anything more than plain "Mrs."
[22] Edited by the Rev. James Schofield, M.A., Regius Professor of Greek, Cambridge.
[23] Brereton's Travels, Chet. Soc. v. I, p. 122.
[24] Ibid. p. 161.
[25] There is a tradition, unsupported, however, by any evidence, that so many of the burgesses of Macclesfield fell at Flodden that the survivors had to petition the King to grant the continuance of their charter, though they could not muster a sufficient number of aldermen to constitute a corporation. ”

“ Lyde, —, 159 Lyde, Sir Lionel, 153 Lying-In Hospital, Brownlow Street, 103 Mabb, Edward, 60n Macclesfield, George Parker, 2nd Earl of, 74, 76 Macclesfield, Mary, Countess of, 74, 76 Mace, William, 188 McGee, Jas., 56 Macklin Street (formerly Lewknor’s Lane and Charles Street) , 18, 27–30 Magnus, Master, 125, 145 Maidenhead, The, Dyott Street, 125, 145 Majendie, Rev. ”

“ Mackellar,” said Mrs. Henry. “What does this man value reputation? But he knows how high we prize it; he knows we would rather die than make these letters public; and do you suppose he would not trade upon the knowledge? What you call your sword, Mr. Mackellar, and which had been one indeed against a man of any remnant of propriety, would have been but a sword of paper against him. He would smile in your face at such a threat. He stands upon his degradation, he makes that his strength; it is in vain to struggle with such characters.” ”

“ This earl’s eldest son was John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod (1727–1789) , who shared his father’s fortunes in 1745 and his fate in 1746. Having pleaded guilty at his trial Macleod was pardoned on condition that he gave up all his rights in the estates of the earldom, and he left England and entered the Swedish army. In this service he rose to high rank and was made Count Cromarty. The count returned to England in 1777 and was successful in raising, mainly among the Mackenzies, two splendid battalions of Highlanders, the first of which, now the Highland Light Infantry, served under him in India. ”

“ MACLEOD, Sir JOHN MACPHERSON (1792–1881) , Indian civilian, born at Ardarden in Dumbartonshire in 1792, was the eldest son of Donald Macleod of St. Kilda, colonel in the Madras army, by his wife, Diana, daughter of Donald Macdonald of Tormore in Inverness-shire. He was educated at Haileybury and at the university of Edinburgh, and obtained a writership in the Madras civil service on 27 July 1811. On 7 Jan. 1814 he was appointed second assistant to the secretary to government in the several civil departments, and on 8 July was promoted to be first assistant. ”

“ There are undeveloped iron deposits and rich coal-mines in the surrounding country, and coke-making is the principal manufacturing industry of the city. There is a fine Scottish Rite Masons’ consistory and temple in McAlester. The city owns its waterworks. The vicinity was first settled in 1885. The city of South McAlester was incorporated in 1899, and in 1906 it annexed the town of McAlester and adopted its name.
MACALPINE (or Maccabeus) , JOHN (d. 1557) , Protestant theologian, was born in Scotland about the beginning of the 16th century, and graduated at some Scottish university. ”

“ Mackenzie stirred upon his stool.
"You are not the only one on the road with a hacked ankle to-day," he said.
"A hacked ankle," retorted Muckle John, "is mair consoling than a hewn head."
So far they had spoken in Scots, but now, as though to let his men hear how the matter went, Mackenzie rose to his feet and swaggering across to Rob gave him a cuff on the head and said:
"Whose young bantam are you, lad, and what kind of tartan is that for the Mackenzie country?" ”

“ It was over a basin of hot brose that he turned to her.
"I am past ploys like these," he said, "but it smacks of the old days."
"The young ones are no like the old ones," sighed Miss Macpherson.
"None so old," rejoined Castleleathers, smiling at her suddenly.
Miss Macpherson busied herself with her plate.
"It's after Rob we must go the morn," she said.
"It has been a great night," he remarked, nodding before the fire, "that Mackenzie was sair taken aback."
"The Duke is no sae difficult to manage as folk say," hazarded Miss Macpherson. ”

“ Muckle John glanced at him very casually and fell to examining his finger-nails, while Rob stared at the stranger in open wonder.
Behind the man in the doorway there clustered a half-dozen dirty Mackenzies like cattle beasts nosing at a gate.
Neil Mackenzie, for he it was, set about ordering a drink for himself and then sitting down upon a stool he stared at Muckle John in the same insolent manner, while into the room trooped the men from the roadside, intent on the sport. They had seen Neil at this game before. He was the rare one to lay a stranger by the heels. ”

“ Macculloch was, as I have stated, a native of the parish of Cromarty, and passed the greater part of a long life as a Society schoolmaster, on a salary of twelve pounds per annum. Out of this pittance he contrived to furnish himself with a library, which, among other works of value, contained the whole of the Encyclopædia Britannica in its second edition. Though full of compliment and gallantry in his younger days, he was for the last forty years of his life, so thoroughly a woman-hater, that he would not suffer one of the sex to enter his cottage, cook his victuals, or wash his linen. ”

“ MS. history of the Mackenzies, the oldest in existence, suggests that Mackenzie himself may have instigated the ruffians to do away with his wife. "They lived," he says, "a considerable time together childless, but men in those days (of whom be reason) preferred succession and manhood to wedlock. He caused to throw her under silence of night over the Bridge of Scatwell, but by Providence and by the course of the river she was cast ashore and escaped, went back immediately to his house, then at Achilty, and went to his bedside in a fond condition. ”

“ At a meeting of the Council held at Edinburgh on the 9th of February, 1615, Neil Macleod's two sons, Norman and Roderick, are set at liberty on condition that they transport themselves out of the King's dominions and never return. They appeared personally "and acted and obliged them that within the space of forty days after their relief furth of their ward, where they remain within the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, they shall depart and pass furth of his Majesty's dominions and never return again within the same during their lifetimes, under the pain of death ”