the ejected clergy, who ministered to the original gatherings. For this district the explanation is easily found. At what was at the time, a pleasant rural village, called Attercliffe, near Sheffield, there was planted a flourishing Nonconformist Academy for the training of young ministers. Among the most noted of the ministers ejected by the Act of Uniformity was Richard Frankland, M.A., who had been settled at Bishop's Auckland. He was a native of North Yorkshire. When Oliver Cromwell founded a University at Durham he selected Frankland to become one of the Professors, but the return of Charles II. caused this University project to be discontinued. Frankland had a natural gift and inclination for teaching young gentlemen, and especially those intended for the Christian ministry. As the church authorities looked with disapproval on any such teaching apart from the Universities, he had to change his abode from time to time. Happily he settled in Attercliffe, and there started his academy in 1686, in which year James II., brother of Charles 11., granted liberty of worship for the purpose of favoring the Popish cause, to which he was so devoted. It is thought the Spencers, of Attercliffe Hall, favoured the project, and certainly among Frankland's Attercliffe students was a Thomas Spencer.

At Attercliffe Richard Frankland for three years, 168689, lived and trained young men for the free and independent Christian ministry.

THE ALTERCATION AT ROTHERHAM SESSIONS, 1682, BETWEEN

SIR JOHN RERESBY AND MR. FRANCIS JESSOP.

Sir John Reresby, of Thrybergh, Bart., in his memoirs, 1634-1689, records the following account, which strikingly illustrates the persecuting policy directed against the Nonconformists :

"July 18 was our sessions at Rotherham, where I gave the charge to the jury. The same day the Duke of Norfolk invited me and all the rest of the justices to dinner. We were eight there in number, viz., Sir Henry Marwood, Sir Michael Wentworth, of Woolley, Sir Ralph Knight, Mr. Edmonds, Mr. Blythman, Mr. Ramsden, Mr. Jessop, and myself. The laws having been put more vigorously in execution against Nonconformists of late than heretofore, Mr. Jessop (a known favourer of Dissenters) made some scruple to join with us in that proceeding. After a long debate in a

private room to satisfy his doubts in that point, he cast some reflections on the proceedings of the justices in their former sessions as well as on those there present, declaring that all their proceedings and warrants were illegal, to which I replied that it was something saucy to arraign so many gentlemen of quality concerned in the commission of the peace for his single opinion. He stood up and retorted with great insolence, 'You are very impudent.' At which words I took up a leaden standish [ink-stand] (he sitting behind a table, and at some distance from me), and threw it at his face, where the edge lighting upon his cheek cut it quite through. We after this drew our swords, and I went into the middle of the chamber, but the company prevented his following of me, and afterwards reconciled us. I was sorry for this accident, it happening at a sessions of the peace but the provocation could not be passed over.'

The following explanatory note is subjoined in the edition of "The Memoirs," published by James J. Cartwright, M.A., Cantab. of H.M. Public Record Office:

"A letter from Sir John to Halifax, written at Thrybergh, July 19, among the Spencer MSS., tells much the same story and adds that the company made us friends, he confessing the justices of the peace in the right, then drinking to me, saying he was sorry for his passion, and I declaring that then I was sorry for mine.' My lord, I acquaint your lordship with this that you may not be prepossessed by any false story; for thus I have it agreed to by all the justices then present under their hands, and I beg that no worse may be made of it to his prejudice either by his being turned out of commission of the peace or otherwise. From a note in Hunter's Life of Oliver Heywood it appears that Reresby's opponent was Francis Jessop, an early member of the Royal Society, and a cultivator of natural and abstract science; he lived at Broomhall, in Sheffield. Jessop was a friend of Fisher,* the ejected vicar of Sheffield, and had come into collision with his brother justices by his endeavours to protect Bloom, another ejected minister. Heywood relates that Sir John was only prevented from attacking Jessop with his rapier by the interference of the latter's son, a stripling of fifteen. This youth became a distinguished lawyer and member of Parliament."

Rev. James Fisher, the ejected Vicar of the Sheffield Parish Church (died January, 1665-6), married for his first wife, Elizabeth, sister of Anthony Hatfield, of Laughton-en-le-Morthen, and thus became allied, not only with the eminent Nonconformist family of Hatfield,' of Laughton, often visited by old Oliver Heywood, but also with the distinguished Parliamentary Sheffield family of the Brights, of Carbrook Hall. From this marriage have descended (as there is good evidence to believe), the families of "Fisher," attending for generations the Upper Chapel, Sheffield, of which the only remaining representatives are-Mr. Harry Fisher, J.P., Trustee of the chapel, and former member of the Corporation-and his sister, Mrs. Mary Blazeby (née Fisher), the wife of the Rev. William Blazeby, B.A.

CHAPTER XII.

MEMORIALS OF THE HOLLIS FAMILY AND ROTHERHAM HOLLIS' TRUST.

ERECTION OF MEETING HOUSE AND HOLLIS SCHOOL.

THE

HE original founder of the Nonconformist family of Hollis-raised to social eminence by honourable industry, and distinguished by large benefactions on behalf of education, philanthropy, and Nonconformity —was Thomas Hollis, a native of Rotherham, and by occupation a smith or whitesmith. As he lived to the year 1662, memorable to all Nonconformists for its Black Bartholomew's Day, he must have passed through all the national and local events, already recorded, of the periods of Charles I. and of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, departing this earthly scene just when the second Charles was entering on his reign of gay licence and religious persecution. This Rotherham brawny smith, we may imagine, willingly enough helped to furbish up the swords and pikes and guns with which, under the leadership of Stainforth and Westby, the Royalist army of the Earl of Newcastle, was so bravely encountered and opposed at the bridge by the stern men and gallant grammar school boys of old Rotherham. This first Thomas became fairly prosperous in business, and was able to leave some moderate sums of money to his sons, Thomas and John, and to his two daughters, Hannah and Mary.

Thomas, his elder son, was born in 1634, and christened on the 4th September of the same year. His mother's maiden name was Ramskar, and she had a brother who was a cutler in Sheffield. This second Thomas, perhaps, did not take to his father's smithy, or it might be intended for his