Facts and traditions collected for a family record

MARRIAGE. 1 41
M'Connel & Kennedy still continued to occupy and work the mill
near Shooter's Brook, and in January 1799 introduced steam power to
it. In January 1801, they gave up their interest in this concern to John
M'Comiel, who had been with them for several years, and who was then
twenty-three years old. He, however, did not make the business answer,
and in three or four years returned to M'Connel & Kennedy, for whom
he was manager till his death in 1 S28, at the age of fifty.
On May 28, 1799, being then nearly thirty-seven years old, my father
married, at Gonalston Church, Nottinghamshire, Margaret Houldsworth,
at that time in her twenty-first year. She was the second daughter
of Henry Houldsworth, and was born, 11th July 1778, at his farm of
Gonalston Hagg. Her mother's maiden name was Ann Hooton. Her
father's mother's name was, I think, Deverill. There were four bro-
thers and four sisters, who all lived to be adults, and nearly all to old
age. I think I may say that my mother was a great favourite in the
family ; she was so at least in after life. I can give you no account of
her education ; but I cannot but think that the ease of manner in society,
which we remember in her later life, can only have been acquired by
her intercourse in youth with persons of a social standing superior to
her own. When growing into womanhood, she made a friend of Mary
Chowath, of Annesley, near Newstead Abbey, a Nottinghamshire heiress,
well known by the romantic attachment she inspired in the youthful
Lord Byron. This young lady more than once invited Margaret to her
house. It was not, however, in Nottinghamshire, but at the house in
Manchester, of her brother, Thomas Houldsworth, that my father be-
came acquainted with her. Thomas, like my father, was settled in
Manchester, as a fine spinner, and became a most prosperous one.
I gather, from entries I have been permitted to see in an old ledger
at Mr Houldsworth 's mill, (and, as I know you like " facts," I shall give
you the particulars,) that she resided with her brother Thomas from