[Footnote 1: Those who "came in with William the Conqueror" are not the oldest but the youngest of British families. They are the most recent occupiers of British soil. The Angles and Saxons, whose lands the Normans divided amongst themselves, occupied Britain many hundred years before the arrival of the Conqueror. In the remote dales of Yorkshire and Lancashire, the ancient race still exists. And thus the Crossley family may have a much longer pedigree, could they but trace it, than any of those who "came in with William the Conqueror." The latter are able to trace their origin because their numbers are so small, their possessions so large, and their introduction as English proprietors comparatively so recent.] [Footnote 2: In these snobbish days, when rich people are so often ashamed of their fathers and grandfathers, and vainly endeavour to make out their ancient 'nobility,' it was honest and manly on the part of Sir Francis Crossley thus publicly to relate these facts; and to share with his mother the honour of conferring his splendid present of the People's Park on the townsmen of Halifax.] Sir Francis went on to relate the history of his father (as given above from his own manuscript), until the time when he took the Dean Clough Mill. "My mother," he says, "went thither with her usual energy. As she was going down the yard at four o'clock in the morning, she made this vow: 'If the Lord does bless us at this place, the poor shall taste of it.' It is to this vow, given with so much faithfulness, and kept with so much fidelity, that I attribute the great success which my father had in business. My mother was always looking how she could best keep this vow. In the days that are gone by, when it was a dreary thing to give employment to a large number of people, the advice that she gave to her sons was, 'Do not sell your goods for less than they cost, for it would ruin you without permanently benefiting any one; but if you can go on giving employment during the winter, do so, for it is a bad thing for a working man to go home and hear his children cry for bread, when he has none to give them.'"