As early as 1736 Harris seems to have cherished the desire to found at Trevecka a community, after the pattern of that of Frank at Halle, or of the Moravians at Herrnhut and Fulneck; but for several years he was altogether absorbed in the work of evangelization. Now, however, he took up the idea with renewed zest. In preparing the house at Trevecka for the reception of the Community, he had the assistance of his friend and adviser Madame Griffith. Residents began to arrive in 1752, and continued to do so, {209} from time to time, for many years. But the average membership remained throughout somewhere near a hundred. Every member was expected to put all his worldly possessions into a common fund. The concerns of the Family were both religious and industrial. Three services were held every day, and on Sundays four. But industry held almost as important a place in the scheme as religion; and it is this that makes Harris so prominent a figure in the economic and social, as well as in the religious, life of Wales. The first faint indications of the coming Industrial Revolution were beginning to be descried in England; but as yet Wales was almost wholly agricultural and pastoral; and, of course, what industries there were, were carried on in the cottages of the people. In a few short years the enormous mineral wealth of the country would be discovered; and the introduction of the factory system, and the construction of turnpike roads, would alter the whole face of society. More than a century earlier, an Industrial Community had been founded by the Vaughans of Bredwardine, but that had long sunk into oblivion: it was the Trevecka Family that really brought the main ideas of the Industrial Revolution to the doors of {210} the Welsh people. The industrial pursuits of the new Community were interesting and varied. They picked wool, carded flax, and knitted. A woollen factory was instituted, and a printing-press installed. Harris and his followers were equally interested in the development of the land. He introduced new, and better, methods of growing turnips and corn, and also an improved system of crop rotation.