*  Professor  Thorold  Rogct^


CHAPTER  III.
ANCESTORS.
(1817.)

When  Sydney  Smith  was  questioned  concerning  his  ancestors,
he  answered  that  his  family  went  no  further  back  than  his
grandfather,  who  disappeared  at  the  Assizes,  and  they  asked  no
questions.  My  paternal  grandfather  also  "disappeared,"  but
we  did  "  ask  questions,"  though  to  these  no  answer  came  until
the  next  generation.  His  name  was  Jacob.  He  was  a  man  of
unusual  stature  and  strength,  and  stories  were  told  of  his  carry-
ing a  town  watchman  home  on  his  shoulder  who  had  been
unpleasant  to  him  on  his  way.  He  had  a  forge  on  the  old
river  Rea  in  Birmingham.  His  name  and  business  is  in  the
directories  of  the  last  century.  Through  the  fraud  of  a  partner,
in  a  law  contest  as  to  a  right  of  way,  losses  by  floods,  which
washed  away  his  premises,  trouble  overtook  him.  His  family
having  some  property  he  went  away  alone  to  repair  his  own
fortune,  and  his  family  never  heard  of  him  more.  Forty  years
later  an  old  artizan  in  Sheffield,  made  curious  by  seeing  my
name  on  a  placard,  told  me  that  he  had  lived  in  a  house  in
Manchester  in  which  a  "  Jacob  Holyoake  "  resided — a  power-
ful, wilful  man,  he  described  him  to  be,  who,  having  made  a
little  money,  went  down  one  day  to  meet  the  Birmingham
coach,  saying  he  intended  to  rejoin  his  family.  He  was  too
late,  and  in  his  disappointment  went  and  leaned  over  the
hospital  wall,  which  one  less  tall  could  not  have  done.  The
place  contained  many  patients  with  a  contagious  fever,  which
he  caught.  Refusing  to  beheve  in  his  danger  when  seized,  and
disUking  medicine,  he  perished.      As  he  had  never  disclosed


8  SIXTY  YEARS  OF  AN  AGITA  TOiPS  UFS.
