many of the older inhabitants still have a very kindly remembrance, both in connection with the "Charity" of the Mrs. Stanhope of those days and with its mistress, Mrs. Long.
The present Girls' School was opened on Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1858. The following is a copy of the public notice given: "Harvest Thanksgiving and Opening of New School-Room, Cawthorne. The Parishioners of Cawthorne are invited to set apart the afternoon of Tuesday, October 19th, 1858, to the above-named purposes. Thanksgiving Service and Sermon in the Parish Church at 3 p.m. Tea in the New School-Room at 5 p.m. After Tea, Addresses will be delivered. The Church Choir and other musical friends will attend. Tickets for the Tea, at 6d. each, may be had until Oct. 14th from the Churchwardens, Mr. Charles Turner (Cawthorne), Mr. Midgley (Jowit House), and Mr. Longthorne, Basin."
This notice shows that our first annual Harvest Thanksgiving Day, which has ever since been such an interesting and happy parochial institution, dates back to the year 1858, when a week-day Thanksgiving Service was first held, on the suggestion of Miss Frances Stanhope to the present Archdeacon Badnall, who was then Curate of the Parish.
The first mistress of the Girls' School after it was placed under Government Inspection was Miss A. E. Steele, the former mistress, Miss Mary Ashton, who had been there since 1856, then taking charge of the Infants' department removed from the Tivydale to the old Boys' School near the Church.
At the end of the last century, a Sunday School was built by subscription in the South Lanes, and seems from the accounts to have at least been rich in teachers and generously supported as giving secular as well as religious instruction. The half-yearly receipts signed by William Gill, B. Hinchliffe, or B. Armitage, show the number of teachers to have been eight or nine "at 8s. per year." In the "Cawthorne Sunday School Accounts," the "upper school," as the above is called, is united with the one in the village, the subscriptions in 1800 amounting to nearly £24. Books, "sets of copies," pen-knives, quills, paper, are items which occur along with "Liquor
