founded in 1641, had Robert Ainsworth, the Latin lexicographer, and John Lemprière, author of the classical dictionary, among its masters. There are municipal technical schools. A large public park, opened in 1866, was laid out as a relief work for unemployed operatives during the cotton famine of the earlier part of the decade. On the moors to the north-west, and including Rivington Pike (1192 ft.), is another public park, and there are various smaller pleasure grounds. A large number of cotton mills furnish the chief source of industry; printing, dyeing and bleaching of cotton and calico, spinning and weaving machine making, iron and steel works, and collieries in the neighbourhood, are also important. The speciality, however, is fine spinning, a process assisted by the damp climate. The parliamentary borough, created in 1832 and returning two members, falls within the Westhoughton division of the county. Before 1838, when Bolton was incorporated, the town was governed by a borough-reeve and two constables appointed at the annual court-leet. The county borough was created in 1888. The corporation consists of a mayor, 24 aldermen and 72 councillors.
The earliest form of the name is Bodleton or Botheltun, and the most important of the later forms are Bodeltown, Botheltun-le-Moors, Bowelton, Boltune, Bolton-super-Moras, Bolton-in-ye-Moors, Bolton-le-Moors. The manor was granted by William I. to Roger de Poictou, and passed through the families of Ferrers and Pilkington to the Harringtons of Hornby Castle, who lost it with their other estates for their adherence to Richard III. In 1485 Henry VII. granted it to the first earl of Derby. The manor is now held by different lords, but the earls of Derby still have a fourth part. The manor of Little Bolton seems to have been, at least from Henry III.’s reign, distinct from that of Great Bolton, and was held till the 17th century by the Botheltons or Boltons.
From early days Bolton was famous for its woollen manufactures. In Richard I.’s reign an aulneger, whose duty it was to measure and stamp all bundles of woollen goods, was appointed, and it is clear, therefore, that the place was already a centre of the woollen cloth trade. In 1337 the industry received an impulse from the settlement of a party of Flemish clothiers, and extended so greatly that when it was found necessary in 1566 to appoint by act of parliament deputies to assist the aulnegers, Bolton is named as one of the places where these deputies were to be employed. Leland in his Itinerary (1558) recorded the fact that Bolton made cottons, which were in reality woollen goods. Real cotton goods were not made in Lancashire till 1641, when Bolton is named as the chief seat of the manufacture of fustians, vermilions and dimities. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes the settlement of some French refugees further stimulated this industry. It was here that velvets were first made about 1756, by Jeremiah Clarke, and muslins and cotton quiltings in 1763. The cotton trade received an astonishing impetus from the inventions of Sir Richard Arkwright (1770), and Samuel Crompton (1780), both of whom were born in the parish. Soon after the introduction of machinery, spinning factories were erected, and the first built in Bolton is said to have been set up in 1780. The number rapidly increased, and in 1851 there were 66 cotton mills with 860,000 throstle spindles at work. The cognate industry of bleaching has been carried on since early in the 18th century, and large ironworks grew up in the latter half of the 19th century. In 1791 a canal was constructed from Manchester to Bolton, and by an act of parliament (1792) Bolton Moor was enclosed.
During the Civil War Bolton sided with the parliament, and in February 1643 and March 1644 the royalist forces assaulted the town, but were on both occasions repulsed. On the 28th of May 1644, however, it was attacked by Prince Rupert and Lord Derby, and stormed with great slaughter. On the 15th of October 1651 Lord Derby, who had been taken prisoner after the battle of Worcester, was brought here and executed the same day.
Up to the beginning of the 19th century the market day was Monday, but the customary Saturday market gradually superseded this old chartered market. In 1251 William de Ferrers obtained from the crown a charter for a weekly market and a yearly fair, but gradually this annual fair was replaced by four others chiefly for horses and cattle. The New Year and Whitsuntide Show fairs only arose during the 19th century.
BOLTON ABBEY, a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 22 m. N.W. from Leeds and 512 from Ilkley by the Midland railway. It takes its name, inaccurately, from the great foundation of Bolton Priory, the ruins of which are among the most exquisitely situated in England. They stand near the right bank of the upper Wharfe, the valley of which is beautifully wooded and closely enclosed by hills. The earliest part of the church is of transitional Norman date; the nave, which is perfect, is Early English and Decorated. The transepts and choir are ruined, and the remains of domestic buildings are slight. The manor of Bolton Abbey with the rest of the district of Craven was granted by William the Conqueror to Robert de Romili, who evidently held it in 1086, although there is no mention made of it in the Domesday survey. William de Meschines and Cicely de Romili, his wife, heiress of Robert, founded and endowed a priory at Embsay or Emmesay, near Skipton, in 1120, but it was moved here in 1151 by their daughter, Alice de Romili, wife of William FitzDuncan, who gave the manor to the monks in exchange for other lands. After the dissolution of the monasteries the manor was sold in 1542 to Henry Clifford, 2nd earl of Cumberland, whose descendants, the dukes of Devonshire, now hold it.
See J. D. Whitaker, LL.D., F.S.A., History of the District of Craven (ed. Morant, 1878); Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum.
BOLZANO, BERNHARD (1781–1848), Austrian priest and philosopher, was born at Prague on the 5th of October 1781. He distinguished himself at an early age, and on his ordination to the priesthood (1805) was appointed professor of the philosophy of religion in Prague University. His lectures, in which he endeavoured to show that Catholic theology is in complete harmony with reason, were received with eager interest by the younger generation of thinkers. But his views met with much opposition; and it was only through the protection of the archbishop, Prince Salm-Salm, that he was enabled to retain his chair. In 1820 he was accused of being connected with some of the students’ revolutionary societies, and was compelled to resign. Several doctrines extracted from his works were condemned at Rome, and he was suspended from his priestly functions, spending the rest of his life in literary work. He died at Prague on the 18th of December 1848. The most important of his numerous works are the Wissenschaftslehre, oder Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Logik, advocating a scientific method in the study of logic (4 vols., Sulzbach, 1837); the Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft (4 vols., Sulzbach, 1834), a philosophic representation of all the dogmas of Roman Catholic theology; and Athanasia, oder Gründe für die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (2nd ed., Mainz, 1838). In philosophy he followed Reinhard in ethics and the monadology of Leibnitz, though he was also influenced by Kant.
See Lebensbeschreibung des Dr Bolzano (an autobiography, 1836); Wisshaupt, Skizzen aus dem Leben Dr Bolzanos (1850); Palágy, Kant und Bolzano (Halle, 1902).
BOMA (properly Mboma), a port on the north bank of the river Congo about 60 m. from its mouth, the administrative capital of Belgian Congo. Pop. about 5000. It was one of the places at which the European traders on the west coast of Africa established stations in the 16th and 17th centuries. It became the entrepôt for the commerce of the lower Congo and a well-known mart for slaves. The trade was chiefly in the hands of Dutch merchants, but British, French and Portuguese firms also had factories there. No European power exercised sovereignty, though shadowy claims were from time to time put forward by Portugal (see Africa, § 5). In 1884 the natives of Boma granted a protectorate of their country to the International Association of the Congo.
See H. M. Stanley, The Congo and the Founding of its Free State (London, 1885).
BOMB, a term formerly used for an explosive shell (see Ammunition) fired by artillery. The word is derived from the
