My birthplace.--My father and mother.--Circumstances of their
marriage.--Their short married life.--Birth of their child.--Death of
my mother.--Her character and habits.--My father as a widower.--Dulness
of his life.--Its degradation.

I was born at Laneside near Shaw, which is now a manufacturing town of
some importance about two miles from Oldham in Lancashire, and about
four miles from Rochdale in the same county.

Laneside is a small estate with some houses and a little cotton-mill
upon it, which belonged to my maternal grandfather. The house is of
stone, with a roof of stone slate such as is usual in those parts, and
it faces the road, from which it is separated by a little enclosure,
that may be called a garden if you will. When I was a child, there were
two or three poplar trees in that enclosure before the house; but trees
do not prosper there, and now there is probably not one on the whole
estate. One end of the house (which is rather long for its height and
depth) abuts against the hill, and close behind it is the cotton-mill
which my grandfather worked, with no great profit to himself or
advantage to his descendants. I have mentioned a road that passes the
house; it is steep, narrow, and inconvenient. It leads up to an elevated
tract of the most dreary country that can be imagined, but there are one
or two fields on the Laneside estate, above the stone-quarry, from which
there is a good view in the direction of Rochdale.

I never knew my grandfather Cocker, but have heard that he was a lively
and vigorous man, who enjoyed life very heartily in his way. He married
a Miss Crompton, who had a little property and was descended from the De
Cromptons of Crompton Hall. I am not aware that she had any family