minds of
hundreds of well-to-do people for the benefits they there received.
It has been very gratifying to me on many occasions to see in pleasant
villas and cozy cottages the engraved portrait of Mr. Winfield,
occupying a place of honour on the wall, and to hear gray-headed men
say of him that he was the best friend they ever had, and that but for
him they might have remained in the degradation from which he assisted
them to rise.

Mr. Winfield could scarcely be called a public man. Early in life he
served the office of High Bailiff, and was placed upon the Commission
of the Peace. He did not, upon the incorporation of the town, seek
municipal honours, and he rarely took part in political action. He was
a very warmly-attached member of the Church of England, and in this
connection was ardently Conservative; but, although nominally a
Conservative, he was truly Liberal in all secular affairs. He was an
earnest helper in the movement for the better education of the people,
and their elevation in other respects. He certainly always took the
Conservative side at election times, but he never attempted unduly to
influence his _employes_. Indeed, on polling days it was his habit to
throw open the gates of his manufactory, so that his men might have
full liberty to go and record their votes as they pleased. Whenever he
did appear on a public platform, it was to aid by his presence or his
advocacy the cause of the Church to which he was so much devoted, or
to assist in some charitable or scholastic effort.

As a magistrate, he was one of the most regular attendants at the
Public Office. I have seen him there many times, and have frequently
been struck with the thought that when he passed sentence, it never
sounded like an expression of the revenge of society for a wrong that
had been done, but seemed rather to resemble the sorrowing reproof of
a father, hoping by stern discipline to restrain erring conduct in a
disobedient child.

Very early in life he married Lucy, the only surviving child of Mr.
John Fawkener, of Shrewsbury, and took up his residence in a large red
brick house in New Street, which has only lately been pulled down. It
stood nearly opposite the rooms of the Society of Artists. Its last
occupant was Mr. Sharman, professor of music. About the year 1828,
Mr. Winfield built a house in the Ladywood Road, which he named "The
Hawthorns," and here he resided all his life. The neighbourhood
was then entirely open,