Hill, near Halifax, he has built numerous
excellent cottages for his workmen, and encouraged them to build their
own houses by investing their spare earnings in building clubs. He has
established co-operative clubs, to enable the men to purchase food and
clothing at cost price. He has built excellent schools at his own
expense, and provided them with a paid staff of teachers. He has built
and endowed the very fine church of "All Souls" (Sir Gilbert Scott,
architect), to which a large district, inclusive of the works, has been
assigned. He has provided for his workpeople, both at Haley Hill and
Copley, a Literary and Scientific Society, a Mutual Improvement Society,
a Working Men's Library (to which he has presented more than five
thousand books), a Working Men's Club and Newsroom, a Choral Society,
supplied with an excellent library of music; a Recreation Club, provided
with a bowling green; and a cricket ground, with quoits, and gymnastic
apparatus, Mr. Akroyd has also allotted a large field to his workmen,
dividing it into small gardens varying from a hundred to two hundred and
forty square yards each. The small rent charged for each plot is
distributed in prizes given at an annual flower-show held in his
grounds, for the best growers of flowers, plants, and vegetables. Hence
the Haley Hill Horticultural and Floral Society, one of the most
thriving institutions of the kind in the neighbourhood. In short, Mr.
Akroyd has done everything that a wise and conscientious master could
have done, for the purpose of promoting the moral and spiritual welfare
of the four thousand persons employed in his manufactories, who have
been virtually committed to his charge.

But although Mr. Akroyd has done so much as a master for the men and
women employed by him, he has perhaps done still more as a public
benefactor by establishing the Yorkshire Penny Bank for Savings. As
early as the year 1852, Mr. Akroyd instituted a Savings Bank to enable
his workpeople to deposit sums of from one penny upwards. The system was
found to work so well, and to have such a beneficial effect in making
people provident, that he conceived the idea of extending its operations
throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire. Having obtained the
co-operation of several influential gentlemen, the scheme was started in
1856, and an Act of Parliament was obtained for constituting the
Yorkshire Penny Savings Bank as it now exists.

Mr. Akroyd has recently furnished an In