cellent technical school. The Corporation Park and Queen's Park are
well laid out, and contain ornamental waters. There is an efficient
tramway service, connecting the town with Darwen, 5 m. south. The cotton
industry employs thousands of operatives, the iron trade is also very
considerable, and many are engaged in the making of machines; but a
former woollen manufacture is almost extinct. Blackburn's speciality in
the cotton industry is weaving. Coal, lime and building stone are
abundant in the neighbourhood. Blackburn received a charter of
incorporation in 1851, and is governed by a mayor, 14 aldermen and 42
councillors. The county borough was created in 1888. The parliamentary
borough, which returns two members, is coextensive with the municipal,
and lies between the Accrington and Darwen divisions of the county.
Area, 7432 acres.

Blackburn is of considerable antiquity; indeed, the 6th century is
allocated to the original foundation of a church on the site of the
present parish church. Of another church on this site Cranmer was rector
after the Reformation. Blackburn was for some time the chief town of a
district called Blackburnshire, and as early as the reign of Elizabeth
ranked as a flourishing market town. About the middle of the 17th
century it became famous for its "checks," which were afterwards
superseded by a similar linen-and-cotton fabric known as "Blackburn
greys." In the 18th century the ability of certain natives of the town
greatly fostered its cotton industry; thus James Hargreaves here
probably invented his spinning jenny about 1764, though the operatives,
fearing a reduction of labour, would have none of it, and forced him to
quit the town for Nottingham. He was in the employment of Robert Peel,
grandfather of the prime minister of that name, who here instituted the
factory system, and as the director of a large business carefully
fostered the improvement of methods.

See W.A. Abram, _History of Blackburn_ (Blackburn, 1897).

BLACKBURNE, FRANCIS (1782-1867), lord chancellor of Ireland, was born at
Great Footstown, Co. Meath, Ireland, on the 11th of November 1782.
Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was called to the English bar in
1805, and practised with great success on the home circuit. Called to
the Irish bar in 1822, he vigorously administered the Insurrection Act
in Limerick for two years, effectually restoring order in the district.
In 1826 he became a serjeant-at-law, and in 1