Throughout the Middle Ages, until the end of the Wars of the Roses, war was the chief, almost the only occupation of the leading men of Cheshire. A few entered the Church, Richard de Vernon, for instance, who was Rector of 'Stokeport' early in the fourteenth century (his tomb is in the chancel of Stockport), and William de Montalt, Rector of Neston. One of the Bebingtons, William de Bebyngton, even became Abbot of S. Werburgh's Abbey.

The descendants of the barons who settled in Cheshire in the days of the Conqueror followed the Norman and Plantagenet kings to the Crusades or the French wars. Few of them stayed at home for any length of time, and when they returned, they generally found that some score had to be settled with the Welshmen, who had been making havoc of their lands during their absence. So that whether at home or abroad, fighting was always their chief business.

Cheshire has been called the 'seed-plot of gentility'. The Cheshire gentry prided themselves on marrying within their own county. A Cheshire proverb says: ''Tis better to wed over the mixen than over the moor,' meaning the moorland that separates Cheshire from her neighbours. The result of this intermarriage was that the number of great Cheshire names did not greatly increase, and soon there became

to quote another Cheshire saying.

One of the oldest Cheshire families is that of the Wooley-Dods of Edge Hill, who trace their descent from the Saxon Dot, who was a great man in Cheshire before the Normans came. The Grosvenors, whose ancestors came over with the Conqueror, live at Eaton Hall, and own vast estates in Western Cheshire. The present head of the family is the Duke of Westminster. The Mainwarings, whose forefathers fought in the Crusades, are at Peover, and the crest of the felon's head of the Davenports still survives at Capesthorne, though the Davenports of Marton and Bramhall are no more.

Many old families of Cheshire have long since died out. The last of the Masseys of Puddington (they had lived there since the days of Rufus) died in the Stuart rising of 1715. There are no Pooles at Poole Hall nor Venables at Kinderton. The last of the Savages of Rock Savage, whose tomb is in the Rivers Chapel at Macclesfield, died in the seventeenth century.

Dutton village and Dutton Hall bear the name of a famous family that was allied by marriage with most of the great families of Cheshire. Duttons live no longer at the Hall, for the last male heir died in the reign of James the First. They were descended from a squire of Robert Lacy, Constable of Chester. When Earl Randal was besieged in Rhuddlan Castle by the Welsh, the Constable and Dutton, his henchman, hastily gathered together a motley rabble of fiddlers and mountebanks from Chester Fair and went to his assistance. The Earl was rescued, and from that time forward to the Duttons was given the charge of all minstrels and fiddlers in the county. There are Duttons in Chester now; one was a mayor of the city quite recently. Neighbours and kinsmen of the Duttons were the Dones or Donnes of Utkinton, hereditary foresters of the Forest of Delamere. Many of them are buried at Tarporley. The name of the last Lady Done is still called to mind in the neighbourhood where they lived. The Cheshire proverb is the highest praise that can be given to a young Cheshire housewife, and 'Lady Done' is a pet name for modest and thrifty girls, as 'Little Lord Derby' is for brave and honourable boys.

Lancashire claims the Earls of Derby now, but they are descended from the Stanleys, perhaps the most famous of all Cheshire families, by the marriage of Sir John Stanley and Isabella, heiress of the Lancashire Lathoms. The Stanleys settled at Storeton in Wirral in the fourteenth century. Many men of mark, churchmen and scholars, statesmen and soldiers, belonged to this family. A Stanley helped to win the battle of Bosworth for Henry Tudor, and a Stanley led the Cheshire troops in the famous charge at Flodden Field,

One branch of the family settled at Hooton, but the last of this line lost his estates by gambling and extravagance. The Stanleys of Alderley received knighthood from James the First; they are Barons of Alderley now. This family has given a bishop to Norwich and a still more famous dean to Westminster. The bishop was educated at the Grammar School of Macclesfield.

The Egertons are descended from the standard-bearer of Henry the Eighth, who made him a knight after the 'Battle of the Spurs'. One of them rose to be Lord Chancellor in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, and was made Baron Ellesmere. The first Earl Egerton of Tatton was made a peer by Queen Victoria largely for the help he gave in the making of the Ship Canal.

The Jodrells, buried in Taxal Church, were descended from an archer who served under the Black Prince. Perhaps he cut his bow from the very yew tree that still stands in the churchyard. One of them fought in the Peninsular War, but the name has disappeared from this part of Cheshire now.

Several Cheshire noblemen sit in the House of Lords to-day, their family name disguised under the more showy title of a peerage. A Booth became Lord Delamere at the Restoration, and the Viscounts of Combermere are the descendants of the Cottons, who helped Henry the Eighth to plunder the Cheshire monasteries. The Ardernes are represented by the Earl of Haddington; Lord Newton lives at Lyme Park, the ancient home of the Leghs, and the Earl of Crewe at Crewe Hall. Lord Ashton of Hyde has only recently taken a seat in the House of Lords. He was made a baron at the coronation of King George the Fifth.

When great industries took root in Cheshire new names appeared, and some of the most honoured families in Cheshire now are those that have been closely associated with the workers of the county. We hear a great deal nowadays of 'the dignity of labour', and we think it no disgrace to rise to position and power by a life of toil. The Gregs of Styal and the Brunners of Northwich, the Levers of Wirral, and many others, have endeared themselves to the people of Cheshire by the example of their own labours and the pains they have taken to make the lives of those who live about them and work for them brighter and happier.

A simple cross in the graveyard of the Unitarian Chapel at Knutsford bears the name of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. The people of Knutsford have a warm corner in their hearts for her, for in a way she has made their town famous for all time. One of the books she wrote—Cranford she called it—speaks of the people of Knutsford as she knew them in the earlier days of Queen Victoria. The book tells you much of the quiet life of a country town before the coming of the railways and the busy hubbub of the later nineteenth century, and all Cheshire children should read it. Mrs. Gaskell wrote several other books, all of which show her sweet sympathy and kindliness towards those whose lives are cast in lowly surroundings.

If you have not heard of Cranford you have probably read a book whose title you know better than the name of the writer. Alice in Wonderland was written by a man who spent much of his early life in Cheshire. 'Lewis Carroll', though that is not his real name, is the name under which he wrote the humorous stories that have delighted young people and old alike.

John Critchley Prince, the workman poet of Hyde, lived in the days when the poorly-paid workers of Cheshire were struggling for a better existence. While working in a factory at Hyde he found time to write poems which speak of the charms of home, the brotherhood of all mankind, and the hopes and ambitions of his fellow men. Prince was thriftless and intemperate, and much of his life was spent in misery, but his talents were great, and the people of Hyde have done him honour. He is buried in Hyde churchyard.

In the chancel of Stockport Parish Church is a tablet to the memory of John Wainwright, the organist who composed the tune for 'Christians, awake', the beautiful Christmas hymn 'whose sound is gone out into all lands where the praise of our Lord is sung', as the inscription runs. The words of the hymn were written by Byrom, a Manchester man.

Cheshire produced a famous hymn-writer in Bishop Heber. Reginald Heber was born in the rectory of Malpas in 1783. He gave himself up to missionary work in foreign lands, and was made Bishop of Calcutta. 'From Greenland's icy mountains' and 'Brightest and best of the sons of the morning' are two of the hymns that came from his pen.

Charles Kingsley must have loved Cheshire. Though he was not a Cheshire man by birth, he claimed descent from the Kingsleys of Vale Royal. He was a great lover of nature, and, while he was Canon of Chester, founded the Natural History Society in Chester, whose home is in the Grosvenor Museum, and encouraged the people of Cheshire to take an interest in the story of their county, and to study the ways of plants and of the wild creatures of the fields and the forests. His pathetic ballad of the Sands of Dee, 'O Mary, go and call the cattle home,' will always be a favourite with the village people of Wirral. Tabley Hall was the home of another celebrated naturalist. Here lived Lord de Tabley, one of the greatest students of Cheshire flowers, and a lover of all wild living things. His grave is in the churchyard of Little Peover, and over it trails a bramble, which was his favourite plant and one of which he made a special study. In the gardens of Tabley Hall is a bramble-bed, still tended carefully, which he laid out from the choicest briars he could find.

Lord de Tabley was a poet as well as a lover of flowers and birds. Perhaps you will some day read his poems, and be charmed by his descriptive pictures of the ways of his feathered friends, the 'starlings mustering on their evening tree', the 'swallows beating low before a hint of rain', the 'plaintive plovers', and the 'wide-winged screaming swift'.

Lord de Tabley's example is one which all Cheshire boys and girls should learn to copy. Those who are proud of their county will not do anything to make it less beautiful. Like him, they will cherish and protect the plants and birds and all the wild creatures that have been put into their keeping; for such things are the common heritage of the people of Cheshire, and, once destroyed, can never be replaced.