put rose to 8 millions in 1790 and 10 millions in 1800. At the present time it is about 140 millions. A large extension of the canal system helped to develop the Yorkshire Coalfields towards the end of the last century, and the opening of the Barnsley Canal, in 1799, and its Branch to Cawthorne Basin gave an immense impetus to the Collieries at Barnby Furnace and Silkstone.
In the number of cinder-heaps scattered about on the North and on the East side of the Parish, and in the numerous "Smithy-fields', and "Cinder Hill," we have evidences of the manufacture of iron having been the staple trade of the Parish for many centuries. The manufacture of woollen cloth was also carried on at Cawthorne, as in most of the neighbouring villages. In the first year of Queen Mary, 1554, the family of Waterhouse of Halifax had granted to them for forty years at the yearly rent of £96 2s. "the ferme of subsidy and alnage of all saylable woollen clothes and peaces of cloth hereafter to be made within the County of York, and the moiety of all forfeitures of the same cloths and pieces of cloth put to sale not sealed with the seal ordained for the same."
The Waterhouse family assigned to Michael Wentworth, of Mendham Priory, Suffolk, and of Ottes, Essex, one of the Masters of the Queen's Household, whose grandson purchased Woolley in 1559 from Francis Woodrove, all the profits from a large number of places in this neighbourhood, including Cawthorne and Silkstone.
The Parish Registers very seldom mention the occupation of any one before 1744. In 1718, we have a Swift a "mason" and Bostwick a "woodcutter," and in 1727, the word "wire-mill" is found; but after that time the designation of "collier" is a frequent one, along with those of "wood-collier," "weaver," "clothier," and "tanner."
The production of coal in the Parish was probably at its greatest height soon after the beginning of the present century, when Mr. Samuel Thorp and his son Mr. Richard, of Banks Hall, were working the coal at Norcroft, and Mr. Daniel Wilson and his son Mr. Thomas Wilson, of Banks, were working at Barnby Furnace. It was at this time that the Woffendens' farm-house and farm-buildings at Upper
