g on one of
the long ends of her girdle.

It is interesting to hear that in this church Mendelssohn's Wedding
March was first played at a wedding. The 'Midsummer Night's Dream' music
had just been published as a pianoforte duet, when Mr Samuel Reay, of
Tiverton, made an arrangement of it for the organ, and the first
marriage at which the march was played was that of Mr Tom Daniel and
Miss Dorothea Carew, in June, 1847.

Tiverton was famed in early days for its trade in wool. It is supposed
that woollen goods were first manufactured here towards the end of the
fourteenth century, and at the beginning of the sixteenth several
merchants of the town were making ventures far and wide. Baizes, plain
cloths, and kerseys were the most important of the manufactures, and
there was some commerce in these with Spain. Traffic in woollen goods
was now very brisk in different parts of the country, and during the
reign of Henry VIII special statutes were enacted 'affecting cloths
called white straits of Devon, and Devonshire kerseys called dozens.' In
Elizabeth's reign trade prospered here as elsewhere; but later friction
arose on the question of imports. The manufacturers on more than one
occasion tried to introduce Irish worsted to weave into cloth, and this
was met by the most violent opposition from the wool-combers, who
believed that it would take away their work, although it was explained
that their work depended on making serge for Dutch markets, for which
the Irish worsted could not be used. The wool-combers had at different
times various causes for complaint, and these they vented in riots so
serious that (about 1749) the authorities asked for the protection of
some troops, who were accordingly sent to Tiverton, and, on a fresh
uproar not long after their arrival, were called out to quell the mob.
Towards the latter half of the eighteenth century the woollen trade
languished; but in the first quarter of the nineteenth century a new
business sprang up--that of producing machine-made lace and tulle.

Tiverton's merchants marked their prosperity in an admirable manner, for
over ninety gifts in land, money, and almshouses have been made. The
gifts and bequests were usually intended to benefit the poor, but in a
few cases they were for the general good. In addition there remains the
memory of about twenty 'benefactions,' many of which were 'absorbed in
the tumult of the Civil War or generally dissipated by neglect or
mismanageme