The first incumbent of St. Mary’s was the Rev. James Parker, a relative of Councillor Parker, of Preston, who had to retire through ill health.  He exchanged livings with the Rev. W. Watson, of Ellerburne, in Yorkshire, who required a more active sphere, and found it at St. Mary’s.  Mr. Watson afterwards found higher preferment, and went to the South of England.  Then came the Rev. Robert Lamb, who worked most vigorously in the district.  He is now rector of St. Paul’s, Manchester.  His successor was the Rev. Henry Robert Smith, who, after staying a while, retired to St. Paul’s, at Grange, where he still labours.  The next incumbent was the Rev. George Alker, who came to St. Mary’s in December, 1857.  He is still at the church; but we dare say he would be willing to leave it for a rectory, if one were offered, with 500 pounds a year.  Mr. Alker is an Irishman, and is about 42 years of age.  He is rather tall; is genteelly fashioned, has good features, wears an elegantly-trimmed pair of whiskers, has pompous, odorous, Pall Mall appearance, is grandiose and special, looks like a nineteenth century Numa Pompilius, would have made a spicey Pontifex Maximus, ought to have lived in Persia, where he might have worn velvet slippers and been fanned with peacock feathers, would have been a rare general director of either fire-eaters or fire worshippers; is inclined to run when he walks alone, and to be stately, slow, regal, and precise when, like Fadladeen, he is in charge of Lalla Rookh.  Is a man of determination, and never sleeps with his clothes on.  Is a sharp debater, a briskly-pompous, eloquent talker, has had a good deal of trouble at time and time in putting on his kid gloves, which used to fit so mortally tight that he couldn’t stir his thumbs in them; stands with a fine commanding air in the pulpit, as if about to shoulder arms; preaches extempore; says “my brethren” more frequently in his sermons than any minister we ever heard; has a clear, keen intellect; is dexterous, courageous, impassioned, imperious; has a lofty, threepence-halfpenny majesty about him; has been a hard worker, a stiff fighter, and a stinging public lecturer.  After leaving Ireland, he took a curacy in Liverpool.  In 1857 he accepted a similar post at St. Peter’s, Preston.  Here he organised a class of young men, 800 strong, and whilst here he set the town on fire with anti-Popery denunciation; and of him it might, at that time, have been said—­

He comes from Erin’s peaceful shore
Like fervid kettle bubbling o’er
With hot effusions—­hot and weak;
Sound Humbug all your hollowest drums,
He comes of Erin’s martyrdoms
To Britain’s well-fed Church to speak.