the choir system. The sundial in the graveyard bore the motto, 'I die today, I live tomorrow'. Mourning was not encouraged and corpses were led to the grave by a choir of brass instruments and the minister. At a sunrise service on Easter Sunday the congregation met in God's Acre to rejoice in the Resurrection. This remains the custom of the Moravian Church. Schools A boarding school was established for girls in 1796 and another for boys in 1802. The boys’ school closed in 1891 and the girls’ in 1919. The girls' school became Fairfield High School. Mission The impulse of the Moravian Church after its renewal at Herrnhut was to evangelise. This did not entail proselytising from other churches. It involved creating societies which would quicken spiritual life within existing Protestant denominations or among people who were unattached to any church; and taking the Gospel to those, especially in the Danish, Dutch and British colonies, who had never heard it before. Fairfield supported missionary work overseas: Mellowes (1984) lists 17 brothers and sisters who, within living memory, had served in missions in Labrador, Jamaica, the Eastern West Indies, Ladakh in northern India and Tanzania. Fairfield people in the 19th century sought to establish new congregations in several places. By November 1822 Br Lees had established a group at Clarksfield in Oldham, with preachers from Dukinfield and Fairfield. In August 1825, it was established as a new congregation called Salem. In 1825 a group was established by Br W. Rice in Glossop, Derbyshire, but closed and the adherents moved to other denominations. In the 1840s, the congregation supported scripture readers in the Manchester Town Mission. The work involved visiting people’s homes and using the Bible to teach reading and writing. Br Chambers was assigned to this duty and paid ten shillings (50p) a week for it. In the 1850s and 1860s, Brn Hines and Gibbs carried this work on and visited 3,523 homes. The work of the scripture readers led to chapels being created at Edge Lane and Gorton Brook in Droylsden and the Westwood Moravian Church in Oldham. There was some missionary work in Liverpool. Only Westwood, where a new church was opened in 1865 became permanent. The Fairfield people were generous in their support of Westwood, giving £600 and in 1871 writing off a debt of £550. Another instance of church extension in the neighbourhood of Fairfield occurred