Gladbach

Gladbach, or MÜNCHEN-GLADBACH, a rapidly growing manufacturing town of Rhenish Prussia, 16 miles W. of Düsseldorf, is the centre of the Rhenish cotton-spinning industry. It has also manufactures of silk, wool, linen, and paper, cotton-printing works, dye-works, bleachfields, iron-foundries, machine-shops, breweries, and brickworks. Gladbach, which has been a town since 1366, was formerly the seat of an important linen trade; the cotton industry was introduced in the end of the 18th century. The town formerly contained a famous Benedictine abbey, founded in 792, and still possesses a church dating from the 12th and 13th centuries (the crypt from the 8th). Pop. (1858) 13,965; (1871) 26,354; (1890) 49,268, mostly Roman Catholics.