Lancashire, England Genealogy

Lancashire is a maritime county and is located in the northern part of 'England'.

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LANCASHIRE, a maritime and northern county bounded on the N, by Cumberland and Westmoreland, on the E by Yorkshire, on the S by Cheshire, and on the W by the Irish sea. A portion of it in the NW, forming Furness, is detached from the main body by Morecambe bay and a tongue of Westmoreland. The Duddon estuary, for 8 miles, forms the boundary with Cumberland; the water-shed of the back-bone of England, throughout a large aggregate, forms the boundary with Yorkshire; and the river Mersey, throughout its whole extent, forms the boundary with Cheshire. The shape of the county is exceedingly irregular. The S part is not far from being a four-sided figure of about 44 miles by 40; but the N part consists chiefly of two irregular oblongs, the one continuous with the S part, over a connecting distance of 10 miles, and measuring about 20 miles by 12, the other the detached section of Furness, measuring, with islands belonging to it, about 28 miles by 13½. The total greatest length, from NW by N to SE by S, is about 87 miles; the greatest breadth is about 45 miles; the circuit, not including minor sinuosities, is about 295 miles; and the area is 1,219,221 acres. About 100 miles of the circuit-line are low coast, marshy or sandy; and 69,190 acres of the area are foreshore. The only islands are those at the SW of Furness, the largest of which is Walney. The surface of Furness is partly low seaboard, partly a series of fertile vales; but, for the most part, rises into the bold hills, the rugged mountains, and the romantic breaks and upland gorges of the Lake country; and culminates in the Old Man of Coniston, 2,577 feet high. The surface of the other N oblong also rises from low sea-board to high interior; but has heights much less lofty, and much less rugged; and is crossed, nearly through the centre, by the valley of the Lune, one of the most charmingly beautiful valleys in England. The W part, or nearly one-half of the rest of the county, is low and flat, chiefly fertile plain, showing indications of comparatively recent submersion by the sea, and interspersed with marsh land and mosses. The E part exhibits diversity of contour, includes much undulated landscape, rises into moor and mountain toward the boundary with Yorkshire, and contains, at or near that boundary, a number of summits, ranging from 1,545 to 1,803 feet in altitude. All the E border is more or less upland; and it rises to greater heights about the middle than in the N and in the S.

The chief rivers are the Duddon, the Leven, the Lune, the Wyre, the Ribble, the Douglas, the Alt, the Calder, the Irwell, and the Mersey. The chief sea-indentation is Morecambe bay, which occupies a very large area, and consists very greatly of foreshore. The chief estuaries are those of the Ribble and the Mersey, both very considerable, and the latter of vast value to navigation...

Lancashire contains 69 entire parishes, divided into about 446 townships; and contains also parts of 4 other parishes, and 9 extra-parochial places. The townships here, in a general view, are more considerable than parishes in most other counties; and they have separate rates for their poor and for highways. The county is divided into the city of Manchester, the boroughs of Ashton-under-Lyne, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Clitheroe, Lancaster, Liverpool, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, and Wigan, with parts of the boroughs of Stalybridge, Stockport, and Warrington, and into the hundreds of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale, Salford, and West Derby; and is cut, for parliamentary representation, into the sections of North and South, the former comprising the hundreds of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, and Lonsdale, the latter comprising the hundreds of Salford and West Derby. The registration county gives off part of Manchester parish to Cheshire, part of Rochdale parish to W. R. Yorkshire, and Dalton township to Westmoreland; takes in Grappenhall and Mottram parishes, and parts of Runcorn and Stockport parishes from Cheshire, and Bolton-by-Bowland and Slaidburn parishes, Sawley extra-parochial tract, and parts of Gisburn, Mitton, and Whalley parishes from W. R. Yorkshire; comprises 1,319,391 acres; had, in 1861, a pop. of 2,465,366; and is divided into the districts of Liverpool, West Derby, Prescot, Ormskirk, Wigan, Warrington, Leigh, Bolton, Bury, Burton-upon-Irwell, Chorlton, Salford, Manchester, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham, Rochdale, Haslingden, Burnley, Clitheroe, Blackburn, Chorley, Preston, Fylde, Garstang, Lancaster, and Ulverston...

Lancashire is governed by a lord lieutenant, a high sheriff, and about 350 magistrates; and is in the northern judiciary circuit, and in the N military district. The assizes, for the N section, are held at Lancaster; those for the S section are held at Liverpool and Manchester; quarter sessions are held at Lancaster, Preston, Liverpool, and Manchester; courts of bankruptcy are held at Liverpool and Manchester; and county courts are held in all the large towns. County-jails are at Lancaster, Preston, and Kirkdale; a county-house of correction, at Salford; a city-jail, at Manchester; and a borough-jail, at Liverpool. The police-force, in 1864, comprised 23 men at Ashton, at an annual cost of £1,654; 38 at Blackburn, £2,435; 39 at Bolton, £2,826; 13 at Lancaster, £1,045; 1,030 at Liverpool, £73,606; 669 at Manchester, £43,713; 52 at Oldham, £3,783; 82 at Preston, £6,974; 38 at Rochdale, £1,928; 108 at Salford, £7,568; 25 at Stalybridge, £1,525; 16 at Warrington, £1,177; 37 at Wigan, £2,460; and 763 in the rest of the county, £61,062. The crimes committed, in 1864, were 64 at Ashton, 258 at Blackburn, 360 at Bolton, 32 at Lancaster, 4,326 at Liverpool, 6,623 at Manchester, 174 at Oldham, 262 at Preston, 118 at Rochdale, 911 at Salford, 20 at Stalybridge, 65 at Warrington, 69 at Wigan, and 2,001 in the rest of the county; the persons apprehended were 43 at Ashton, 117 at Blackburn, 193 at Bolton, 25 at Lancaster, 2,125 at Liverpool, 1,407 at Manchester, 105 at Oldham, 170 at Preston, 66 at Rochdale, 200 at Salford, 22 at Stalybridge, 50 at Warrington, 71 at Wigan, and 1,225 in the rest of the county; the depredators and suspected persons at large were 78 at Ashton, 681 at Blackburn, 725 at Bolton, 125 at Lancaster, 3,169 at Liverpool, 3,106 at Manchester, 272 at Oldham, 702 at Preston, 249 at Rochdale, 411 at Salford, 20 at Stalybridge, 296 at Warrington, 291 at Wigan, and 3,595 in the rest of the county; and the houses of bad character were 10 at Ashton, 190 at Blackburn, 103 at Bolton, 32 at Lancaster, 1,518 at Liverpool, 1,111 at Manchester, 64 at Oldham, 182 at Preston, 174 at Rochdale, 132 at Salford, 3 at Stalybridge, 120 at Warrington, 60 at Wigan, and 636 in the rest of the county. The deanery of Furness and Cartmel is in the diocese of Carlisle; the deanery of Warrington, excepting the parish of Leigh, is in the diocese of Chester; and the deaneries of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Manchester, and Tunstall, and the parish of Leigh, constitute the diocese of Manchester. County lunatic asylum are at Lancaster-moor, Rainhill, and Prestwich. The poor-rates, in the registration county, in 1863, amounted to £1,101,950; and the receipts in aid of poor-rates amounted to £50,386. Marriages in 1863,23,919, of which 6,242 were not according to the rites of the Established church; births, 95,216, of which 6,253 were illegitimate; deaths, 67,202, of which 32,408 were at ages under 5 years, and 602 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 221,212; births, 845,962; deaths, 591,784. The places of worship, in the electoral county, in 1851, were 529 of the Church of England, with 383,466 sittings; 5 of the Church of Scotland, with 4,510 s.; 12 of the Presbyterian church in England, with 9,010 s.; 5 of the United Presbyterian church, with 3,115 s.; 1 of Reformed Irish Presbyterians, with 120 s.; 170 of Independents, with 80,072 s.; 100 of Baptists, with 34,068 s.; 27 of Quakers, with 8,264 s.; 11 of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, with 4,998 s.; 8 of Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, with 5,141 s.; 2 of Moravians, with 1,084 s.; 35 of Unitarians, with 12,384 s.; 300 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 107,983 s.; 27 of New Connexion Methodists, with 11,569 s.; 1 of Bible Christians, with 450 s.; 1 of Independent Methodists, with 30 at.; 81 of the Wesleyan Association, with 25,555 s.; 4 of Wesleyan Reformers, with 900 s.; 1 of Sandemanians, with 39 at.; 21 of the New Church, with 5,544 s.; 5 of Brethren, with 970 s.; 36 of isolated congregations, with 7,466 s.; 114 of Roman Catholics, with 55,610 s.; 1 of the Greek Church, with 86 s.; 1 of the Catholic and Apostolic church, with 100 s.; 15 of Latter Day Saints, with 1,379 s.; and 7 of Jews, with 1,138 s. The schools were 1,036 public day schools, with 150,338 scholars; 1,978 private day schools, with 65,509 s.; 1,524 Sunday schools, with 323,173 s.; and 314 evening schools for adults, with 9,68.7 s. Real property in 1815, £3,139,043; in 1843, £7,756,228; in 1860, £11,453,851, of which £633,420 were in mines, £34,667 in quarries, £5,068 in iron-works, £426 in fisheries, £197,499 in canals, £1,564,366 in railways, and £191,460 in gas-works. Pop. in 1801,673,486; in 1821,1,052,948: in 1841,1,667,054; in 1861,2,429,440. Inhabited houses, 438,503; uninhabited, 19,061; building, 3,592.

The territory now forming Lancashire was inhabited by the Brigantes and the Volantii; was included, by the Romans, in their province of Maxima Cæsariensis; and, in the 6th century, was the scene of various conflicts between the Britons and the Saxons. The northern part of it long lay included in the kingdom of Cumbria; the southern part became included in the kingdom of Northumbria; and the whole was not regularly occupied by the English till about 921, in the time of Edward the Elder. It was made an honour, of the superior class of seigniories; and, as such, was given at the Conquest to Roger de Poictou. It soon passed, by forfeiture, into the hands of Stephen, afterwards king of England; was given by him to his son William; passed, till the time of Henry III., through several eminent hands; was given, with the title of Earl, by Henry III., to his second son, Edmund Crouchback; passed to a descendant of Crouchback, with the title of Duke; went, with the title, by marriage with the first Duke's heiress, to John of Gaunt; was raised to a palatine in favour of that possessor; passed, through Henry of Bolingbroke, to the Crown; was held by him as Henry IV., by Henry V., and by Henry VI.; went into abeyance in connexion with the last of these kings; and, by act of parliament in the time of Edward IV,, was annexed permanently to the Crown. The Duchy of Lancashire was enriched, at the Reformation, with many estates of dissolved monasteries; and, besides much property in connexion with the county palatine, has property also in twenty-one other counties; but the revenue is curtailed by leases granted by successive monarchs. A court of chancery for the county palatine sits twice a-year at Lancaster, and twice at Preston; and courts of chancery for the duchy are held at Westminster, in which appeals from the other court may be heard. The local court of chancery is now, as far as concerns the county, its chief actual distinction as a palatinate.

Some local names in Lancashire, though not nearly so many proportionally as in the southern counties, indicate the fact of occupation by the Romans. Ancient British names also occur, yet with comparative scarceness, as memorials of the ancient British people both before and after the Roman occupation. Saxon names likewise occur; but they too are comparatively scarce. Scandinavian names occur in only a very few instances. The local names, in the aggregate, afford much less distinctness of historical indication than inmost other parts of England. The races of the present natives are evidently very mixed. A proportion is Celtic, but exists nearly apart, or intermarries very little with the other inhabitants; and a proportion is Irish, by modern immigration, which went on rapidly increasing for some years, but has recently received a check. The number of the inhabitants returned, at the census of 1861, as born in the county, was 475,694 males under 20 years of age, 390,844 males above 20 years of age, 483,003 females under 20 years of age, and 439,055 females above 20 years of age; and the number returned as born in Ireland was 20,183 males under 20 years of age, 79,876 males above 20 years of age, 20,439 females under 20 years of age, and 96,822 females above 20 years of age.

In 1323 the Scots, under Robert Bruce, ravaged Lancashire from the north as far as to Preston, and burnt that town. In the time of Henry VIII., Lancashire was, in some measure, agitated by the insurrection known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. In the civil wars of Charles I., many of the inhabitants took part with the king; many military operations, and some conflicts, took place within the county; Manchester was repeatedly contested by the belligerents, and eventually became the head-quarters of Sir Thomas Fairfax; and Lancaster was alternately in the hands of the royalists and the parliamentarians. On 17 July 1648, the Scots, under the Duke of Hamilton, and the parliamentarians, under Cromwell, fought a sanguinary battle at Preston, when the former were routed with great slaughter; and three days afterwards, the same armies met again at Winwick, with the same result. In 1651, the forces of the Earl of Derby were routed, at Wigan, by Colonel Lilburne; and soon afterwards, the Earl himself was taken prisoner, and beheaded at Bolton. In 1715, the troops of-the Pretender took up their quarters at Preston; but, being too few to stand their ground, they soon laid down their arms. In 1745, the army of the young Pretender traversed the county, both on their advance to Derby and on their retreat. Roman stations were at Mancunium or Manchester, Coccium or Ribchester, Ad Alaunum or Lancaster, Bremetonacæ or Burrow, and Ad Alpes Peninos or Broughton. Roman camps occur at Westwick, Worston, and Twist. A Roman road went from Manchester to Ribchester, with a branch to Broughton, and to Lancaster and Burrow; and other Roman roads went toward Ilkley, Slack, Little Chester and Chester. Roman coins and other Roman relics have been found at the Roman stations, at Burnley, and at other places. Old castles are at Lancaster, Dalton, Gleaston, Fouldry, Thurland, Hornby, Greenhaugh, Hoghton, Turton, and Belfield. Old abbeys are at Furness, Cockersand, and Whalley; old priories, at Burscough and Up-Holland; and old churches, at Manchester, Winwick, Cartmel, Middleton, and Whalley.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))