West Houghton St James, Lancashire Genealogy

History
West Houghton St James, Daisy Hil was created as an Ecclesiastical parish from part of West Houghton, Lancashire and Atherton, Lancashire.

West Houghton was one of the poorest places in the Diocese of Manchester in the 1840's due to the collapse of employment in local mills and the very high rates of poor relief. The Rector of the parish had campaigned for releif of the suffering and had been instrumental in campaigns on behalf of the weavers and for inaugurating schemes for public works in the area. He was especially interested in education and besides giving private lessons to augment his stipend, every night of the week he taught the young men who worked in the mills or down the mines and his wife had classes for women and girls. It was during his incumbency that a school was opened in 1841 at Daisy Hill, financed by Westhoughton Old Chapel (the fore-runner of St. Bartholomew’s Parish Church). This early school stood on the same site as the present (old) school and was used for a number of years as a Day and Sunday School. A new school was opened on the same site early in 1869 when the Rev. Kinton Jacques was Vicar of Westhoughton. Besides being used as a Day and Sunday School it was furnished so that services could be held in it and Bishop Fraser, Bishop of Manchester, preached the opening sermon there a year later, on the 25th August 1870 (the day after he had consecrated the new parish church of Westhoughton). The jubilee of the original foundation was marked by the presentation to the school by Miss Haddock of a silk banner.

In 1875 the announcement was made of a new parish creation of the church of St James.



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Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is Free BMD.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church Records
Westhoughton- St James, Daisy Hill Banns-1882-1912- MFPR 2100 Banns-1912-1930- MFPR 2101 Baptisms-1882-1907- MFPR 1114 or MFPR 2100 Baptisms-1908-1930- MFPR 2100 Baptisms-1930-1980- Archives L128 Burials-1889-1964- MFPR 2101 Marriages-1882-1945- MFPR 1114 or MFPR 2100 Marriages-1945-1958- MFPR 2100 Marriages-1958-2003-Archives L128

The Manchester Room and Greater Manchester County Record Office Email: archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk

The Manchester Room@City Library (Local Studies)

Parish registers for St. James' Church, West Houghton, 1882-1964 Microfilm copy of originals formerly held at the Manchester Central Library, Manchester, England. West Houghton is a village, a township, and a chapelry in Deane parish. Manchester Central Library call nos.: L128/1/1/1-2, L128/1/2/1-2, L128/1/3/1, L128/1/4/1.

Poor Law Unions
Bolton, Lancashire Poor Law Union

Probate Records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Lancashire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.