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 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...

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, 5 of the Church of Scotland, 12 of the Presbyterian church in England, 5 of the United Presbyterian church, 1 of Reformed Irish Presbyterians, 170 of Independents, 100 of Baptists, 27 of Quakers, 11 of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, 8 of Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, 2 of Moravians, 35 of Unitarians, 300 of Wesleyan Methodists, 27 of New Connexion Methodists, 1 of Bible Christians, 1 of Independent Methodists, 81 of the Wesleyan Association, 4 of Wesleyan Reformers, 1 of Sandemanians, 21 of the New Church, 5 of Brethren, 36 of isolated congregations, 114 of Roman Catholics, 1 of the Greek Church, 1of the Catholic and Apostolic church, 15 of Latter Day Saints, and 7 of Jews... Pop. in 1801,673,486; in 1821,1,052,948: in 1841,1,667,054; in 1861,2,429,440...

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))