Bacup, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
Bacup is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Lancashire, created in 1801 from chapelry in Newchurch_in_Rossendale,_Lancashire  Ecclesiastical Parish.

Bacup was a chapelry linked with the parishes of Whalley and Rochdale, and divided between the townships of Newchurch and Spotland in the hundred of Blackburn.

Bacup's first local authority was a Local board of health established in 1863; Bacup Local Board of Health was a regulatory body responsible for standards of hygiene and sanitation in the Bacup Urban Sanitary District. The area of the sanitary authority was granted a charter of incorporation in 1882, giving it honorific borough status and its own elected town government, consisting of a mayor, aldermen and councillors to oversee local affairs. The Municipal Borough of Bacup became a local government district of the administrative county of Lancashire under the Local Government Act 1894, meaning it shared power with the strategic Lancashire County Council. Under the Local Government Act 1972, the Municipal Borough of Bacup was abolished, and since 1 April 1974 Bacup has formed an unparished area of Rossendale, a local government district of the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire.

BACUP, [or Bacop] a consolidated chapelry [by 1788], in the townships of Newchurch and Spotland, parishes of Whalley and Rochdale, union of Haslingden, Higher division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of Lancashire, 7 miles (N. by W.) from Rochdale; containing 7279 inhabitants. The village or town is situated in a beautiful valley, from which the ground ascends on both sides to high moorland, abounding in game. The soil is alluvial, inclined to clay; and coal, and excellent stone for building, are in great plenty: at Dulesgate is a bed of hard coal similar to that of Halifax. The river Erewell or Irwell, which takes its rise at Cliviger, two miles and a half to the north, runs through the village, where a tributary stream joins it; and the roads from Rochdale to Burnley, and from Todmorden to Haslingden, cross each other in the middle of the village. The population is chiefly employed in cotton factories. A cattle-fair is held on the first Tuesday in every month; and fairs are also held on the Tuesday and Wednesday before Good-Friday, the first Friday and Saturday in June, and the 25th and 26th of October. An act was passed in 1846, for constructing a branch line connecting Bacup with the Leeds and Manchester railway; and another act has been obtained, for a branch in connexion with the East Lancashire railway. Fern Hill, a mansion situated on an eminence overlooking the valley, is the seat of George Ormerod, Esq.; and at Broadclough, about half a mile up the vale, is the seat of James Whitaker, Esq. The consolidated chapelry was allotted in 1843. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Hulme Trustees, with a net income of £150, and a house; the chapel, dedicated to St. John, was consecrated in 1788. There are two places of worship for Particular Baptists, and two for Wesleyans. A mechanics' institution and a British school stand on the site of the original Baptist meeting-house, which was erected in 1692, and was for a considerable number of years the only place of worship in the village. A national school is supported in connexion with St. John's chapel. At Broadclough are the remains of an intrenchment, called the "Dykes," respecting the antiquity of which no tradition exists. It is cut out from the gentle slope of an eminence, and in one direction is nearly parallel to the horizon for more than 600 yards: a part of the line, for about 100 yards, appears to have been levelled; and more than 400 yards present a trench 54 feet in breadth at the bottom, and of proportionate depth. So gigantic and singular a work could only have been intended for some military purpose: it was probably one side of a vast British camp, designed to have been carried round the eminence, but left unfinished. Bacup is included in the forest of Rossendale, of which the first portion inclosed was Brandwood, in this district, granted about the year 1200, by Roger de Lacy, to an ecclesiastical establishment; the remainder was disforested in the reign of Henry VII.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 124-128. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50773 Date accessed: 25 June 2010.

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 FreeBMD.

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
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Census records
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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

Web sites
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