Bolton (city), Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Bolton history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
Bolton is a town in what is now the county of Greater Manchester in North West England. Historically it was a town in the ancient county of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production center for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th century, introducing a wool and cotton-weaving tradition. The urbanization and development of the town largely coincided with the introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Bolton was a 19th-century boom town, and at its zenith in 1929 its 216 cotton mills and 26 bleaching and dyeing works made it one of the largest and most productive centers of cotton spinning in the world.

Bolton is a common Northern English name derived from the Old English bothl-tun, meaning a settlement with a dwelling, as opposed to a settlement without a fixed dwelling. It was recorded as Bothelton in 1212, Botelton in 1257, Boulton in 1288, and Bolton after 1307. Later forms of Botheltun were Bodeltown, Botheltun-le-Moors, Bowelton, Boltune, Bolton-super-Moras, Bolton-in-ye-Moors, Bolton-le-Moors.

There is evidence of human existence on the moors around Bolton since the early part of the Bronze Age, including a stone circle on Cheetham Close above Egerton, and Bronze Age burial mounds on Winter Hill. A Bronze Age mound was excavated in Victorian times outside Haulgh Hall. The Romans built roads from Manchester to Ribchester to the east and a road along what is now the A6 to the west. It is claimed that Agricola built a fort at Blackrod by clearing land above the forest. Evidence of a Saxon settlement exists in the form of religious objects found when the Victorian parish church was built.

In 1067 Great Bolton was the property of Roger de Poitou and after 1100, of Roger de Meresheys. It became the property of the Pilkingtons who forfeited it in the Civil War and after that the Stanleys who became Earls of Derby. Great Bolton and Little Bolton were part of the Marsey fee, and in 1212 Little Bolton was held by Roger de Bolton as plough-land, by the service of the twelfth part of a knight's fee to Randle de Marsey. The parish church in Bolton has an early foundation although the exact date is unknown; it was given by the lord of the manor to the Gilbertine canons of Mattersey Priory in Nottinghamshire, founded by Roger de Marsey.

A charter to hold a market in Churchgate was granted on 14 December 1251 by King Henry III of England. Bolton became a market town and borough by a charter from the Earl of Derby, William de Ferrers, on 14 January 1253, and a market was held until the 18th century.

In 1337 Flemish weavers settled and introduced the manufacture of woollen cloth. More Flemish weavers, fleeing the Huguenot persecutions, settled here in the 17th century. The second wave of settlers wove fustian, a rough cloth made of linen and cotton.

During the English Civil War, the people of Bolton were Puritans and supported the Parliamentarian cause. A parliamentary garrison in the town was attacked twice without success but on 28 May 1644 Prince Rupert's Royalist army with troops under the command of the Earl of Derby attacked again. The attack became known as the Bolton Massacre in which 1,500 died, 700 were taken prisoner and the town plundered.

Bolton was a core location of the spinning and weaving industry in Lancashire. A tradition of cottage spinning and weaving and improvements to spinning technology by local inventors, Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton, led to rapid growth of the textile industry in the 19th century. Crompton, whilst living at Hall i' th' Wood, invented the spinning mule in 1779. Streams draining the surrounding moorland into the River Croal provided the water necessary for the bleach works that were a feature of this area. Bleaching using chlorine was introduced in the 1790s by the Ainsworths at Halliwell Bleachworks. Bolton and the surrounding villages had more than thirty bleach works including the Lever Bank Bleach Works in the Irwell Valley.

Important transport links contributed to the growth of the town and the textile industry; the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal, constructed in 1791, connected the town to Bury and Manchester providing transport for coal and other basic materials. The Bolton and Leigh Railway, the oldest in Lancashire, opened to goods traffic in 1828 and Great Moor Street station opened to passengers in 1831. The railway initially connected Bolton to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Leigh, an important link with the port of Liverpool for the import of raw cotton from America, but was extended in 1829 to link up with the Manchester to Liverpool Line. Local firms built locomotives for the railway, in 1830 "Union" was built by Rothwell, Hick and Company and two locomotives, "Salamander" and "Veteran" were built by Crook and Dean.

By 1900 Bolton was Lancashire's third largest engineering center after Manchester and Oldham. About 9,000 men were employed in the industry, half of them working for Dobson and Barlow in Kay Street. The firm made textile machinery. Another engineering company Hick, Hargreaves & Co based at the Soho Foundry made Lancashire boilers and heavy machinery. Thomas Ryder and Son of Turner Bridge manufactured machine tools for the international motor industry. Wrought iron was produced for more than 100 years at Thomas Walmsley and Sons' Atlas Forge.

By 1911 the textile industry in Bolton employed about 36,000 people. The last mill to be constructed was Sir John Holden's Mill in 1927. The cotton industry declined from the 1920s. A brief upturn after the Second World War was not sustained, and the industry had virtually vanished by the end of the 20th century.

Cemeteries (Civil)
Tonge Cemetery Cemetery Rd Bolton BL2 6AQ Phone: +44 1204 334499

Overdale Crematorium Overdale Dr Bolton BL1 5BU Phone: +44 1204 334499

Heaton Cemetery Gilnow Road Bolton BL1 4LH Phone: +44 1204 334499

Astley Bridge Cemetery Eden St Bolton BL1 6NU

Ridgemont Cemetery Co Operative St Rossendale 4 Chorley Old Rd Horwich, Bolton BL6 6AU

Parishes
St Peter's Church Churchgate Bolton BL1 1PS

St Mathew's Church Market St Little Lever, Bolton BL3 1HH Phone: +44 1204 700936

St Augustine of Canterbury Thicketford Road Tonge Moor, Bolton BL2 2LP Phone: +44 1204 523899

Christ's Church Stitch-Mi-Lane Bolton BL2 4HN Phone: +44 1204 525196

St Maxentius' Church Bolton Road Bradshaw,, Bolton BL2 3EU Phone: +44 1204 304240

Church of St Thomas and St John Tempest Rd Bolton BL6 4EL Phone: +44 1204 654016

St Peter's Church Church Rd Bolton BL1 5RL Phone: +44 1204 599900

St Aidan's Church Crompton Way Bolton BL1 8UP

St Catherine's Church 5 Richmond St Horwich, Bolton BL6 5QT Phone: +44 1204 697162

St Paul with St Emanuel 1 Vicarage St Bolton BL3 5LE Phone: +44 1204 520837

To find the addresses of parishes in adjacent towns and villages, go to Lancashire Parishes

Non Conformists
Other Christian groups follow:


 * Baptists
 * Church of Christ
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * Claremont Church
 * Grace Church
 * Farnsworth Christian Fellowship
 * Jehovah's Witnesses
 * Kingdom Life
 * Methodist
 * Presbyterian
 * Roman Catholic
 * Salvation Army
 * Seventh Day Adventists

Non Christian faiths include the following:


 * Buddhist
 * Hindu
 * Jewish
 * Muslim
 * Sikh

Civil Registration

 * Bolton Gov. BMD records
 * Lancashire BMD Org.
 * Free BMD Org

Local Histories

 * Local Histories: Bolton
 * Vision of Britain: Bolton
 * Bolton Historic Tales by Hans DePold
 * Massacre: The Storming of Bolton by David Casserly

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Google maps: Bolton
 * Old Maps: Bolton
 * Bolton Street Map
 * genuki Bolton gazetteer

Newspapers

 * The Bolton News
 * Newspaper Archive: The Bolton Chronicle
 * The Manchester Evening News; Bolton section

Societies

 * The Bolton Family History Society
 * Bolton Town Council Special History Collections
 * Bolton Historical Association
 * Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society

Archives

 * The National Archives: Bolton
 * Bolton Museum Archives
 * Lancashire County Council Archives

Websites

 * Lancashire County Council
 * Bolton Town Council
 * wikipedia: Bolton