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- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Abram has been, since 1974, a village and electoral ward within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on flat land on the northeast bank of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Leigh, 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of Wigan, and 14.5 miles (23 km) west of Manchester. Abram is a dormitory village, effectively a suburb, comprising a resident population of 9,855 people (2001 UK census). (2011 UK census figure not available.)
Prior to 1974 Abram was a part of Lancashire. It originally formed a township and chapelry in the parish of Wigan and the West Derby Hundred. Abram appears in an entry of an ancient survey of Lancashire in 1212 under the name "Edburgham", and throughout the Middle Ages was governed by ruling families.
The urbanisation and development of Abram largely coincided with the Industrial Revolution. Abram is situated in the centre of a coal district, and industrial scale coal mining was introduced to Abram around the middle of the 19th century with the opening of several collieries. In 1911, Abram was described as "distinctly unpicturesque ... trees are in the minority, and stunted and blackened with smoke", with "collieries, pit-banks, and railway lines" as well as "much pasture land".
Abram's coal mining industry diminished during the mid-20th century, however the village has continued to grow, supported by its position between Leigh, Manchester, Warrington and Wigan.
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Governance
Following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, Abram formed part of the Wigan Poor Law Union, an inter-parish unit established to provide social security. Abram's first local authority was a local board of health established in 1880; Abram Local Board of Health was a regulatory body responsible for standards of hygiene and sanitation in the township. Following the Local Government Act 1894, the area of the Local Board became the Abram Urban District, a local government district within the administrative county of Lancashire. Under the Local Government Act 1972, the Abram Urban District was abolished, and Abram has, since 1 April 1974, formed an unparished area of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, a local government district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council provides the local services.
For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Abram, Greater Manchester.
Research Tips
- Greater Manchester Gazetteer, published by Greater Manchester County Record Office (with Manchester Archives)
- See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes were ecclesiastical (described as ancient parishes), under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
- An urban district was a type of municipality in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish and were used for urban areas usually with populations of under 30,000. Inspecting the archives of a urban district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
- Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
- The terms municipal borough and county borough were adopted in 1835 replacing the historic "boroughs". Municipal boroughs generally had populations between 30,000 and 50,000; while county boroughs usually had populations of over 50,000. County boroughs had local governments independent of the county in which they were located, but municipal boroughs worked in tandem with the county administration. Wikipedia explains these terms in much greater detail.
- Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
- FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
- Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
- A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
- A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
- GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
- The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
- A description of the township of Abram from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
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