Place:Bolton, Lancashire, England

the text in this article is based on one in Wikipedia

Bolton is a town which, since 1974, has been located in Greater Manchester, England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the administrative centre. The town of Bolton had a population of almost 128,139, according to the 2011 UK Census.

[edit] Governance Until the early 19th century, Great Bolton (#8 on the map) and Little Bolton (#10) were two of the eighteen townships of the ancient or ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors. The two townships were separated by the River Croal with Little Bolton on the north bank and Great Bolton on the south. Bolton Poor Law Union was formed on 1 February 1837. It continued using existing poorhouses at Fletcher Street and in Turton to the north but in 1856 started to build a new workhouse at Fishpool Farm in Farnworth. Townleys Hospital was built on the site which is now Royal Bolton Hospital. In 1838, Great Bolton (#8 on map), most of Little Bolton (#10) and the Haulgh area of Tonge with Haulgh (#17) were incorporated under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 as a municipal borough, the second to be created in England. Further additions were made adding Rumworth and part of Halliwell from Deane ancient parish in the 1870s. In 1889, Bolton was granted County Borough status and became self-governing and independent from Lancashire County Council jurisdiction.

In 1898, the borough was extended further by adding the civil parishes of Breightmet (#4), Darcy Lever (#5), Lostock (#13), the detached part of Sharples (#16), and Tonge (#17) plus Great Lever, the rest of Halliwell, Heaton, Middle Hulton, the rest of Rumworth, Smithills, Astley Bridge Urban District, and part of Over Hulton civil parish, all of which had previously been in the ancient parish of Deane. (No attempt has been made on the map to precisely outline the Deane parishes which joined Bolton.)

In 1974 the County Borough of Bolton was abolished and became a constituent part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester.

NOTE: The hamlet of Daubhill has been redirected here although brief references to it are made within articles about other settlements originally located in Bolton le Moors.

[edit] History Until 1974 Bolton was located within the county of Lancashire. It originated as a small settlement in the moorland known as Bolton le Moors. During the English Civil War the town was a Parliamentarian outpost in a staunchly Royalist region, and as a result Bolton was stormed by 3,000 Royalist troops led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine in 1644. In what became known as the Bolton Massacre, 1,600 residents were killed and 700 were taken prisoner. Noted as a mill town for centuries, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 1400s, developing a wool and cotton weaving tradition. The urbanisation and development of Bolton largely coincided with the introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. It was a boomtown of the 19th century 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 centres of cotton spinning in the world. However, the British cotton industry declined sharply after the First World War, and by the 1980s cotton manufacture had virtually ceased in Bolton. For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Bolton. Wikipedia provides an extensive history of the town of Bolton.

Research Tips

• 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 parish of Bolton le Moor from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
• A description of the township of Great Bolton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
• A description of the township of Little Bolton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911