Place:Barton upon Irwell, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Barton upon Irwell (also known as Barton-on-Irwell or Barton) has been since 1974 a suburban area of Eccles in Greater Manchester, England. Prior to 1974 Barton upon Irwell was in the county of Lancashire. It was originally was a township in the ancient or ecclesiastical parish of Eccles in the hundred of Salford and, as Barton, was a registration district (for births, marriages and deaths, and for censuses) in the civil administration. In 1894 it was divided up with a major section being absorbed into Eccles, other parts going to Irlam, Davyhulme and Barton Moss Barton Moss became part of the small rural district named Barton upon Irwell Rural District which lasted until 1933. The whole of Barton (including Barton Moss) was absorbed into the municipal borough of Eccles in 1933. Eccles (including Cadishead) was absorbed into the City of Salford, Greater Manchester in 1974. Barton lay about 5.5 miles (8.9 km) southwest of Manchester on both banks of the River Irwell and included the hamlet of Dumplington, now the site of the Trafford Centre. The Irwell was the boundary as far as the River Mersey which, with the stream, Glazebrook, were also boundaries of the parish.

Geography

Barton is also situated on the north bank of the Manchester Ship Canal where a pair of ship locks is located on the western edge of the district. It is also home to Barton Swing Aqueduct, which carries the Bridgewater Canal over the Manchester Ship Canal. From the late 19th century, the road from Barton to Stretford was carried over the canal by a low-level swing bridge. When this bridge was opened for ships to pass through there were lengthy delays to vehicles.

Before the Manchester Ship Canal was built, the Bridgewater Canal crossed the Irwell by a stone aqueduct of three arches, the first constructed in England over a navigable river.

Research Tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes (known as ancient parishes) were ecclesiastical, 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.
• Rural districts were groups of geographically close civil parishes in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish. Inspecting the archives of a rural 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.
• 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 Vision of Britain through Time on Barton upon Irwell. A long statistical excerpt from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 describing the village in the mid 19th century.
• A description of the township of Barton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911