Place:Flixton, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Flixton has been since 1974 a village and electoral ward within the Urmston area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. It lies about six miles (9.7 km) to the southwest of Manchester city centre, within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire. Medieval Flixton was a ancient parish within the Salford Hundred and encompassed the manor of Flixton, along with its church, first mentioned during the 12th century. The parish comprised isolated farmsteads and a manor house. Toward the end of the 17th century its population began to rise. This continued through the 19th century, although at a much slower pace than its neighbours. Flixton was a remote rural area with few transport links and did not witness the level of industrialisation other parts of Manchester saw, but its connection to the UK's railway network in 1873 helped transform the area into a middle-class railway suburb. [edit] Civic history In 1841 Flixton, along with its neighbouring parishes of Davyhulme and Urmston, became part of the Chorlton Poor Law Union. But this only lasted until 1849 when, with Stretford, it was transferred to Barton upon Irwell Poor Law Union. When, in 1894, an Act of Parliament created urban and rural district councils, Flixton and Davyhulme became part of Barton upon Irwell Rural District, while Urmston became an urban district council. In 1933 Flixton and Davyhulme, on the abolition of Barton upon Irwell Rural District, became parts of Urmston Urban District. In 1974 the whole area became a part of Trafford Metropolitan Borough within Greater Manchester, England.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"FLIXTON, a township and a parish in Barton-upon-Irwell [registration] district, Lancashire. The township lies in the peninsula between the rivers Irwell and Mersey, 3½ miles SSE of Barton-Moss [railway] station, and 7 WSW of Manchester; and has a post office under Manchester. Acres, 1,575: Real property: £6,966. Population: 1,302. Houses: 251. The parish includes also the township of Urmston. Acres: 2,549. Real property: £11,477. Population: 2,050. Houses: 409. The property is subdivided. Flixton Hall is the seat of the Wright family.

"The living is a rectory in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £300. Patron: the Bishop of Manchester. The church is good; and there were placed in it, in 1859, two memorial windows of Mr Thomas Rogers and of the Wright family. The vicarage of Urmston is a separate charge, constituted in 1868. There are two Wesleyan chapels, and charities £11."

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 Flixton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911. A map of the parish is included under the chapter on the parish of Eccles.
• A description of the township of Flixton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911