|
|
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Gorton has been an area of Greater Manchester in northwest England since 1974. Before 1974 it was in the county of Lancashire as was the rest of central Manchester. Gorton is located southeast of the city centre. The population at the UK census of 2011 census was 36,055. Neighbouring areas include Audenshaw (now in Tameside Metropolitan Borough, previously in Ashton under Lyne), Denton, Levenshulme, and Reddish.
A major landmark is Gorton Monastery, a 19th-century High Victorian Gothic former Franciscan friary. (photograph in Wikipedia)
The Industrial Revolution brought work and industry to Gorton in the form of locomotive factories, including that of Beyer, Peacock and Company who became renowned for its locomotives, exported world-wide. The factory was established in 1854 and located on the southern side of the railway line.
In medieval times, the district was a township of the ancient parish of Manchester in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire. It was made a civil parish in 1866. In 1896 it joined with other Manchester southern suburbs to form the short-lived civil parish and registration district of South Manchester. South Manchester (not included in the WeRelate database) was abolished in 1916 when all the suburbs which had not been transferred into Manchester already were absorbed. Belle Vue and West Gorton are a localities within Gorton (redirected here). Gorton was absorbed into Manchester in sections: West Gorton in 1890, the remainder not until 1909.
| 
|
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Gorton from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "GORTON, a township and a chapelry in Manchester parish, Lancashire. The township lies on the Manchester and Sheffield railway, and on the Stockport canal, 3 miles ESE of Manchester; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Manchester. Acres: 1,429. Real property: £23,030; of which £332 are in gas-works. Population in 1851: 4,476; in 1861: 9,897. Houses: 1,813. The increase of population arose from the establishment of railway works, and the erection of a cotton mill. There are hat manufactories, chemical works, gum-works, a tan-yard, and a stained paper manufactory. A city gaol of Manchester was erected here in 1856; and a zoological garden is maintained in connexion with the Bellevue inn. The railway here passes 20 feet under the canal. There is a reservoir, of upwards of 70 acres, belonging to the Manchester water-works.
- "The chapelry was constituted in 1854, and curtailed in 1865. Population in 1861: 7,017: in 1866, 2,490. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £150. Patrons: the Dean and Chapter of Manchester. The church is a brick edifice in the Doric style. There are places of worship for Independents, Baptists, Wesleyans, and Unitarians, a national school, and an excellent boarding school."
(The chapelry was curtailed when Gorton became a civil parish.)
Research Tips
This settlement has been within the city limits of the City of Manchester from times before the establishment of Greater Manchester. Basic sources of genealogical facts will be found in those for Manchester itself. Check the sources listed in the Category named Manchester, Lancashire, England shown at the bottom of the page.
- 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 description of the township of Gorton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
|
|
