Place:Harwood, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Harwood (#9 on map) is an area of South Turton which is in the north-northeast section of Bolton Metropolitan Borough, Greater Manchester in northwest England. Lying within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Harwood was a township in the ancient or ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in the Hundred of Salford. In 1837 it became part of the Bolton Poor Law Union which took responsibility for funding the Poor Law in that area. It became a civil parish in 1866 and in 1898 it became part of the newly formed Turton Urban District. The transfer to the Bolton Metropolitan Borough took place in 1974. [edit] History The township was recorded as "Harewode" in 1212 and 1302. The manor which included Bradshaw, was part of the Manchester fee held by the Grelleys in the Middle Ages. In 1212 it was divided, the parts being held by Roger de Samlesbury and Alexander de Harwood. The Samlesbury portion descended in the same way as Breightmet (the township to the south) and the Harwood portion went to the Traffords of Trafford who sold it in 1589. This portion afterwards was much divided. The Radcliffes and Bartons of Smithills Hall held land in Harwood for many generations and Adam Mort of Astley held a messuage and a fulling mill in 1630. In 1612, Sir Nicholas Mosley and his son, Edward, conveyed the manor of Harwood to a partnership of five yeomen; Matthew Harrison, Henry Haworth, Raufe Higson, Lawrence Horrocks and Edward Greenhalgh. In the Hearth tax returns of 1666, forty-two hearths were liable to tax but only one house had three hearths. The common lands were enclosed in 1801. The parish church of Christ Church was built in 1840 and Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels were also built.

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).

"HARWOOD, a village, a township, and a chapelry in Bolton-le-Moors parish, Lancashire. The village stands 3 miles NE of Bolton [railway] station, and 4 W of Bury. The township comprises 1,100 acres. Post town: Bolton. Real property: £5,556; of which £800 are in mines, and £400 in quarries. Population: 2,055. Houses: 435. The property is much subdivided. There are a cotton mill and a bleaching works. The church was constituted in 1845. Population: 1,525. Houses: 326. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £90. Patrons: Trustees. The church is a recent structure, in the early English style; and has a small tower. There are chapels for Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists, and a national school."

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 description of the township of Harwood from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911