Place:Hindley, Lancashire, England

Watchers
NameHindley
Alt namesHindley Greensource: settlement in parish
TypeParish, Urban district
Coordinates53.533°N 2.583°W
Located inLancashire, England     ( - 1974)
See alsoWest Derby Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Wigan, Lancashire, Englandancient parish in which it was located
Wigan (metropolitan borough), Greater Manchester, Englandmetropolitan borough in which it has been located since 1974


the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Hindley is a town which, since 1974, is located within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England. Lying three miles (5 km) east of Wigan town centre, it covers an area of 1044 hectares. As of the 2011 UK census, Hindley had a population of 25,001.

Prior to 1974 Hindley was an urban district in Lancashire. Hindley (which includes the village of Hindley Green) borders the former parishes of Ince in Makerfield, Aspull, Westhoughton, Atherton and the former borough of Leigh.

Hindley was originally a township in the ancient parish of Wigan. It became an independent civil parish in 1866 and an urban district in 1894.

History

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Early history

Hindley was one of 15 berewicks of the royal manor of Newton before the Norman Conquest of 1066. After the conquest it formed part of the Barony of Makerfield. The area was held by free tenants until 1330 when Robert Langton, Baron Makerfield, gave the lordship of the manor to his younger son. His descendants were lords of the manor until 1765 when it was sold to the Duke of Bridgewater.

Image:Wigan.png

From the Middle Ages until the 18th century the land was a mixture of sheep rearing, agricultural crops and woodland maintenance, and the farmers were tenants of a variety of lords. Parish registers from the end of the 17th century reveal that residents were yeomen (independent farmers who supplemented their income by spinning and weaving). There are also references to blacksmiths, whitesmiths, nailers and wheelwrights. Hindley was noted for its nail making between the 17th and 19th centuries.

Industrial Revolution

A coal mine was first recorded in Hindley in 1528 and by the end of the 19th century there were over 20 collieries in the area. Ladies Lane Colliery belonging to the Wigan Coal and Iron Company employed 282 underground and 40 surface workers in 1896. At the start of the 20th century profitable coal seams were nearly exhausted and concerns were raised regarding the need to diversify industry and further develop the cotton mills. Peak production of coal was achieved just before the First World War. The period between the First and Second World Wars was marked by the closure of most collieries and mills including Hindley Field and Swan Lane collieries in 1927, Hindley Green Colliery in 1928; Lowe Hall Colliery in 1931; Lowe Mill closing in 1934 and Worthington Mill was demolished. During the post war period the Hindley workings became part of the large colliery complexes developed at Bickershaw, Parsonage and Golborne.

Cotton manufacturing became important from the end of the 17th century until the middle of the 20th century. Hand-loom weaving was one of the chief industries, each cottage having a weaving shop attached. As the Industrial Revolution developed, larger mills were built. The first cotton factory was built in 1785 by Richard Battersby at Lowe Mill, a former water corn-mill. In 1822, John Pennington constructed his first power-driven mill. He was a significant employer of hand-loom weavers in the late 18th and early 19th century.

In 1790 Market Street, then known as Mill Lane, remained unmetalled and undeveloped but by 1835 John Leyland provided an insight into the growth of the town when he wrote, "Mr Pennington is extending his works, and a new mill is being built by Mr Walker. When these get completed a large increase in inhabitants must follow. In a small time it will doubtless rank as a small town."

The population of Hindley increased during the 19th century from 2,300 in 1811 to 23,000 in 1911 reflecting the transformation of the town from a country village to small, densely populated industrial town. The economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s hit Hindley hard and by the time of the Second World War the population had declined to 19,000.

The coal mining and cotton spinning have all disappeared and most residents of Hindley now work in Wigan, Bolton or commute to Manchester or Liverpool.

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 township of Hindley from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Hindley, Greater Manchester. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.