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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Ramsbottom has been since 1974 a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, Greater Manchester, England. The population at the UK census of 2011 was 17,872. Prior to 1974 it was in Lancashire. It is on the River Irwell in the West Pennine Moors, 3.9 miles (6.3 km) northwest of Bury, and 12 miles (19 km) north of Manchester.
Its name is believed to derive from Old English ramm and botm, meaning "valley of the ram". Its Victorian architecture, Pennine landscape and industrial heritage, including the East Lancashire Railway, contribute to heritage tourism in the town.
The northernmost part of Ramsbottom stayed within Lancashire in 1974 and was transferred to Rossendale municipal district.
Ramsbottom developed during the 19th century as a manufacturing and mill town on the road from Bury to Haslingden by the River Irwell, its suburbs stretched south to Hazelhurst and north to Stubbins. Mills were built for spinning, weaving and printing. Square Mill was in its day innovative in combining many such processes under one roof.
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In the late 18th century, Sir Robert Peel (1750-1830) (father of the politician) purchased land in Ramsbottom with a readily available source of water power and started a major manufacturing career. It was this action that effectively founded Ramsbottom as a homogeneous settlement; the factory system, and Industrial Revolution facilitated a process of unplanned urbanisation in the area, contributing to it becoming an important and populous mill town.
A network of roads and railways routed through Ramsbottom allowed for a series of diverse industries, including calico-printing, cotton spinning, machine-making, rope-making and iron and brass founding. Imports of foreign goods during the mid to late-20th century precipitated the decline of these sectors.
Governance
From the Middle Ages Ramsbottom was an area in the township of Tottington Lower End, in the parish of Bury, and Salford Hundred in Lancashire. It was part of the Bury Poor Law Union formed in February 1837, overseen by a Board of 25 Guardians including three from Tottington Lower End using the old workhouses at Bury, Radcliffe, Pilkington and Heywood until a new workhouse at Jericho opened in 1857. In 1864 the Ramsbottom Local Board of Health was formed for the Ramsbottom area in Tottington Lower End township. In 1883 parts of Elton, Tottington Higher End and Walmersley with Shuttleworth townships were added to the area of the Local Board. In 1894 the area of the Local Board became Ramsbottom Urban District. Further parts of Bury County Borough and Walmersley with Shuttleworth civil parish were added to the urban district in 1933. When the urban district was dissolved in 1974 the Central, East, South and West wards were included in Bury Metropolitan Borough in Greater Manchester and the remainder in the Rossendale District of Lancashire.
The Ramsbottom parish formed in 1844 was a mile and a quarter in length and about three-quarters of a mile in width in the Tottington Lower End township in the valley of the River Irwell that extends from Bury to Rossendale. It is bounded to the south by Holcombe Brook and Summerseat (in Elton parish); to the north by Edenfield, Irwell Vale, Stubbins and the hamlets of Chatterton and Strongstry; to the west by Holcombe and to the east by Shuttleworth and Turn Village.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Ramsbottom from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "RAMSBOTTOM, a small town and a chapelry in Bury parish, Lancashire. The town stands on the river Irwell and on the East Lancashire railway, 4 miles N of Bury; was the place where the first Sir Robert Peel established calico-printing; [it] carries on cotton spinning, calico-printing, machine-making, rope-making, and iron and brass founding; is governed by a local board, under the act of 1858; and has a post-office‡ under Manchester, a railway-station with telegraph, a commodious inn, a police station, a church, four dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a public school, an athenæum, a public library, and an Odd Fellows' hall.
- "The church was built in 1850, at a cost of £3,400; was enlarged shortly before 1868; is in the early English style; and has a memorial window to the late Lord Palmerston, and a tower and spire. The Presbyterian chapel was built in 1834; is a handsome edifice, in the pointed style; and has a lofty pinnacled tower. The chapelry was constituted in 1844. Population in 1861: 4,134. Houses: 798. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Manchester. Value, £170. Patron, alternately the Crown and the Bishop."
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 Tottington Lower End (predecessor of Ramsbottom) from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
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