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- the text in this article is based on one in Wikipedia
Kearsley (or archaically Kersley) is, since 1974, a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, in the administrative county of Greater Manchester, England. It lies about 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Manchester, 4.9 miles (7.9 km) southwest of Bury, and about 3.75 miles (6.0 km) south of Bolton.
It is bounded on the west by Walkden (part of Worsley), on the east by Whitefield, on the north by Farnworth and on the south by Clifton.
Kearsley was a township in the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Deane, in the |Salford Hundred. Kearsley was an urban district in Lancashire, England from 1894 until 1974. In 1933, part of Clifton was added to Kearsley Urban District. It includes the hamlet of Ringley (which is redirected here).
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The ancient parish of Deane in which Kearsley was a township was absorbed into Bolton County Borough in 1898. It does not appear on this map showing the 1974 transition from Lancashire to Greater Manchester.
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History
Kearsley was industrialised by 1752 when James Brindley (1716-1772) solved drainage problems at the Wet Earth Colliery on the borders of Kearsley and Clifton. In 1780, a mill was built at the point where the River Croal meets the River Irwell In 1830 the township was described as:
- "Kersley, a township in the parish of Deane, Hundred of Salford, 7 miles N.W. from Manchester. Inhabitants 1,833. In this township is Kearsley Moor, an extensive common, under the surface of which there are many valuable coalmines".
Following the Industrial Revolution a papermill, cotton mills, chemical works, an iron foundry, a quarry and 15 coal mines operated within the township boundaries.
In the mid-19th century, the area was a busy coal mining area. The largest coal mine was the Unity Brook Colliery. By 1900 the coal mining industry had all but disappeared.
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 Kearsley from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
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