Place:Moston, Lancashire, England

Watchers
NameMoston
TypeTownship
Coordinates53.5156°N 2.1848°W
Located inLancashire, England     ( - 1896)
See alsoSalford Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Manchester, Lancashire, Englandancient parish in which it was located; municipal borough into which it was absorbed in 1894
Manchester (metropolitan borough), Greater Manchester, Englandmetropolitan borough covering the area since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Moston has been since 1974 a district of Greater Manchester, England, approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Manchester city centre. Before 1974 it was situated in the county of Lancashire.

Moston is a predominantly residential area, with a population of 14,518 at the 2011 UK census and an area of approximately 1,300 acres (5.3 km2). It is located above the midpoint of the Greater Manchester Urban Area and is bordered on the north by Oldham, on the northwest by Blackley, on the southwest by Harpurhey, to the east by Failsworth and by Newton Heath to the south.

The name Moston may derive from the Old English words "moss" and "ton", where "moss" usually referred to a place that was mossy, marshy or peat bog, and "ton" signified a town or settlement. The area of White Moss still retains these characteristics.

History

Historical records of Moston date back as far as 1301. The earliest historical archives are of a charter from the Lord of the Manor of Manchester, Thomas Grelle.

Although in 1320 Moston was called a hamlet of Manchester, in some deeds is it spoken of as lying within the township and parish of Ashton under Lyne. That the lords of Ashton had in early times rights in Moston also is shown by a fine of 1195, from which it appears that on a division Robert son of Bernard had Moston.

By the 14th century, Moston consisted of untamed countryside and agricultural settlements. In the 16th century the area saw the introduction of the linen treatment industry, with the washing and bleaching of the fabric boosting the economy throughout the area. Moston went on to become an integral part of the northern sector of "Cottonopolis" (a nickname for Manchester) during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Image:Manchester ancient parish revision.png

The Moston Mill Print Works, which was on the junction of Williams Road and St Mary's Road, closed in 1848. Spring Valley Dye Works was sited in the area to the west to what is currently known as Lancaster Club. Extracting sand and clay from the local pits was another important industry alongside the brick works in Newton Heath. The area around Belgrave Road is known to local residents as the "White Stuff" or the "White Hills", in reference to the brickworks' waste that formed steep and unstable hills alongside the brook. These hills were reprofiled during landscaping works carried out in the early 1980s.

Governance

Prior to 1866 Moston was a township in the ancient parish of Manchester. It was a civil parish between 1866 and 1896 when it was joined with other Manchester northern suburbs to form the short-lived civil parish of North Manchester. North Manchester (not included in the WeRelate database) was abolished in 1916 when all the suburbs within it were absorbed into the County Borough of Manchester.

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 Moston from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Moston, 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.