Place:Newton (near Manchester), Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Newton Heath has been since 1974 an area of Greater Manchester, England, 2.8 miles (4.5 km) northeast of Manchester city centre and with a 21st century population of just under 10,000. (Wikipedia provides an undated estimate of 9,883.) Before 1974 Newton Heath was part of Lancashire. Up until the mid 18th century it was a farming area, but adopted the factory system following the Industrial Revolution. The principal industry in the area was engineering, although many were employed in the mining and textiles industries in the thriving areas of Clayton Vale and Bradford. Newton Heath takes its name from Old English and means the "new town on the heath". The heath in question formerly stretched from Miles Platting to Failsworth, and is bounded by brooks and rivers on all four sides — the River Medlock, Moston Brook, Newton Brook and Shooters Brook. [edit] History French Huguenots settled in the area in the 16th century to avoid continental persecution, and brought with them the skills of cotton and linen weaving and bleaching.. The arrival of textile mills saw Newton Heath's cottage industry change forever into a fully mechanised mass production system – in 1825 Newton Silk Mill (which exists to this day) was built and the Monsall Silk Dye Works followed soon afterwards.

The Rochdale Canal made movement of raw materials and finished products a practical reality. Later came other industries, including a soap works, Elijah Dixon's match manufacturing factory, and rope works as well as engineering and glass making works. Many small back-to-back low cost houses were built to house the new migrant work force. Thus was Newton changed irrevocably from a farming area into an industrial one.

The 18th century saw Oldham Road (the A62) turnpiked and a toll bar installed at Lambs Lane; this road still forms the main artery through the district. By the beginning of the 19th century the Rochdale Canal had been constructed and this brought industry to the district. During the 19th century the local population increased nearly 20 fold.

Over the next 150 years Newton Heath was home to a number of famous companies such as Mather & Platt, who established a vast engineering works producing pumps, electrical machinery and fire sprinkler systems. Heenan & Froude designed and manufactured the structural steelwork for Blackpool Tower. The Wilson's & Co brewery on Monsall Road was founded in 1834. The company merged with rival brewer Walker & Homfrays in 1949. The aircraft manufacturer Avro was also based in Newton Heath before relocating to sites further from central Manchester at Chadderton and Woodford.

Railways arrived in Newton Heath during the 1840s and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) laid two main lines across the district. Steam locomotive repair sheds were opened in 1877 at the Newton Heath Motive Power Depot (now Traction Maintenance Depot) of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. These grew to become a major local employer which, by the 1860s, had been expanded to a 40-acre (16 hectare) site with over 2,000 workers.

Frederick Attock, a Liverpudlian, was a superintendent engineer of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway who established a football (soccer) club for his employees in 1878. The team played on a pitch at North Road, and were initially outfitted in green and gold jerseys. By 1892, they had been admitted to the Football League. The club remained in the area until 1893, when it moved to new premises at Bank Street in nearby Clayton. The name was changed to Manchester United Football Club in 1902.

Local Communities

Newton Heath is an urban area and is surrounded by Monsall, Moston, Failsworth, Miles Platting, Bradford and Ancoats. An exclave known as Kirkmanshulme (3 miles to the east) was part of the district. Belle Vue stands on that land, but this area has been transferred to the suburb of Gorton. The district of Clayton also neighbours Newton Heath. The area between the two districts is called Clayton Vale; although it was a former centre of industry, the land has since become a rural wilderness. [NOTE: Places written in italics are not covered by WeRelate articles. They have been redirected to the parish in which they are or were located, in this case, usually Manchester.]

Governance

Prior to 1866 Newton Heath was a chapelry 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.

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).

"NEWTON, a suburb, a township, a chapelry, and a [registration] sub-district, in Manchester [registration] district, Lancashire. The suburb adjoins Manchester city on the E N E; lies within Manchester parliamentary borough, but not within the municipal borough; and is traversed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, W and E of Miles-Platting station. The township contains also the suburb of Culcheth, and the hamlet of Kirkmanshulme; is intersected by parts of two other townships, with the effect of isolating Kirkmanshulme 3 miles from the main body; is all in Manchester parish; and has a post-office under Manchester, and a station on the Manchester and Bury branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, both of the name of Newton-Heath. Acres: 1,585. Real property: £35,755. Population in 1851: 10,801; in 1861: 14,907. Houses: 3,029.

"The manor comes earlier into notice than most other places in the vicinity of Manchester; appears to have been held, for some time, by the Byrons of Clayton; and passed to the Collegiate church of Manchester. Culcheth Hall is now the only considerable antiquity; was the seat of the family of Culcheth, till they died out in the first half of the 17th century; passed to Sir John Byron of Royton, to John Whitworth, Esq., and to the family of Greaves; and is now so modernized and altered as to retain no more of the original structure than a wainscoted room. The township contains several large silk mills, several large chemical works, and some dye and bleach works; and has a local board of health, a police office, a public library and reading-room, a mechanics' institute, and a branch of the Manchester and Salford Savings' bank.

"The chapelry dates from ancient times; originally included, not only all Newton township, but also Droylsden, Failsworth, Bradford, Open-shaw, Gorton, and the two Ardwicks; was curtailed at various periods, particularly in 1814; was re-constituted, within less extensive limits than those of the township in 1854; and now bears the name of Newton-Heath. Population in 1861: 11,241. Houses: 2,281. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £300.* Patrons: the Dean and Chapter of Manchester. The present church is a substantial stone building, in the pointed style; has a magnificent stained-glass window; and contains 1,000 sittings. There are two Methodist chapels, a church school, and a British school.

"The [registration] sub-district comprises the townships of Newton and Bradford, and the extra-parochial tract of Beswick. Acres: 1,924. Population in 1851: 12,777; in 1861: 19,311. Houses: 3,907. The increase of population arose from street improvements, and from the erection of various kinds of works."

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 Newton (Manchester) from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911