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- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
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Openshaw has been, since 1974, an area of Greater Manchester, England, about two miles east of Manchester city centre. Until 1974 it was located in Lancashire. Openshaw was incorporated into the city of Manchester in 1890. Its name derives from the Old English Opinschawe, which means an "open wood" or "coppice".
The Industrial Revolution saw Openshaw become an area of heavy industry.
Very large enterprises such as a government munitions factory (ordnance works) and associated railway yards closed after First World War, as did the railway yards. Openshaw's population is now a fraction of that a century ago. Companies which employed thousands of people, but of which nothing remains, include RHM, the breadmakers, on Ogden Lane, Ferguson, Pailin & Co. (later GEC Switchgear), the English Steel Corporation, B&S Massey and Crossley Brothers, and the Gorton Works of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, later the Great Central Railway followed by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).
Gorton Works exemplified the industries that sustained the economy of Openshaw and adjacent districts of Manchester during and after the Second Industrial Revolution (late 19th-early 20th century). It was established in 1848 to service locomotives and build carriages and wagons. The first locomotive was built in 1858 and by 1923, Gorton works had built more than 900. The last steam engine was built for British Railways in 1950. The works then produced electric locomotives until it closed in 1963.
Openshaw is, however, within the East Manchester Regeneration Scheme and new businesses are moving into the area.
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Prior to 1866 Openshaw 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 southern suburbs to form the short-lived civil parish and registration district of South Manchester. South 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).
- "OPENSHAW, a township and a chapelry in Manchester parish, Lancashire. The township lies on the Manchester and Stockport canal, and on the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire railway, 2½ miles E by S of Manchester; contains a large village of its own name; and has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Ashton-under-Lyne. Acres: 571. Real property: £2,866. Population in 1851: 3,759; in 1861: 8,623. Houses: 1,688. The increase of population arose from the establishment of ironworks and chemical works.
- "The manor belongs to G. Legh, Esq. There are a large cotton mill, weaving-sheds, extensive dye-works, a very extensive manufactory of railway carriages, and a depôt for repairs of locomotive engines.
- "The chapelry was constituted in 1840; was, till 1861 or later, conterminate with the township; and was subsequently curtailed, so as to have a population of only 2,777. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £300. Patrons: Trustees. The church was built in 1839, at a cost of £4,500; is in the early English style; consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with tower and spire; and contains 800 sittings. A Wesleyan chapel was built in 1864, at a cost of £2,600; is in the Anglo-Italian style; and contains 600 sittings. There are also chapels for New Connexion Methodists. United Free Methodists, and Roman Catholics; and schools, called the Cobden Memorial schools, were built in connexion with the United Free Methodist chapel in 1866, at a cost of about £800. There is likewise a mixed (i.e. both boys and girls) national school, with £25 a year from endowment."
Research Tips
This settlement has been within the city limits of the City of Manchester from times before the establishment of Greater Manchester. Basic sources of genealogical facts will be found in those for Manchester itself. Check the sources listed in the Category named Manchester, Lancashire, England shown at the bottom of the page.
- 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 Openshaw from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
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