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- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
Morecambe is a coastal town in northern Lancashire, England located on the Irish Sea. It formed part of the municipal borough of Morecambe and Heysham from 1928 until 1974. In the nationwise reorganization of local government of 1974, municipal boroughs were abolished. and Morecambe and Heysham became part of the larger non-metropolitan borough named the City of Lancaster. The new borough also included the former county borough of Lancaster and a surrounding more rural area. The population of the area formerly called Morecambe and Heysham was 60,768 according to the UK census of 2011. Morecambe represents about 75% of the that figure.
History
In 1846, the Morecambe Harbour and Railway Company was formed to build a harbour on Morecambe Bay, close to the fishing village of Poulton-le-Sands, and a connecting railway. By 1850, the railway linked to Skipton, Keighley and Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and a settlement began to grow around the harbour and railway, to service the port and as a seaside resort.
Morecambe was a thriving seaside resort in the mid-20th century. While the resort of Blackpool attracted holiday-makers predominantly from the Lancashire mill towns, Morecambe had more visitors from Yorkshire (due to its railway connection) and Scotland.
Morecambe suffered from decline for a number of years after a series of incidents that affected its tourism and local economy. Two piers were lost: West End Pier was partly washed away in a storm in November 1977 and the remnants demolished 1978 while Central Pier, though struck by fire in 1933, survived until 1992.
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Poulton-le-Sands, Bare and Torrisholme
In the early 1800s the area that is now Morecambe was a fishing village named Poulton le Sands which had two hamlets named Bare and Torrisholme. Originally the township (which was in the ancient parish of Lancaster) was named after the three hamlets, Poulton-le-Sands, Bare and Torrisholme, but the settlement started to be referred to as "Morecambe", possibly after the harbour and railway. In 1889 the new name was officially adopted. These three early names have been redirected here.
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).
- "POULTON-LE-SANDS, a sea-port village, a township, and a chapelry, in Lancaster parish, Lancashire. The village is conjoint with Morecambe village; stands on a bight of Morecambe bay, at the terminus of a railway from Lancaster, 3¼ miles W N W of Lancaster; is a sub-port to Lancaster, and a sea-bathing place; shares in the facilities of Morecambe post-office and railway station; and has, conjointly with that village, gas-works, water-works, two good hotels, many excellent lodging-houses, good sea-bathing appliances, a fine promenade, and a four-gun battery. The township contains also the villages of Bare and Torrisholme. Acres: 1,641. Real property, £7,951. Population in 1851: 1,301; in 1861; 2,236; Houses, 433. The chapelry is nearly conterminate with the township, and was constituted in 1860. Population in 1861: 2,228. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £180. Patron, the Vicar of Lancaster. The church is a neat building, with a tower. There are an Independent chapel, with a good spire; a Wesleyan chapel, erected in 1855; a Primitive Methodist chapel; and an endowed school, with £31 a year.
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
Morecambe Bay has some of the most varied fishing in all of Britain, and is perhaps most famous for Morecambe Bay Potted Shrimps. The bay is notorious for its quicksand and fast moving tides. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom, covering a total area of 310 km2 (120 sq mi). In 1974 the second largest gas field in the UK was discovered 25 miles (40 km) west of Blackpool, with original reserves of over 7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) (200 billion cubic metres). At its peak 15% of Britain's gas supply came from the Bay.
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 Poulton, Bare and Torrisholme from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914
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