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Prestwich cum Oldham (also known as Prestwich with Oldham) was an ancient parish or "ecclesiastical parish" of the hundred of Salford, within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire, England. With the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Prestwich as its centre, this parish encompassed a total of ten townships, and within them, several smaller chapelries.
Prestwich cum Oldham was divided into two non-contiguous sections: the townships of Great Heaton, Little Heaton, Pilkington, and Prestwich on the west; Alkrington, Tonge, Chadderton, Crompton, Oldham and Royton on the east. The parish of Middleton (Manchester) divided these two portions of Prestwich cum Oldham from north to south. The parish covered 21,625 acres (87.51 km2) and was noted in 1851 to have had a population of 94,470, and again in 1861, to have had 117,961.
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History
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
The parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham has "no united history", and instead was a loose affiliation of rural townships between the South Pennines and West Pennine Moors that had one early-medieval church building between them. Prestwich-cum-Oldham traces its existence to the colony of priests whose presence gave Prestwich its name, as well as tithes, levies and terms of land-tenure related to the ancient Royal Manor of Tottington, a unit used for governance in the manorial system that spanned most of the territory.
Stretching for 13 miles (21 km) from east to west from the High Middle Ages onwards, Prestwich-cum-Oldham was probably larger in extent in earlier times; documents suggest an ecclesiastical connection with Radcliffe and Middleton. Manorialism in the parish was comparatively weak when compared with the national scene; ruling families were either non-resident or of "only local importance". An exception was the Pilkingtons, from the western portion of the parish, who ranked "among the great families of the county". Their military allegiance to Richard III and the House of York at the end of the Wars of the Roses, though, brought about their overthrow in the late-15th century.
The parish remained comparatively rural until the Industrial Revolution; some townships, such as Royton, had primitive domestic manufactories and traded goods at the markets in Rochdale and Manchester. The introduction of the factory system to Oldham, Chadderton, Crompton and Royton led to the demise of arable land via rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. This gave rise to the eastern portion as the dominant partner of the parish, despite it being under the authority of the church at Prestwich.
Objections to Prestwich's dominance of the parish existed from an early time; there had been a chapel of ease at Crompton since at least the early 16th century but, due to ecclesiastical arrangements in Prestwich with Oldham, the inhabitants were obliged to contribute money towards Oldham Church, which in turn had obligation to the mother Church of St Mary the Virgin at Prestwich. On several occasions during the 15th and 16th centuries, the Archdeacon of the Chester had to intervene because Crompton's inhabitants refused to contribute monies towards holy bread and candles used at Prestwich.
Many of Prestwich with Oldham's townships had no medieval church of their own. For baptisms, marriages and burials, the people had to travel to St Mary's, Prestwich, or else to churches that lay outside the parish boundaries, such as St Leonard's in Middleton. Oldham became a municipal borough by 1850, but remained nominally a chapelry of Prestwich into the 20th century.
Constituent areas
Prestwich with Oldham comprised 10 townships during the greater part of its history. These were not static, and changed according to the construction of churches and chapels and increases in population. Similarly, Prestwich with Oldham was later split into two separate parishes of Prestwich and Oldham.
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 ancient parish of Prestwich with Oldham from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911. This is followed by chapters on each of the ten townships within the ancient parish. A map of the ancient parish from this chapter is reproduced at the top of this page.
- The co-ordinates given above are those of Prestwich because it was the location of the original church, despite being in the southwest of the parish. The co-ordinates for Oldham, on the far east, are somewhat different.
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