Place:Tonge (near Bolton), Lancashire, England

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NameTonge (near Bolton)
Alt namesTonge with Haulghsource: Wikipedia
Haulghsource: part of original township
Tongesource: part of original township
Tonge Foldsource: settlement in parish
Tonge Moorsource: settlement in parish
TypeParish
Coordinates53.581°N 2.405°W
Located inLancashire, England     ( - 1974)
See alsoSalford Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Bolton le Moors, Lancashire, Englandancient parish in which it was located
Bolton Rural, Lancashire, Englandrural district of which it was part 1894-1898
Bolton, Lancashire, Englandborough in which it was situated 1898-1974
Bolton (metropolitan borough), Greater Manchester, Englandmetropolitan borough in which it has been located since 1974
NOTE: There is also Tonge (near Middleton), now in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, Greater Manchester.


the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Tonge (#17 on map) is now an outlying area of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, England. The name is supposed to be derived from the Old English "tang" or "twang" meaning a fork in a river. Tonge comprises two areas, namely Tonge Fold and Tonge Moor. Tonge Fold sits upon the River Tonge. Haulgh, another settlement in the former parish, is situated to the south, closer to Bolton itself.

Prior to 1974 Tonge was located in the county of Lancashire. Until 1866 it was part of the township of Tonge with Haulgh in the ancient parish of Bolton le Moors. Betweeen 1866 and 1895 it was civil parish under the same name. In 1895 it was absorbed into Bolton county borough. Its time in Bolton Rural District was short-lived. By the end of the 19th century Tonge was home to a coal mine.

Image:Bolton le Moors colour.png

Haulgh

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).

"HAULGH, a township in Bolton-le-Moors parish, Lancashire; within Bolton borough, ¾ of a mile NE of Bolton. Acres, with Tonge: 1,030. Real property, with Tonge: £11,421; of which £800 are in mines, and £375 in railways. Population of [Haulgh] alone, in 1851: 1,360; in 1861: 2,018. Houses: 409. The increase of population arose from the erection of cotton mills."

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Tonge with Haulgh. The article outlines more of the history of the area.

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