Place:Turton, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Turton (#18 on map) was a township in the ancient and ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire. In 1866 it became a civil parish and from 1894 until 1974 it was an urban district in Lancashire, England. Cotton mills, printworks, bleachworks, an iron foundry, and a paper mill were important industries in Turton after the Industrial Revolution. [edit] Governance In 1837 Turton joined with other townships or civil parishes in the area to form the Bolton Poor Law Union and took joint responsibility for the administration and funding of the Poor Law in that area. There was a workhouse at Goose Cote Farm in Turton. In 1873 a local board of health was established for the Turton township area. Four years after becoming an urban district the civil parishes of Sharples or Belmont (#16), Bradshaw (#3), Harwood (#9), Longworth (12), Entwistle (#7), Edgworth (#6) and Quarlton (#14) were added to its area. Under the Local Government Act 1972, Turton Urban District was abolished in 1974 and was divided in two. The larger more rural area, North Turton, became a civil parish within the Borough of Blackburn (later Blackburn with Darwen). The smaller urban area, South Turton, became an unparished area within the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester, England.

Turton included the hamlets of Chapeltown, Round Barn, Turton Bottoms and Whittlestone Head as well as Egerton and Walmsley described below. (All redirected here.)

Egerton

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

Egerton is now a village in the unparished area of South Turton, in the northern part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester, England. It is situated three miles north of the centre of Bolton and 12 miles north west of Manchester city centre within the West Pennine Moors.

Egerton was originally part of the township of Turton in the ancient parish of Bolton le Moors. The southern part of Egerton was a small, remote, farming community known as Walmsley. Wikipedia assumes the name "Egerton" is derived from a local farm, but it was also the name of a wealthy family with land holdings stretching as far west as Salford. The village developed in the 1830s when John and Edmund Ashworth set up cotton mills.

The village is now a commuter suburb for Bolton, Blackburn and Manchester. Egerton is located a short distance from Bromley Cross and Tonge.

Egerton includes a conservation area containing a wide variety of buildings dating from the early 19th century to the present day. It contains two Grade II listed buildings along the Blackburn Road as well as Egerton Park, the grounds of Egerton House and Christ Church, Walmsley.

Walmsley

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).

"WALMSLEY, a chapelry in Bolton-le-Moors parish, Lancashire; near Bromley-Cross [railway] station, 3 miles N of Bolton. It was constituted in 1844; and its Post town is Bolton. Population in 1861: 3,415. Houses: 641. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £145. Patron: the Vicar of Bolton. The church was built in 1844. There are chapels for Wesleyans and Unitarians, and a slightly endowed school."

Churches

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

The original township of Turton had two Anglican chapels of ease within its boundaries.

The first chapel of ease at Chapeltown was built in 1111 and dedicated to St. Bartholomew, a derivative of St Botolph, but was rededicated in the early 18th century to St Anne. This building, which was known as the Chapel of Turton, was rebuilt in 1630 by Humphrey Chetham and again in 1779. The present Parish Church of St Anne was built between 1840 and 1841, the architect was probably John Palmer. The ecclesiastical parish was formed in 1837.

The second chapel of ease was at Walmsley, which was the old village name for Egerton. It is not known when Walmsley Chapel was built, but the Diocesan Church Calendar stated that it existed in the year 1500 and the first documentary evidence appears to be in the "Inventories of Church Goods 1552". The chapel was rebuilt in 1771 and demolished in 1839. The present Christ Church, Walmsley, Egerton, was consecrated in 1840.

A mission church at Toppings opened in 1897, and services were held in the school at Eagley Bridge. The Wesleyan Methodists had chapels at Turton, Egerton, and Toppings and there were Congregational chapels at Turton and Egerton where the old Nonconformist chapel of 1713 became Unitarian. The Roman Catholic church of St. Aldhelm at Turton was opened in 1903.

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