Template:Wp-Blackburn-History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Toponymy

The origins of the name has been suggested that it may be a combination of the River Blakewater, and an Old English word "burn", meaning stream. Local author William Abram cited the ancient name as Blake Burne in his 1877 book, Parish of Blackburn, County of Lancaster: A History of Blackburn, Town and Parish. Abram also confirms that the region, later known as the Blackburn Hundred, was known as Blakeburneshyre. Blackburn was recorded in the Domesday Book as Blacheborne in 1086. By the time of John Speed's map of 1610, the spelling of the town is Blackburn, while the region was Blackburne. There is anecdotal speculation that the name of the town may simply mean "black burn", or "black stream".

Prehistory

There is little evidence of prehistoric settlement in the Blakewater valley, in which Blackburn developed. Evidence of activity in the form of two urn burials has been discovered from the Bronze Age in the hills around Blackburn. In 1879, a cinerary urn was discovered at a tumulus at Revidge, north of the town; another was excavated in 1996 at Pleasington Cemetery, west of the town, by gravedigger Grant Higson. The presence of a sacred spring—perhaps in use during the Iron Age—provides evidence of prehistoric activity in the town centre, at All Hallows Spring on Railway Road.

Roman era

Blackburn is located where a Roman military road crossed the river Blakewater. The road linked Bremetennacum Veteranorum (Ribchester) and Mamucium (a major Roman fort that occupied Castlefield in Manchester). The route of the road passed east of Blackburn Cathedral and probably crossed the river in the Salford neighbourhood just east of the modern town centre. It is not clear whether the road predated the settlement.^[1]

George C. Miller in his Blackburn: The Evolution of a Cotton Town says:

The ancient military way from Mamucium (Manchester) to (Bremetennacum) (Ribchester), passing over Blacksnape, plunges on its unswerving course through Blackamoor, over the scarp at Whinney Heights, to pass across the Blakewater in the vicinity of Salford. This fact alone presents a reasonable argument for the existence of a British oppidum or walled village on the site, it being customary for such primitive communities to cluster in the vicinity of a ford or bridge.

According to William Abram (1877):

The Parish of Blackburn contains many interesting vestiges. Three of the four principal roads constructed by the Romans in Lancashire traversed some portion of the Parish : —I. The lower road from the south to Carlisle, intersected the township of Walton-in-le-Dale. 2. The road from Manchester to Overborough crossed the Parish at its broadest part. 3. The road from the sea to the interior, which formed the conmiunication between the "Sistuntian Port" (on the Wyre) and Ribchester, Ilkley-in-Wharfedale, Aldborough andYork, enters Blackburn Parish at Ribchester, by a ford over the Ribble. The late Rev. E. Sibson, in a paper on the Roman Roads of the Wigan district, speaks of a road of this kind which branched off eastward from Blackrod, "Street-fold and Water-street, near Rivington, and by White Hough, in Tockholes, to the small Roman station at Blackburn, near the new road to Preston."

Roman temple spring at All Hallows

All Hallows Spring was excavated by Antiquarians in 1654 and found to contain an inscribed stone commemorating the dedication of a temple to Serapis by Claudius Hieronymus, legate of Legio VI Victrix.^[2]

Middle Ages

Christianity is believed to have come to Blackburn by the end of the 6th century, in either 596 (as there is a record of a "church of Blagbourne" in that year) or 598 AD. The town was important during the Anglo-Saxon era when the Blackburnshire Hundred came into existence as a territorial division of the kingdom of Northumbria.^[3]

The name of the town appears in the Domesday Book as Blachebourne, a royal manor during the days of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror. Archaeological evidence from the demolition of the medieval parish church on the site of the cathedral in 1820 suggests that a church was built during the late 11th or early 12th century.^[3] A market cross was also erected nearby in 1101. The manor came into the possession of Henry de Blackburn, who divided it between his two sons. Later, one half was granted to the monks of Stanlow Abbey and this moiety was subsequently granted to the monks of Whalley Abbey. During the 12th century, the town's importance declined as Clitheroe became the regional centre.^[3] In addition to a settlement in the town centre area, there were several other medieval domiciles nearby.

Industrial Revolution and textiles

Textile manufacturing in Blackburn dates from the mid-13th century, when wool produced locally by farmers was woven in their homes. Flemish weavers who settled in the area in the 14th century developed the industry. By 1650 the town was known for the manufacture of blue and white "Blackburn checks", and "Blackburn greys" became famous not long afterwards.^[4] By the first half of the 18th century textile manufacture had become Blackburn's main industry. From the mid-18th to the early 20th century Blackburn evolved from a small market town into "the weaving capital of the world", and its population increased from less than 5,000 to over 130,000.

John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles provides a profile of Blackburn in 1887:

Blackburn. parl. and mun. bor., parish and township, NE. Lancashire, E. of Preston and NW. of London by rail – par., 48,281 ac., pop. 161,617; township, 3681 ac., pop. 91,958; bor., 6974 ac., pop. 104,014; 4 Banks, 2 newspapers. Market-days, Wednesday and Saturday. It is one of the chief seats of cotton manufacture, besides producing calico, muslin, &c., there being over 140 mills at work. There are also factories for making cotton machinery and steam-engines. Blackburn has been associated with many improvements in the manufacture of cotton, among which was the invention (1767) of the "spinning jenny" which was invented in nearby Oswaldtwistle by James Hargreaves, who died in 1770. There are several fine churches and public buildings. A Corporation Park (50 ac. in area) is on the outskirts of the town. Several lines of railway converge here, and pass through one principal station belonging to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Ry. Co. B. returns 2 members to Parliament.

From around 1750, cotton textile manufacturing expanded rapidly. Supplied with cotton by merchants, and paid by the piece, cottagers spun cotton into thread and wove it into cloth. The merchants arranged for cloth to be bleached and dyed.

After 1775, spinning mills were built in the town. Early mills were warehouse conversions; the first purpose-built spinning mill was constructed in 1797 and by 1824 there were 24. The number of spindles reached 2.5 million  by 1870 and spinning mills were constructed up to that time – 24 since 1850. Spinning declined between 1870 and 1900 as the sector transferred to south Lancashire.

In 18th-century Blackburn, weaving was primarily undertaken by handloom weavers working from their own cottages. However, as powerlooms were introduced into the mills after 1825, the percentage of handloom weavers began to decline and this occurred more rapidly in areas closer to the town. Handloom weavers continued to make up a sizable portion of the workforce in outlying rural areas. The last handloom shop in Blackburn closed in 1894.

1800s

In 1807, the Daniel Thwaites & Co brewery was established; the company is still in business today and is now based at Sykes Holt in Mellor.

Improvements to the power loom in the early 1840s, and the construction of a railway line in 1846, led to greater investment in power looms in Blackburn in the second half of that decade. The railway brought opportunities for expansion of the cotton trade, and in subsequent decades many new mills were constructed: between 1850 and 1870, 68 weaving-only and four combined weaving/spinning mills were built and nine weaving mills were built per decade between 1870 and 1890.

Improvements in power loom efficiency meant that weaving, the primary source of wealth and income for handloom weavers, began to transfer from the cottage industry to factories. This led to high rates of unemployment: according to figures published in March 1826, some 60 per cent of all handloom weavers in Blackburn and Rishton, Lower Darwen and Oswaldtwistle were unemployed. High unemployment led to the Lancashire weavers' riots. At 3:00 pm on 24 April 1826 a mob arrived in Blackburn after attacking power looms in Accrington. Proceeding to Bannister Eccles' Jubilee Factory on Jubilee Street, the mob destroyed 212 power looms in the space of 35 minutes. They then turned their attention to John Houghton and Sons' Park Place factory, located nearby, and destroyed another 25 looms, before seeking more machinery to attack. The crowd began to disperse at around 6:00 pm, troops having arrived at 3:30 pm to try to quell the rioting.

20th-century decline of the cotton industry

In 1890, Blackburn's Chamber of Commerce had recognised that the town was overly dependent on the cotton industry, warning of the dangers of "only having one string to their bow in Blackburn". The warning proved prophetic when, in 1904, a slump hit the cotton industry and other industries dependent on it, such as engineering, brewing and building. In 1908, another slump saw 43 mills stop production and a quarter of the town's looms lay idle.

During the First World War suspension of trade with India resulted in the expansion of colonial British India's cotton industry at the expense of Britain's, and the imposition of an 11 per cent import tariff by the colonial British Government led to a dramatic slump in trade in 1921, a situation which worsened in 1922 after the Indian Government raised the tariff to 14 per cent. This caused the number of stopped mills to increase to 47, with 43,000 looms lying idle. Two years into the slump, Foundry and Limbrick Mills became the first to close permanently.^[5]

Not long afterwards, in 1926, the General Strike saw production suspended at half the town's mills and 12,000 unemployed.^[5]

In 1927, Matthew Brown & Co. relocated to the town's Lion Brewery, on Coniston Road, following their acquisition of local brewer Nuttall & Co, later the subject of a hostile takeover by Scottish & Newcastle Breweries in 1987, ceasing brewing in 1991.

In 1928, there was another slump in textile production, and another strike in 1929 after employers requested a 12% wage cut; 40,000 cotton workers struck for a week and eight mills closed, making 28 closures in six years.^[5] By the start of 1930, 50 mills had shut and 21,000 people were unemployed.^[5] A financial crisis in 1931 led to 24,000 unemployed, with 1,000 houses and 166 shops lying empty in the town. A total of 26 mills closed down between 1930 and 1934.^[5]

1948 mass fingerprinting

Blackburn became the first town to undertake the mass fingerprinting of people following the murder of June Anne Devaney in May 1948. June Anne Devaney was a three-year-old patient at Queens Park Hospital when she was abducted from her cot and murdered in the hospital grounds on 15 May 1948. Fingerprints on a bottle underneath her cot led the police to fingerprint every male over the age of 16 who was present in Blackburn on 14 and 15 May 1948. After taking over 46,500 sets of fingerprints, a match was made with Peter Griffiths, a 22-year-old ex-serviceman. Griffiths admitted his guilt and his trial ascertained if he was sane or not. After deliberating for 23 minutes, the jury found him sane and he was hanged at Liverpool Prison on Friday 19 November 1948. After his conviction, the police destroyed all fingerprints they had taken.

1948–1999

Between 1948 and 1950 the textile industry experienced a short post-war boom, during which sales increased, industry training methods improved and automatic looms were introduced, which allowed a single weaver to control 20 to 25 looms. Loom sheds were rebuilt to house new, larger looms. Despite the post-war boom, the cotton industry continued to decline and only 25 per cent of the town's population were employed in textiles by 1951; this figure had stood at 60 per cent up to the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929. In 1952 the number of weavers fell from 10,890 to 9,020. By 1955 more cloth was imported from India than was exported^[6] and between 1955 and 1958 another 16 mills closed. In 1959, due partly to the re-organisation of the textile industry as a result of the Textiles Act, another 17 mills closed. By 1960 there were 30 mills operating in Blackburn.

Closures continued in the 1960s with The Parkside, Fountains, Malvern and Pioneer Mills shutting in 1964. In 1967 the Eclipse Mill at Feniscowles closed, unable to compete with imported cloth sold at nine pence cheaper per yard than the mill could produce. By the end of that year there were 26 mills operating. The 1970s saw further closures, and the number of textile workers in Blackburn reduced to 6,000 by January 1975, the year in which the Albion and Alston mills stopped production with the loss of 400 jobs.^[7] In 1976 there were 2,100 looms in operation in the town, compared with 79,405 in 1907.

21st century