Place:Altham, Lancashire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Altham (#1 on the map) has been, since 1974, a village and civil parish in the Borough of Hyndburn, in Lancashire, England. It is the only parish in the borough--the remainder is an unparished area. Before the Borough of Hyndburn was formed in 1974, the parish was in Burnley Rural District from 1894 until 1974. In the 19th century and before, Altham was a township in the ancient parish of Whalley, Lancashire. The village is 4.3 miles (6.9 km) west of Burnley, 2.9 miles (4.7 km) north of Accrington, and 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Clayton le Moors, and is on the A678 Blackburn to Burnley road. The River Calder passes to the north of the village, and forms part of the parish boundary. In the southwest corner of the parish is Altham West, a suburb of Accrington. The census of 2001 recorded a population for the parish of 897, increasing to 1,137 at the 2011 Census. However, the village's 2011 population was only 343. Coal mining was the major industry in Altham in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was opened in the 1810s, pits were located near the canal, and supplied coal to the industries of East Lancashire.

For code for numbered places, see the page for Burnley Rural District.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Altham from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"ALTHAM, a township-chapelry in Whalley parish, Lancashire; on the Henburn river, near the Leeds and Liverpool canal, 1 mile N of Huncoat [railway] station, and 5 W of Burnley. It includes the village of Sykeside; and its Post Town is Accrington. Acres: 1,406. Real property: £2,580. Population: 410. Houses: 75. The property is not much divided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £150. Patron: R. T. R. Walton, Esq. The church was almost entirely rebuilt in 1859."

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