Place:Ardwick, Lancashire, England

the text in this article is based on one in Wikipedia Since 1974 Ardwick has been located in Greater Manchester in northwest England, one mile east of the city centre of Manchester. Ardwick's population, according to the 2011 UK census, was 19,250. Prior to 1974 it was part of the county of Lancashire and within the county borough of Manchester. By the mid-nineteenth century Ardwick had grown from a village into a pleasant and wealthy suburb of Manchester, but fifty years later it had become heavily industrialised. When its industries later fell into decline then so did Ardwick itself, becoming one of the city's most deprived areas. Substantial development has taken place more recently in Ardwick and other areas of Manchester to reverse the decline, The village of Ardwick can be traced back to 1282, when it was known as Atherdwic and was located on the road between Manchester and Stockport. From mediaeval times it was a township in the ancient parish of Manchester within the Salford Hundred. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Ardwick was a small village just outside Manchester in open countryside. The principal residents were the Birch family, one of whom was a major general when Oliver Cromwell (briefly) instituted direct military rule.

One Samuel Birch was instrumental in providing a small chapel of ease, dedicated to St. Thomas, and consecrated in 1741. Until 1856 this was under the direction of the ecclesiastical authorities in central Manchester. The growth of population during the 19th century led to the building of four more Anglican places of worship within the township, as well as the establishment of other Protestant and Roman Catholic places of worship. (Wikipedia provides more information on each of the Anglican churches and parish registers exist for each.)

Civil Parish of Ardwick

Ardwick became a part of the Borough of Manchester when Manchester first received borough status in 1838. The formal boundary between Ardwick and Manchester has always been the River Medlock.

The civil parish of Ardwick was formed in 1866 and enlarged on 18 August 1882 by gaining a part of the civil parish of Chorlton upon Medlock. In 1896it was joined with other Manchester southern suburbs to form the short-lived civil parish and registration district of South Manchester. South Manchester (not included in the WeRelate database) was abolished in 1916 when all the suburbs within it were absorbed into the County Borough of Manchester.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Ardwick.

Research Tips

This settlement has been within the city limits of the City of Manchester from times before the establishment of Greater Manchester. Basic sources of genealogical facts will be found in those for Manchester itself. Check the sources listed in the Category named Manchester, Lancashire, England shown at the bottom of the page.

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