Place:Little Bolton, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Until the early 19th century, Great Bolton (#8 on the map) and Little Bolton (#10) were two of the eighteen townships of the ancient or ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors. The two townships were separated by the River Croal with Little Bolton on the north bank and Great Bolton on the south. Little Bolton was a township of the civil and ancient and ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in the Salford hundred of Lancashire, England. Besides the main part of Little Bolton, it had three detached parts which were separated by areas of Lower Sharples and Higher Sharples. Despite its name, Little Bolton had a larger acreage than its southern neighbour Great Bolton, from which it was separated by the River Croal. [edit] Governance the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Under provisions of the Poor Relief Act 1662, townships replaced civil parishes as the main units of local administration in Lancashire. Little Bolton became one of the eighteen autonomous townships of the civil parish of Bolton le Moors. The township appointed overseers of the poor who administered poor relief to those in need and highway surveyors who maintained the roads, all of which was funded by levying a rate (or property tax) from the inhabitants of the township.

In 1792, the first of the Bolton Improvement Acts was passed by the Houses of Parliament which established the Little Bolton Police Commissioners (or Trustees) who took responsibility for improving the township. St George's Church, the township's first place of worship, was completed in 1796, and Little Bolton Town Hall was built in 1826. The Little Bolton Improvement Act of 1830 converted the Trustees into an elected Corporation.

Under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, the Municipal Borough of Bolton was established in 1838 as a local authority. This comprised most of Little Bolton, the whole of Great Bolton, and the Haulgh area of the township of Tonge with Haulgh. The northern detached parts of Little Bolton were included in the area of Astley Bridge Local Board of Health in 1864. In 1866, Little Bolton became a civil parish. Although part of the Municipal Borough of Bolton from 1838, Little Bolton was used for the censuses until the civil parish was abolished in 1895. For recording births, marriages, and deaths, Little Bolton continued as a sub-district of the Bolton Registration District until 1947.

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