Place:Walton le Dale, Lancashire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia Walton le Dale is a civil parish since 1974 in the Borough of South Ribble, in Lancashire, England. It lies on the south bank of the River Ribble, directly south of the city of Preston. It includes the large village of Bamber Bridge. Higher Walton is another village in the parish which is been redirected here. In the 19th century and before, Walton le Dale was a township and chapelry in the ancient parish of Blackburn and a part of the hundred of Blackburnshire. It became part of the Preston Poor Law Union, formed in 1837, which took responsibility for the administration and funding of the Poor Law and built a workhouse in that area. It was also a sub-district of the Preston Registration District. In 1894 it was made into an urban district with four wards including one for Bamber Bridge. The urban district became part of the Borough of South Ribble district municipality in 1974. During the Industrial Revolution there were four cotton mills, including Flats Mills belonging to William Calvert which employed 400 workers and James Livesey and Son's Moon Mill employing 130 workers. There was also a cotton printing business. In 1800 Robert Whittaker established an iron foundry.

Bamber Bridge

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Bamber Bridge is a large village 3 miles (5 km) southeast of the centre of Preston, since 1974 in the borough of South Ribble.

Bamber Bridge was part of the Walton le Dale Urban District between 1894 and 1974. Prior to 1894 it was part of the township of Walton le Dale in the ancient parish of Blackburn. It is now the most densely populated part of the original urban district with a population of 13,945 at the 2011 UK Census.

The first example of calico printing anywhere in Lancashire took place in Bamber Bridge in 1764. For the next two centuries the town was very involved in producing mostly cotton textiles.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Bamber Bridge.

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 Walton le Dale from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911