Place:Anderton, Lancashire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Anderton is a civil parish which since 1974 has been located in the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. Anderton is now a suburb of Adlington, northwest of Bolton. Grimeford is a hamlet within the parish. The parish has a population of 1,206. Prior to 1974 Anderton was a civil parish in Chorley Rural District, and before 1894 it was a township in Chorley Registration District and Poor Law Union the in Leyland Hundred of Lancashire. [edit] History the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia [edit] Anderton Manor The Penwortham fee, a vast barony, included Anderton and was granted to Robert Gresle, Baron of Manchester, in 1212. Over time the manor of Anderton became the shared property of families named Anderton and Cunliffe, being held in moieties.

The manor can be traced to 1281 belonging to the Andertons who also claimed a quarter of neighbouring Rivington. The manor remained with the Andertons for many centuries. Old Anderton Hall is mentioned as being property of Peter the son of Oliver Anderton who died in 1559, with various buildings, lands, a watermill and the half-ownership of another mill in Anderton and Healey. Anderton was held of Sir Thomas Gerard and William Anderton. William was the son and heir of Peter Anderton and held the property when a child. William Anderton made a settlement or mortgage of his estate in 1593. He appears among the freeholders in 1600 as a convicted recusant he suffered the sequestration of two-thirds of his estates in 1593 which still continued in force in 1607 and he is named again among the contributors to the subsidy in 1628. He died without issue in August 1634 holding the manor of Anderton. A water corn-mill is mentioned. His brother Peter, then seventy years of age, was his heir and had a son William.

Peter Anderton died about April 1640, and his son William had his estates confiscated and sold by Parliament in 1652. He was still living in 1664, when a pedigree was recorded. In the same year he made a settlement of the manor to Francis Anderton of Lostock, and four years later Francis purchased the estate from Peter Anderton and Roger his brother, the surviving sons of William. From this time the manor descended in the same way as Lostock — from Anderton to Blundell and Stoner.

The manor was sold by Charles Joseph Stoner in 1897 to Richard Bond, George T. Brown and Augustine Bond for £45,000. Two years later the hall and 237 acres (0.96 km2) of land were sold to the Liverpool Corporation for the protection of the Rivington water supply and the remainder was divided between the purchasers, the manorial rights being included in the share of Mr. Richard Bond. No manorial courts were held.

[These notes from Wikipedia are based on A description of the township of Anderton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911.]

Ladyhall

Ladyhall was within the Cunliffe portion of the manor. Around 1400 a moiety of the village of Anderton together with Cunliffe in Billington and Wilpshire and other lands came into the possession of Adam de Lever of Great Lever in right of his wife Margaret, sister of Roger de Cunliffe. It was sold in 1629, together with Great Lever, to Bishop Bridgeman, whose son Sir Orlando in 1663 sold it to Francis Anderton of Lostock. The moieties were reunited to one owner. The house Ladyhall was demolished for the build of the Upper Rivington Reservoir.

Industry

There were many hand loom weavers in Anderton in the 19th century. British muslins were first manufactured at Anderton in 1764. In 1782 'the Balasore handkerchiefs, the jaconet and japanned muslins in the style of India' were produced for the first time in England.

In 1779, Samuel Oldknow purchased a number of spinning mules suitable for use in the manufacture of muslin and in 1781-82 Samuel entered into partnership with his brother Thomas during which time he resided at Roscoe Lowe Farm, Anderton, expanding into the manufacture of cotton goods using the Roscoe Lowe Barn as a workshop.

Samuel Oldknow's father is interred at Rivington Unitarian Chapel. Oldknow used the putting-out system of production in Anderton, whereby raw cotton was distributed to spinners and yarn to weavers who worked in their homes and workshops. The finished cloth was then returned to Oldknow's warehouse for checking and payment.

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