Place:Halliwell, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Halliwell is now predominantly a residential area of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. Halliwell lies about 2 miles (3.2 km) to the northwest of Bolton town centre and is bounded by Tonge Moor to the east and Heaton to the southwest. Smithills Hall to the north was within the ancient parish (of Bolton le Moors) while Halliwell was a township in the ancient parish of Deane. Halliwell lies on the lower south-facing slopes of the West Pennine Moors. Prior to 1974 Halliwell was a part of Lancashire. Traces of its ancient history still remain. Boundary Street marks the old boundary between Halliwell and the parish of Bolton le Moors, and a modern wall along Gladstone Street also marks this former boundary. The old building on Halliwell Road, much modernised, at the end of the wall, is the former toll house.

The ancient parish of Deane in which Halliwell was a township was absorbed into Bolton County Borough in 1898. It does not appear on this map showing the 1974 transition from Lancashire to Greater Manchester.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography). It provides a picture of 19th century Halliwell.

"HALLIWELL, a village, a township, two chapelries, and a [registration] sub-district, in Deane parish, and Bolton [registration] district, Lancashire. The village stands 2 miles WNW of Bolton town and [railway] station; is a pleasant place; and has a post office under Bolton. The township comprises 2,320 acres. Real property: £23,939; of which £320 are in mines, and £84 in quarries. Population in 1851: 959; in 1861: 953. Houses: 1,132. The increase of pop. arose from the erection of cotton mills. The property is much subdivided which obviously has rural and urban sections.

"The manor belonged formerly to the Radcliffes, the Bartons, the Fauconbergs, and the Byroms; and belongs now to the Ainsworths. Smithill's hall is the seat of Peter Ainsworth, Esq.; stands beside a lovely glen; and has, near the dining room, a natural discoloration resembling a human footprint, fabled to have been impressed, in 1555, by George Marsh, the martyr.

"The township is named from an ancient holy well; it has fine views; and it contains great bleach works and fourteen large cotton mills.

"The two chapelries are St. Paul and St. Peter; the former constituted in 1848, the latter in 1840, and both made ecclesiastically parochial in 1860. Population in 1861: 2,712 and 3,241. Houses: 527 and 605. Population of St. Peter in 1865: 350. The livings are vicarages in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £180 and £200. Patron of St. Paul: R. H. Ainsworth, Esq.; of St. Peter: Trustees. The church of St. Paul was built in 1848; and that of St. Peter was built in 1838, rebuilt in 1844, is in the early English style, and has a tower. There are a donative chapel connected with Smithill's hall, three Wesleyan chapels, three working men's institutes, national schools, and a structure called the Deane Mill school, built at a cost of upwards of £[blank],000, and including free school, lecture room, and library.

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