Place:Hulme, Lancashire, England

NameHulme
Alt namesCornbrooksource: from redirect
TypeTownship
Coordinates53.4636°N 2.25°W
Located inLancashire, England     ( - 1974)
See alsoSalford Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Manchester, Lancashire, Englandancient parish in which it was located; municipal borough into which it was absorbed in 1894
Manchester (metropolitan borough), Greater Manchester, Englandmetropolitan borough covering the area since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Hulme is an inner city area and electoral ward of Greater Manchester, England. It is located immediately south of Manchester city centre, beyond the River Medlock, and is an area with significant industrial heritage. The part of Hulme nearest to Old Trafford in Trafford Metropolitan Borough is known as Cornbrook from the Corn Brook, a tributary of the River Irwell. The Bridgewater Canal passes through Hulme.

Hulme emerged in the Middle Ages as a township and chapelry, in the ecclesiastical parish of Manchester in the Salford Hundred in the historic county of Lancashire (in existence until 1974).

Under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 Hulme was in Chorlton Poor Law Union from its establishment in 1837 until 1915 and in Manchester Poor Law Union from 1915 until 1930. From 1824 to 1845 commissioners had powers for the improvement of the area of the township, and it became part of the Municipal Borough of Manchester in 1838.

Hulme was a civil parish between 1866 and 1896 when it 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.

In 1801 the population of Hulme was only 1,677 but it was the largest of the townships surrounding Manchester. By 1831 it had increased to 9,624 and then there was a greater increase to 26,982 by 1841 and roughly doubling again by 1851. The peak number was reached in 1871 when it was 74,731 and the next 30 years saw some decline to 66,916 in 1901. In the 2011 UK census, Hulme's population was measured at 16,907.

Image:Manchester ancient parish.png

History

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Hulme derives its name from the Old Norse holmr, holmi meaning small islands or land surrounded by streams, fen or marsh. The area is surrounded by water on three sides by the rivers Irwell, Medlock and the Corn Brook.

Wikipedia provides several quotes describing transactions valuing property in Hulme in the 12th to 14th centuries.

Hulme was evidenced as a separate community south of the River Medlock from Manchester in 15th century map prints. Christopher Saxton included Holme in his map of Lancashire of 1577 on the south banks of the Medlock and the Irwell where they joined. Trafford was placed on the south bank of the Irwell to the southwest, Ordsall across the Irwell to the northwest, and Manchester across the Medlock to the north. Hulme Hall was close to the River Irwell on a site near where St George's Church was later built. Until the 18th century the area remained agricultural, and pictures from the time show an idyllic scene of crops, sunshine and country life. The area remained entirely rural until the Bridgewater Canal was cut and the Industrial Revolution swept economic change through the neighbouring district of Castlefield where the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal terminated, and containerised transportation of coal and goods rose as an industry to support the growing textile industries of Manchester. It was this supply of cheap coal from the Duke's mines at Worsley that allowed the textile industry of Manchester to grow.

The Industrial Revolution brought development to the area, and jobs to the poor, carrying coal from the 'starvationers' (very narrow canal boats), to be carted off along Deansgate.

Many cotton mills and a railway link to Hulme soon followed, and thousands of people came to work in the rapidly expanding mills in the city. The number of people living in Hulme multiplied 50-fold during the first half of the 19th century. Housing had to be built rapidly, and space was limited, which resulted in low-quality housing interspersed with the myriad smoking chimneys of the mills and the railway. Added to the lack of sanitation and rampant spread of disease, this gave an extremely low quality of life for residents. Reports of the time suggest that at times the air quality became so poor that poisonous fumes and smoke literally "blocked out the sun" for long periods. Large numbers of Irish immigrants settled in Hulme, and in various other districts of Manchester.

In 1913 it was said "It is probable that in no northern city is the divergence between classes so marked as it is becoming in Manchester. Among the 80,000 inhabitants, for example, of Hulme, the poorest and most neglected district of the city, is to be found only a tiny minority of persons of much education and refinement, these being with rare exceptions doctors, or ministers of the various religious denominations, and their wives"

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Hulme. The above is a brief condensation of a long article on the growth of Hulme through several centuries.

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 Hulme from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Hulme. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.