Place:Lancashire, England

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

Since 1974 Lancashire has been a non-metropolitan county in the northwest of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the "county town", Lancashire County Council is based in more centrally in Preston. Lancashire is sometimes referred to by the abbreviation Lancs, and before postal codes were introduced, this was the description employed by the Royal Mail. The population of the ceremonial county is 1,449,300 (UK 2011 census). People from the county are known as Lancastrians.

The county was subject to a significant boundary reform in 1974, which removed Liverpool and Manchester with most of their surrounding conurbations from the original County of Lancashire to form the major parts of the new Metropolitan Counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. At the same time, the northern part of Lancashire, separated by Morecambe Bay, commonly referred to as the Lake District, the Furness Peninsula and Cartmel, was made part of the newly formed county of Cumbria.

Today the county borders Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and North and West Yorkshire. The Duchy of Lancaster exercises the right of the Crown in the area known as the County Palatine of Lancaster, which includes Lancashire as well as parts of Greater Manchester and Merseyside.

The history of Lancashire is considered to have begun in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book of 1086, some of its lands had been treated as part of Yorkshire. The land that lay inter Ripam et Mersam, "between the [rivers] Ribble and Mersey", formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Once its initial boundaries were established, Lancashire bordered the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Cheshire.

Lancashire emerged during the Industrial Revolution as a major commercial and industrial region. The county encompassed several hundred mill towns and collieries. By the 1830s, approximately 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire. Preston, Bury, Accrington, Blackburn, Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham, Chorley, Darwen, Nelson, Colne, Burnley and Wigan were major cotton mill towns during this time. Blackpool was a major centre for tourism for the inhabitants of Lancashire's mill towns, particularly during wakes week.

History

Early history

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

The county was established in 1182^[1], later than many other counties. During Roman times the area was part of the Brigantes tribal area in the military zone of Roman Britain. The towns of Manchester and Lancaster grew around Roman forts. In the centuries after the Roman withdrawal in 410AD the northern parts of the county probably formed part of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a successor entity to the Brigantes tribe. During the mid-8th century, the area was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, which did not become part of England until the 10th century.

The county was divided into the hundreds of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale, Salford and West Derby. Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North (the detached part north of the sands of Morecambe Bay including Furness and Cartmel), and Lonsdale South.

Modern history

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

Lancashire is now much smaller than the original historical county of the same name following two major reforms of local government in 1889 and 1974.

In 1889, the administrative county of Lancashire was created, covering the historic county except for the newly established county boroughs which were allowed to govern themselves independently of the county. These included

• Blackburn,
• Burnley,
• Barrow in Furness,
• Preston,
• Wigan,
• Liverpool and
• Manchester.

The area served by the Lord Lieutenant (termed now a ceremonial county) covered the entirety of the administrative county as well as the county boroughs, and was expanded whenever boroughs annexed areas in neighbouring counties such as Wythenshawe in Manchester south of the River Mersey and southern Warrington (which had historically been in Cheshire). It did not cover the western part of Todmorden, where the ancient border between Lancashire and Yorkshire was left to pass through the middle of the town.

During the 20th century, the county became increasingly urbanised, particularly the southern part. The number of county boroughs listed above was increased to include

• Warrington in 1900,
• Blackpool in 1904 and
• Southport in 1905.

Many of the county boroughs extended their boundaries. The borders around the Manchester area were particularly complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs (for instance, Lees urban district formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire.

By the UK census of 1971, the population of Lancashire and its county boroughs had reached 5,129,416, making it the most populous geographic county in the United Kingdom. The administrative county was also the most populous of its type outside London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961. On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the administrative county was abolished, as were the county boroughs. The urbanised southern part largely became two metropolitan counties: Merseyside and Greater Manchester which are no longer considered to be in Lancashire. The two metropolitan counties incorporated the county boroughs within their respective boundaries. The new county of Cumbria included the Furness exclave of Lancashire north of Morecambe Bay.

The new metropolitan counties were each separated into a number of "metropolitan boroughs" and "metropolitan areas" (the difference between a borough and an area depended on whether the area included only one county borough or several civil parishes before the reorganization). The northern part of what remained as Lancashire ceased to be made of urban districts and rural districts. These were formed into groups of "municipal districts", most of which had both rural and urban sections.

The borough of Merseyside included

• Metropolitan Borough of Liverpool,
• Metropolitan Ares of Knowsley,
• Metropolitan Borough of St. Helens and
• Sefton Metropolitan Borough.

In Greater Manchester the successor boroughs were

• Metropolitan Borough of Bury,
• Metropolitan Borough of Bolton,
• Metropolitan Borough of Manchester,
• Metropolitan Borough of Oldham (part),
• Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale,
• City of Salford,
• Tameside Metropolitan Borough (part),
• Trafford Metropolitan Borough (part) and
• Wigan Metropolitan Borough.

Warrington and Widnes, south of the new Merseyside/Greater Manchester border were added to the new non-metropolitan county of Cheshire. The urban districts of Barnoldswick and Earby, Bowland Rural District and the parishes of Bracewell and Brogden and Salterforth from Skipton Rural District in the West Riding of Yorkshire became part of the new Lancashire. One parish, Simonswood, was transferred from the borough of Knowsley in Merseyside to the district of West Lancashire in 1994. In 1998 Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen became independent unitary authorities, removing them from the non-metropolitan county but not from the ceremonial county.

The Wars of the Roses tradition continued with Lancaster using the red rose symbol and York the white. Pressure groups, including Friends of Real Lancashire and the Association of British Counties advocate the use of the historical boundaries of Lancashire for ceremonial and cultural purposes.

Research Tips

• In 1974 Lancashire was broken into four parts: Great Manchester, Merseyside (covering Liverpool and its environs), the section beyond Morecambe Bay known as the Lake District which became part of Cumbria, and the central part which remains as Lancashire.

• Lancashire Record Office. Address: Bow Lane, Preston PR1 2RE; Tel: 01772 533039; Email: record.office@lancashire.gov.uk
• Cumbria Archives or Barrow Archive and Local Studies Centre. Address: Ramsden Square, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria LA14 1LL; Tel: 01229 407377; Email: barrow.archives@cumbria.gov.uk
• Greater Manchester County Record Office located at Great Manchester Central Library, St. Peter's Square, City Centre, M2 5PD; Tel: (Library: 0161 234 1983; Archives & special collections: 0161 234 1979); Email (Library: libraries@manchester.gov.uk, Archives & special collections: archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk). This covers the ten metropolitan boroughs that have made up Greater Manchester since 1974 and the former county boroughs, urban and rural districts from which they were formed.
• Liverpool Record Office Address: William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EW; Tel: not provided; Email: RecOffice.central.library@Liverpool.gov.uk. This covers the five metropolitan boroughs that have made up Liverpool since 1974 and the former county boroughs, urban and rural districts from which they were formed.
• County Library Headquarters (for Lancashire), P O Box 61, County Hall, Preston, PR1 8RJ. Lancashire County Libraries have a list of addresses and telephone numbers of local libraries in the modern administrative county of Lancashire. Guide to Lancashire Local Studies Collections, published by Lancashire County Library, gives information about which libraries have local studies sections, the records they hold, and the name of the library holding the information for towns without their own local studies library. Presumably, Preston Harris Library (found in this list) is the central library for the county.
• John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester has a major collection on Methodists.

• GENUKI has a page on the entire county of Lancashire and pages for each of the ecclesiastical parishes in the county. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. The list is based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and there may have been a number of alterations to the parish setup since then. However, it is worthwhile information for the pre civil registration period. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Lancashire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72.

• Map of the Lancashire hundreds in 1832 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of Lancashire parishes in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time.
• Map of Lancashire parishes in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time

• The above three maps indicate the boundaries between parishes, and the wider boundaries between rural districts, urban districts, and municipal and county boroughs. Do inspect the Reference Box when using the second and third maps to understand the colour key and the different boundary types.
• GENUKI lists 19 family history and genealogical societies. There is no guarantee of the continuing existence of any of the societies and the individual websites may or may not be up to date.
• 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.
• Rootsweb mailing lists still have entries for the county, for Merseyside, and for individual towns and cities. The Lancashire Rootsweb page includes a list of webpages produced by family historians with connections in the county. Some of these pages may no longer exist.
• Deceased Online has nearly 5 million records for 60+ cemeteries and crematoria in Lancashire and Greater Manchester available on the website. Wyre Council's four cemeteries are located in Fleetwood, Poulton le Fylde and Preesall added Aug 2015. They provide information going back to 1840, digital scans (or computerised versions) of original burial registers, details of all grave occupants in each cemetery, maps indicating the section in each cemetery for all graves
• Victoria County History - Lancaster from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published in book form in the early years of the 20th century. The online Victoria County Histories for Lancashire appear to be complete with 7 volumes (starting at #2). The early volumes of this series (including Volume 1: Natural History to Feudal Baronage) are also online courtesy of the Open Library References to specific parishes will be added to individual place pages in WeRelate as time permits.