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- source: Family History Library Catalog
- source: Family History Library Catalog
NOTE: Rusholme includes the localities of Longsight, Platt Fields and Birch. They have been redirected here.
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Rusholme has been, since 1974, is an area of Greater Manchester, England, about two miles south of the city centre of Place:Manchester, Lancashire, England. The population of Rusholme ward at the 2011 census was 13,643. Rusholme is bounded on the north by the former Manchester township of Chorlton upon Medlock, the Manchester neighbourhood of Victoria Park and the neighbourhood of Longsight to the east, Fallowfield in Withington to the south and Moss Side to the west. It has a large student population, with several student halls and many students renting terraced houses, and suburban houses towards the Victoria Park area.
History
The name Rusholme first appears in the mid-13th century, when "Russum" is mentioned. A house is known to have existed at Platt [Fields] at that time, which was replaced by a larger one of black-and-white construction. This remained the home of the Platts until the present classical building replaced it in the mid-18th century. An early record of the Platt estate mentions the Nico Ditch, an 8th or 9th-century Anglo-Saxon linear earthwork running east–west through the area and probably marking an administrative boundary. Another black-and-white hall at Birch was probably built in the 16th century.
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The economy of the area was dependent on agriculture until the 18th century; however during the 17th and 18th centuries there was a growth of cottage industries such as spinning, weaving and brickmaking.
Over the Victorian era the boundary of Rusholme was gradually formallized and it became a township of the ancient parish of Manchester. It had its own government responsible for public health, roads, policing, poor relief, and other local government tasks. Low-cost terraced housing built between 1880 and 1930 dominates the landscape, along with a sprawling council housing estate from the interwar period. Richard Cobden (1804-1865), William Royle (author of a history of the township), and Thomas Lowe (1815–1892) were long-time residents. Lowe began working as a baker and became a flour dealer, later a nurseryman and finally the proprietor of a dairy.
Rusholme 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.
Longsight and Birch
Longsight (redirected here) was a neighbourhood within Rusholme's official boundaries as a parish which became a ward of the County Borough of Manchester in the early 20th century and remains as such today. It had a population of 15,429 at the UK census of 2011. Birch was another neighbourhood within Rusholme, much more important in the 19th century than it is today.
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 Rusholme from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
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