Place:Prestwich, Lancashire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Prestwich is a town which, since 1974, has been within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies close to the River Irwell, 3.3 miles (5.3 km) north of Manchester city centre, 3.1 miles (5 km) north of Salford and 4.7 miles (7.6 km) south of Bury. Prior to 1974 it was a part of Lancashire. Prestwich's early history is marked by its status as the seat of the ancient parish of Prestwich cum Oldham, in the Hundred of Salfordshire (or Salford Hundred). The Church of St Mary the Virgin-—a Grade I listed building—-has lain at the centre of the community for centuries. The oldest part of Prestwich developed around Bury New Road and is known as "Prestwich Village". There is a large Jewish community at Rainsough in Prestwich and in Whitefield to the northwest, in the neighbouring Broughton Park in Salford, and in parts of Cheetham Hill. Crumpsall (close by but in Manchester) has the second-largest Jewish community in the United Kingdom.

History

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

The Prestwich manor emerged in the Middle Ages and in 1212 was assessed as four oxgangs of land held by Adam de Prestwich whose father, Robert held it in 1193. The lord of the manor held the advowson for the church. Another Adam de Prestwich settled the manors of Prestwich, Alkrington and Pendlebury on his son John in 1297, but remarried and in 1313 settled the same manors on Thomas de Prestwich, his son by second wife. Thomas de Prestwich had daughters, Margaret who became a nun at Seaton Priory in 1360, but left the convent to marry Robert de Holland, and Agnes who married John de Radcliffe but died childless in 1362. Thomas de Prestwich granted his manors to Richard de Radcliffe for life and after that the manor was held by Richard de Langley. In 1371 Robert de Holland claimed the manor as the right of his wife. Roger de Langley was a minor and ward of the Duke of Lancaster in 1372 when Robert de Holland and a troop of armed men took possession of the manor by force and retained it until 1389. The Langleys regained the manor after 1403.

After Sir Robert Langley's death in 1561 the manor passed to his daughter Margaret, who married John Reddish. Their granddaughter Sarah married Clement Coke and the manor descended in the Coke family, until 1777, when Thomas William Coke, Coke of Norfolk, a leader in the agricultural revolution sold the land in Prestwich to increase his Norfolk estates. The manor was acquired by Peter Drinkwater of Irwell House in 1794 and it descended to his son Thomas who died in 1861. Irwell House and Drinkwater Park was sold to Salford Corporation and Prestwich Council.

In the hearth tax of 1666 there were 97 hearths in the township, the rector's house was the largest with ten. In the 17th and 18th centuries local government was based on the parish structure. The lord of the manor administered land tenure and inheritance, but law and order was kept by parish constables assisted by the church wardens.

The settlement grew to serve the parish church making Church Lane the historic centre. In the late 18th century the area was mainly rural with scattered farms and small settlements grew at Great Heaton and Little Heaton. The population was estimated at 670. Rooden Lane which became part of Bury Old Road was a centre for hand loom weaving and at Simister and neighbouring Bowlee, silk weaving was established. During the 19th century another settlement grew around the junction of Fairfax Road and Bury New Road along with another village centre on Bury Old Road. The area between these centres remained rural, however, the arrival of the railway in 1881 encouraged affluent merchants from Manchester to build villas and move to the town. By 1912 the population had increased to 12,800, and from the 1930s onwards the remaining fields were developed. By 1961 the population reached 31,000 and Prestwich had become a suburb of Manchester.

Governance

Prestwich was the ecclesiastical centre of Prestwich cum Oldham, an ancient parish in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire. Because the church in Prestwich was the "parish church" it had the responsibilty of holding registers for baptisms, marriages and burials for the whole parish which extended as far as the township of Oldham, 13 miles to the east. When civil registration was introduced in 1837 Prestwich was part of the Manchester Registration District until 1874 when a Prestwich Registration District was established. The Prestwich Registration District lasted until 1924 when the town was transferred to the Manchester North Registration District. For more on this subject see this page in Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website. It was in Manchester Poor Law Union (PLU) from 1841 to 1850 and in the Prestwich PLU from 1850 to 1915 when it rejoined Manchester PLU until the abolition of poor law unions in 1930. In 1867 the Prestwich Local Board of Health was established which, as a result of the Local Government Act 1894, became Prestwich Urban District to which parts of Great and Little Heaton townships were added. In 1903 Heaton Park was transferred to the City of Manchester and in 1933 a section of the urban district west of the Irwell was added to Swinton and Pendlebury Urban District. Prestwich became a Municipal Borough in 1939. Under the Local Government Act 1972 it became an unparished area in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury in Greater Manchester, England, taking effect on 1 April 1974.

Research Tips

• 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 parish of Prestwich cum Oldham from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911. The map of the parish in this chapter is reproduced at the top of this page.
• A description of the township of Prestwich from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911