Place:Whitefield, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Whitefield has been since 1974 a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. Its population in 2001 was, according to the UK census, 23,283. It lies on undulating ground above the Irwell Valley, along the south bank of the River Irwell, 3 miles (4.8 km) south-southeast of Bury, and 4.9 miles (7.9 km) to the north-northwest of the city of Manchester. Prestwich and the M60 motorway lie to the south. Until 1974 Whitefield was in Lancashire. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was a division of the township of Pilkington, itself a part of the ancient and ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich cum Oldham and Hundred of Salford. Pilkington and Whitefield have historic associations with the Earls of Derby. Farming was the main industry of this rural area, with locals supplementing their incomes by hand-loom woollen weaving sold through agents into the commercial markets. The urbanisation and development of Whitefield largely coincided with the Industrial Revolution. The name Whitefield is thought to derive from the medieval bleachfields used by Flemish settlers to whiten their woven fabrics, or else from the wheat crop once cultivated in the district. The construction of a major roads routed through the village facilitated Whitefield's expansion into a mill town during the mid-19th century. Whitefield was created a local government district in 1866, and was governed by a local board of health until 1894, when the area of the local board became an urban district.

The following quotation from the Victoria County History of Lancashire, vol 5 explains the relationship of Whitefield with the township of Pilkington.

"For a long time there were three recognized divisions, or hamlets, in the township—-Unsworth in the east, Whitefield in the centre, and Outwood in the west. Unsworth village lay in the centre of its division on the higher ground between two brooks running north to Whittle Brook and to the Roch. The hamlets of Hollins and Blackford Bridge are near the Roch. Whitefield, also centrally placed, has grown into a town, stretching along the high road from Besses o' th' Barn on the south to the Irwell. To the north-west is a suburb of Radcliffe, at the bridge over the Irwell. To the south of these, on the highest ground, is the hamlet of Stand, with Pilkington and Stand Halls. Outwood still has the park on the border of Prestwich and a number of wooded doughs. At the west end are Cinder Hill, part of Ringley—the other part being across the river, in Kearsley—and Prestolee.

"Pilkington has since 1894 ceased to exist as a township. Whitefield, the central portion, which obtained a local board in 1866, has been in part added to Radcliffe; a new township has been made on the south-west called Outwood, while Unsworth has given its name to a township on the other side, made up of the old Unsworth and Pilsworth, with the detached part of Heap which adjoined it. (fn. 8) The new townships are governed by parish councils."

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Whitefield, Greater Manchester.

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 township of Pilkington from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1907