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Bolton, Lancashire
Bolton - known
as Bolton-le-Moors until the 19th century - is a borough located
in the hundred of Salford, in the deanery of Manchester. It is located
in a natural valley on the West Pennine Moors on the banks of the
River Croal 197 miles from London, 12miles south of Blackburn, 11
miles NW of Manchester and 6 miles WSW of Bury. The Borough
is made up of eight towns : Farnworth, Kearsley, Blackrod, Little
Lever, Westhoughton, Horwich, South Turton and Bolton.
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The earliest
evidence for any settlement in Bolton goes back to the Bronze
Age, with a Stone Circle in Egerton. More recent evidence
exists of a Saxon village. It was once "Bothl tun"
meaning a village - tun - with a special or important building
- bothl. It is unknown what the important building was.
Bolton
remained a small and insignificant village for centuries.
It was part of a large area owned by the Crown after the Norman
invasion in 1066. The spoils of war left it a largely barren
area, but William the Conqueror made one of his Baron - Roger
de Poictou - responsible for Liverpool and almost all of Lancaster
by granting him - in 1067 - 398 established Saxon manors,
and his
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Stone Circle,
Egerton |
estates included
the land between the River Ribble and River Mersey to the west of
Manchester. It is his family - the Montgomery's - who are mentioned
as the first owners of the the Manor of Bolton in 1067. The town was
obviously still very small as it is not even mentioned in the Domesday
Book of 1086. Roger de Poictou rebelled twice against William, and
after the second defection in 1102 the family was expelled and he
was deprived of all his estates. Those south of the river Ribble -
including Bolton - were subsequently granted to Ranulf de Briscasard,
3rd Earl of Chester and eventually passed by marriage to William de
Ferrers - the 4th Earl of Derby.
In 1251, William
de Ferrers obtained a Royal Charter from king Henry III for Bolton
to hold a market in Churchgate - on Mondays - and annual fair.The
charter reads:
The King
to his Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Knights, and
to all whom it may concern greeting. Know ye that we have granted,
and by this Charter confirmed, to our trusty and beloved William
de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, that he and all his heirs shall have
the lands and free warren in the Manors of Lyverpull, West Derby,
Everton, Crosseby, Wavertree, Salford, Bowelton, Penelton, etc.,
in the County of Lancaster . . . . We grant to the said Earl also
and to his heirs for ever, permission to hold a market at his
aforesaid Manor of Bowelton, in the Country of Lancaster, every
seventh day; and also at the same place a fair once a year, extending
over three days, that is to say on the eve and on the day and
on the morrow of the feast of St. Margaret the Virgin.
On January 14th
1253, Bolton was granted another Charter making it a free borough
and a market town. Flemish weavers are recorded as arriving in Bolton
about 1337 to work in the textile industry, bringing other skills
including clog making.
Deane Church |
The 6th
Earl of Derby, Robert de Ferrers rebelled against King Henry
III and forfied his lands and earldom in 1266. Some time later
the land were granted to the Pilkington family, who continued
to reside there until the 1485, when the lands and the honors
were confiscated by Henry VII. Sir Thomas Pilkington - Lord
of Bury and Pilkington - had sided with the King Richard III
at the Battle of Bosworth Field.
Henry
after his victory at Bosworth conferred the title Earl of
Derby - which had fallen into disuse after the de Ferres -
and the lands of Sir Thomas Pilkington on Thomas Lord Stanley
(who was married to Margaret Beaufort, King Henry's mother)
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The manor of
Bolton was built by the Derby's in the 1500s. Despite this turmoil,
Bolton remained a small settlement, even by Middle Ages standards.
There was a major outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1623, which
had a significant affect.
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the Civil War, the people of Bolton were solidly behind parliament
but most of the people of Lancashire supported the king. The
people of Bolton built earthwork defences around the town and
waited for the royalists to attack. The town was attacked by
James Stanley - Earl of Darby - three times during the war.
The first attached was in February 1643, after which the towns
forces were reinforced by a 3,000 man parliamentary garrison
in January 1644. Royalist forces were again turned back in a
March 1644 attack and finally in May 1644, after a brief seige,
the Royalist stormed Bolton, massacring approximately 1,000
parliamentary soldiers in the process. Royalists remained in
control of the town - which enjoyed uninterrupted quietness
during this period - until Charles I was executed in 1649. The
Earl of Derby was captured by Cromwell's troops in the 1651
uprising - led by Charles II - and was |
Execution
of James Stanley - Earl of Derby |
executed as revenge
for the earlier massacre. His severed head and body were placed in
seperate caskets and taken back to the family burial ground at Ormiskirk.
Bolton had a total population of about 2,000 at the time and was described
as 'a fair, well built town with broad streets.'
Bolton remained
a quiet market town until the late 18th century, when it was transformed
by the industrial revolution. The residents of Bolton demonstrated
significant inventiveness that led to the establishment of Bolton
as one of many Lancashire's mill towns that led the way in the Industrial
Revolution. In 1773 a survey showed the population of Bolton was
5,339. In 1775 Richard Arkwright invented the a new carding maching
that produced a stronger yarn and required less physical labour
and is considered the father of the modern industrial factory system
when he developed mills in which the whole process of yarn manufacture
was carried on by one machine. Samuel Crompton, a native of Bolton
invented the spinning mule in 1779 and opened his first cotton mill
in 1780. The cotton industry then grew at a tremendous rate and
came to dominate Bolton and by 1801 the population had reached 17,416.
Before 1830,
Bolton-le-Moors was composed of two townships, separated by the
River Croal (or Crowell) each run by its own authorities, Great
Bolton with 40 representatives, and Little Bolton with 30 . On January
11th 1838 Little Bolton and Great Bolton were incorporated as a
single township, then on the 11th of October Queen Victoria granted
Bolton Chartered Borough status, and the joint population - 47,000
- had its first election of councillors on November 30th 1838. Neighbouring
districts were embraced at the turn of the century, enlarging the
town.
St Peters, Bolton-Le-Moors |
Bolton
had became a boom town in the 19th century with a population
of 168,000 in 1851. Cotton was always the dominant local product,
though there were other industries that flourished in the
locality - paper making and bleaching, trades such as engineering,
the building of the railways which fostered all late 19th
century industry, as well as the now extinct local mining
industry. The population remained constant for much of the
late 1800s.
The current
Church of St Peter, Bolton-le-Moors was opened in 1871, it
is built on the foundation of a 15th century church of the
same name, which was pulled down in the mid 1800s when it
had fallen into disrepair. There have also been fragments
of stone from the previous Saxon and Norman buildings that
were used in the construction of the new church.
In 1911
Cotton spinning and weaving were still a large concern, employing
over 15,000 men and 21,000. By 1929 Bolton had 216 cotton
mills and 26 bleaching and dyeing works. Sadly the 20th century
decline in the Lancashire cotton industry took a heavy toll
on Bolton's workforce. In the 1920s the cotton industry in
Bolton declined and many cotton workers lost their jobs in
the 1930s. The cotton industry revived a little in the late
1940s and early 1950s but it then began a relentless decline
and by the 1980s
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it had fallen to
around 2,500 men and women. Coal mining also began to decline in the
1930s. It ended 30 years later.
Today there
is still a textile industry in Bolton along with some bleaching
and paper making. There is also a considerable engineering industry
and the manufacturing industry has been partly replaced by service
industries such as retail and leisure. The current population is
261,000.
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Coat
of Arms
"Gules, two bendlets Or, a shuttle with weft pendant between
an arrow, point upwards, and a mule spindle in chief palewise,
all of the last and an escutcheon in base of the second thereon
a rose of the first barbed and seeded proper. On a wreath
of colours, upon a rocky moor an elephant stantant proper,
on its back a castle Or and thereon a rose as in the Arms,
the trappings per pale Gules and Vert and charged with a mitre
also. On either side a lion Sable gorged with a wreath Argent
and Sable, each supporting a staff Or, flying thereform a
banner, that on the dexter vair Or and Gules, that on the
sinister Argent on a bend three stags heads caboshed Or".
Shield
: red (Gules) with two gold (Or) bands. At the top an arrow
pointing upwards, a shuttle and a mule spindle. The arrow
signifies the "Bolt" part of the town name and refers to the
celebrated Bolton archers who fought at the battle of Flodden
1513. The shuttle signifies the manufacture of textiles which
featured importantly in Bolton's
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development as
a modern industrial town, and the mule spindle honours Samuel Crompton,
inventor of the Spinning Mule who was born and lived in Bolton.
Crest : An elephant
bearing a castle on which is the red rose of Lancashire. The castle,
or stockade is a reference to the "Ton" part of the town name, which
simply means "town" or "settlement", and the Lancashire rose indicates
that Bolton was historically part of that county until municipal
reorganisation in 1972. The trappings on the elephant show a bishop's
mitre, and the rocky moor on which it stands refers to the moors
above the town and the fact that the town was formerly known as
Bolton-le-Moors.
Motto : "Supera
Moras".
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