Manchester
& the Northwest Region of England
Papillon
Graphics'
Virtual Encyclopaedia of Greater Manchester
Including
Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside,
Trafford & Wigan
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The industrialisation
of Lancashire was fast and furious from the 1750s onwards. Towns,
factories and industry developed rapidly amongst the many small
villages of central Lancashire as textile industries were established
within the county. Fuelled by water and then driven by steam power,
and hastened by technological advances, entrepreneurialism and
commercial acumen, by the middle of the 19th century the county
had become the major manufacturing base of Britain. As the burgeoning
factories needed expanding labour forces, mass migrations took
place from agricultural Lancashire into towns like Manchester,
Salford, Darwen, Blackburn, Burnley, Oldham, Rochdale, Accrington
and Haslingden. It was to become the model for world wide industrialisation.
Canals and
railways made the importation of raw materials and exportation
of finished manufactures feasible and inexpensive and many fortunes
would be made by irresponsible and callous mill owners at the
expense of their workers. The typical working day was 14 hours
long, but many were much longer, as, without regulation, unscrupulous
mill owners could demand any terms they liked. (See: "Working
Conditions in Victorian Manchester") . East Lancashire
pits and coal mines at Worsley made the fuel of industry readily
available. The Manchester
Ship Canal made international trade a reality without the
need for slow or expensive overland transportation.
Cotton dominated
Lancashire (See: "King
Cotton"). By the mid-19th century Lancashire cotton
dominated the world market in textiles - by the end of the century
its output exceeded 1 billion kilos and contributed around 11%
of the national economy, employing around 5% of the population
of England.
After
1914, many of Lancashire's smaller townships and parishes
were rationalised and combined, as was the case with Lytham
St Anns, Morecambe and Heysham. By 1955 Lancashire had 17
county boroughs, 26 municipal boroughs, 66 urban districts
and 14 rural districts.
1974 saw massive reorganisation and rationalisation, with
the county effectively being truncated as three major areas
were taken out of its domain: Boroughs like Wigan, Rochdale,
Oldham and Bolton were absorbed into the newly created Greater
Manchester Metropolitan County.
Similarly,
parts of Sefton, Liverpool and St Helens were incorporated into
the new Merseyside Metropolitan County. Finally, the Furness and
Cartmel Peninsulas in the southern Lake District were taken out
of Lancashire and since then have been part of the county of Cumbria.
Few of these
"removed" areas were happy with the arrangement, and
the people of Bolton, Oldham and Rochdale proudly insist that
they still live in Lancashire and largely spurn all attempts to
persuade them to accept Greater Manchester as anything more than
an unfortunate administrative concoction. Other parts of Greater
Manchester were taken from the old county of Cheshire, (Stockport
and Altrincham, for example), and they in like manner cling to
Cheshire as their native county.
