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The Civic Centre
St Mary's Church
The Old Town
Hall in Yorkshire Street
Yorkshire Street,
Oldham
Oldham-related
Websites
Oldham
Life
www.oldhamlife.co.uk
Official Website of Oldham Council:
www.oldham.gov.uk
Oldham
Events and Leisure: www.visitoldham.co.uk
Gallery Oldham: www.galleryoldham.org.uk
Housing in Oldham: www.instanthomes.org.uk
Lees
Online:
An independent unofficial website devoted entirely to the township
of Lees in Oldham at
www.leesonline.co.uk
Find
It in Oldham:
www.finditinoldham.co.uk
A web-based directory of
businesses in the Oldham area. We aim to develop the most comprehensive
list of businesses in Oldham.
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Oldham
Oldham and the
Moors
Aerial Photograph
Image Courtesy of www.webbaviation.co.uk
© 2005
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Oldham is
situated
some 8 miles to the north-east of Manchester city centre, set
high in the Pennine Hills, dominated by St Mary's church on its
summit, and overlooking the whole of the Cheshire Plain. Within
the Metropolitan Borough boundary are included the towns and villages
of Chadderton, Crompton, Delph, Denshaw, Diggle, Dobcross, Failsworth,
Greenfield, Lees, Royton, Shaw, and Uppermill. It extends from
the borders of Manchester in the south, Rochdale in the north,
Tameside to the south, and to the Saddleworth Moors, the South
Yorkshire Borders and the Peak District National Park on its eastern
borders.
The Danes
in Oldham
The town can
be dated from 865 AD when Danish invaders established a settlement
here with the name Aldehulme. In 1215 much of the lands of Oldham
were given to the Knights of St John of Jerusalem by Roger de
Montbegon. Since medieval times, Oldham has been a centre of the
textile industry, though it came into its own, like many other
Lancashire towns, with the onset of the Industrial Revolution
in the latter part of the 18th century.
During
the 19th and 20th century it became one of the world's leading
cotton spinning towns. Yet, it often comes as a surprise to visitors
to learn that two-thirds of the borough is open countryside, untouched
by industrialisation, with the wild splendours of Saddleworth's
Pennine moorland on the very doorstep.
The town Arms are the family crest of Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter
and founder of the Manchester Grammar School. It features an owl
holding a scroll in its beak - the scroll carries the letters
"DOM", making a typical medieval name-pun "OWL-DOM", which is
the original pronunciation of the town (and the family's) name
- still reflected nowadays in the local pronunciation of "Ow'dom".
This pun is also repeated in the town's 2 mottos : the older one
reads "Haud (pronounced "owd") Facile Captu" (meaning "Not easily
caught" - a reference no doubt to the canniness of the local populace),
and the later current motto "Sapere Aude" (meaning "Dare to be
wise" - the "Aude" also being pronounced "Owd").
In 1536 Lawrence Chadderton, after whom the district of Chadderton
is named, was born in Oldham. He was to become the translator
of the King James Bible.
Woolen
Textiles Manufacture in Oldham
Oldham had
long been on one of the major routes from Lancashire to Yorkshire,
as it lies on the old Roman road which linked Manchester to York
across the Pennines. Even though this road had deteriorated to
little more than a muddy dirt track, by the middle of the 18th
century it was to assume a growing importance for the moving and
distribution of trade products in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.
In medieval times, Oldham was a centre for the production of woollen
cloth, thanks to large areas of suitable moorland grazing for
sheep which surrounded it.
Oldham
Roads & Turnpikes
As early as
the 17th century plans had been put forward for improving the
road network infrastructure, and various turnpike toll roads had
been proposed following the 1734 Turnpike Act. Few roads were
actually realised however, and Oldham remained largely inaccessible
to all but the occasional pack horse trains which moved wool in
a very inefficient and piecemeal fashion. Even 25 years later,
a proper road did not exist between Oldham and neighbouring Manchester.
The first regular coach service to Manchester came into operation
in October of 1790, with a journey time of over 2 hours and a
fare 2s.8d (about 13p), with half fare for travellers on top of
the coach.
Oldham
Canals
The Industrial
Revolution saw considerable development of Oldham's industrial
base. In 1759, Francis Egerton the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater had
built the first commercial canal to bring coal from his mines
in Worsley into Manchester. Canal fever spread quickly, as it
offered a viable and cheaper alternative to road transportation.
The steam driven machinery of Oldham's many new mills needed Worsley
coal to drive them.
Oldham had coal in abundance, but at that time there was no real
mining development in an industrial sense or on a large enough
scale to supply fuel-hungry steam engines. Inevitably a plan to
build a trans-Pennine canal which would run through Oldham was
promoted in the mid-1760s - this was to become the Rochdale Canal,
which, with the later connection to the Ashton Canal was completed
in the 1790s. With the new capability of receiving raw materials
and foodstuffs, and of exporting its textiles, Oldham came into
its own and grew into a major industrial town during this period.
In 1799 a short-lived passenger service was opened between Manchester
and Stalybridge. Within 30 years the railways appeared and even
the new canals could not compete with its speed and efficiency.
Cotton
Spinning in Oldham
While it would
be a truism to say that Cotton created modern Oldham, it would
be a mistake to think this was the town's only industry. Oldham
began to produce its own coal in the 19th century, and perhaps
more importantly, it began to develop a base in the production
of engineering machinery - initially for the textile trade, but
later for other industries. The transition from the production
of woollen cloth to the spinning of cotton came about in Oldham
during the 18th century. The Saddleworth woollen trade was already
well established when in the 1740s Manchester merchants began
distributing cotton to surrounding mills for carding, spinning
and weaving.
Many new inventions for the fast processing of cotton were introduced
- most significantly the "flying shuttle" of John Kay, which instantly
made weaving very fast, so that traditional spinning wheel production
could not supply spun cotton fast enough to keep weaver's looms
supplied. That problem had been solved by James Hargreave's "Spinning
Jenny". This revolutionised the Oldham spinning industry and from
1750 onwards the old romantic cottage industries of home spun
yarns ended and the machines were exiled to the attics of Oldham.
The process became quickly mechanised and mass production methods,
introduced about 1770, overtook traditional ways, and necessitated
workers moving into the new mills and factories to work. Oldham's
first mill was Lees Hall, built about 1778 by William Clegg.
See
also:
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