Leigh
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LEIGH, a town, a township, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Lancashire. The town stands on the Leigh and Wigan canal, on a loop-line of railway, from Tyldesley to Bradshaw-Leach, and near the Bolton and Kenyon branch of the Northwestern railway, 7¼ miles SW by S of Bolton; comprises portions of West Leigh, Pennington, Bedford, and Atherton townships; has undergone much improvement, under the Local Government act of 1858, and under the Public Works Manufacturing Districts act of 1863; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; publishes a weekly newspaper; and has a post office under Manchester, two railway stations with telegraph, a bankingoffice, a market-place, a town hall, gas-works, three churches, four dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a grammar school, two national schools, a British school, a public cemetery, and charities £339. There are large cotton factories, foundries, malting establishments, two breweries, and three corn mills. Pop. of the town in 1851, 5,206; in 1861, 10,621. Houses, 2,098. Pop. in 1851, of the West Leigh portion, 838; of the Pennington portion, 4,496; of the Bedford portion, 4,885.John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) more...
Archives and Libraries
The Local History Library, Leigh Library, Market Place, Leigh, Lancs WN7 1DY - Tel: 01942 404559Leigh library have a couple of film readers, a couple of fiche readers and a helpful local historian. I would advise booking in advance. They also carry electoral rolls and local history books of the area.
Cemeteries
- Manchester Rd, Cemetery
- St Mary the Virgin, St Mary's Way, Church of England
Census
Details about the census records, and indexes for Leigh.Church History
Church Records
- Church St, Baptist
- St John The Evangelist, Gordon Street, Church of England
- St Mary the Virgin, St Mary's Way, Church of England
- Bethesda, Independent
- The Avenue, Independent Methodist
- Union St, Independent Methodist
- Kingdom Hall, Smallbrook Lane, Jehovah's Witness
- Bradshawgate, Primitive Methodist
- Cook St, Primitive Methodist
- Firs Lane, Primitive Methodist
- Twist Lane, Society of Friends
- Twist Lane, Unitarian
- Wigan Rd, United Free Church
- Plank Lane, United Methodist Free Church
- Wesleyan Methodist
- King St, Wesleyan Methodist
- Orchard Lane, Wesleyan Welsh Methodist
You can also perform a more selective search for churches in the Leigh area that are recorded in the GENUKI church database. This will also help identify churches in nearby townships and/or parishes. You also have the option to see the location of the churches marked marked on a map.
If you keep this page loaded for a very long time and the database is updated since loading it, the church links above may become stale and may display the wrong church. If this happens, reloading this page will correct them.
Civil Registration
The Register Office covering the Leigh area is Wigan and Leigh.Genealogy
ENG-LAN-LEIGH is an e-mail list for Leigh genealogy.Gazetteers
Ask for the gazetteer for a calculation of the distance from Leigh to another place.Historical Geography
In 1835 the parish of Leigh contained the townships of Atherton, Tyldesley with Shakerley, Westleigh, Pennington, Bedford and Astley.Information about boundaries and administrative areas is available from A Vision of Britain through time.
Maps
View maps of Leigh and places within its boundaries.Poor Houses, Poor law etc.
Poor Law records held at Wigan Archives.The Workhouse site has an interesting description of Leigh workhouse.