GENUKI: Wigan, Lancashire

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Description & Travel
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WIGAN, a town, a township, a parish, and a district, in Lancashire. The town stands on the river Douglas, at a convergence of railways, and on the Leeds and Liverpool canal, 15½ miles S by E of Preston; is described to have been, in the time of Henry VIII., "as big as Warrington, but better built;" was the scene, in 1651, of the Earl of Derby's defeat by Lilburne; was visited, in 1745, in his march southward, by Prince Charles Stuart; numbers among its natives Bishop Woolton, who died in 1573, and Dr. Leland, the author of "Deistical Writers;" was chartered by Henry III.; sent members to parliament twice in the time of Edward I., and has sent two since the time of Edward VI.; is governed, under the new act, by a mayor, 10 aldermen, and 30 councillors; is a seat of sessions and county courts, and a polling place; publishes two weekly newspapers; is famous for a great and rich coalfield around it; exports vast quantities of coal and other minerals and merchandise, both by railway and by canal; carries on cotton-spinning in numerous factories, some of them among the largest in England; carries on also the manufacture of calicoes, checks, stripes, ginghams, table-cloths, and other cotton fabrics; has likewise some extensive linen-works, several iron-forges, iron and brass foundries, and manufactories of spades, picks, and edge-tools; occupies several acclivities; consists partly of old, irregular, narrow, crooked streets, and partly of new and well-aligned streets, with many good houses; comprises a main-street nearly 1½ mile long, with streets diverging from it to the right and to the left; and has a head post-office,? two r. stations with telegraph; three banking offices, five chief inns, several bridges, a town hall of 1720, a moot-hall, a public-hall, handsome public offices of 1864, a corn exchange, a theatre, a monumental pillar to Sir T. Tyldesley, a fine ancient parochial church restored in 1856, a handsome church of 1841 with tower and lofty spire, a beautiful church of 1864 with pinnacled tower, two other churches, three Independent chapels, three Baptist chapels, four Methodist chapels, two other dissenting chapels, three Roman Catholic chapels, a mechanics' institution and reading rooms, an endowed grammar-school with £229 a year, a national and blue-coat school, five other national schools, seven other public schools, an infirmary founded in 1869 and estimated to cost about £30,000, a dispensary, a workhouse of 1857 with capacity for 800 inmates, charities £1,199, markets on Mondays and Fridays, and fairs on Holy Thursday, 27 June, and 28 Oct. Acres, 2,161. Real property, in 1860, £107,134; of which £23,538 were in mines, £80 in quarries, and £1,200 in gasworks. Amount of property and income tax charged in 1863, £10,183. Corporation income, about £3,380. Electors in 1833, 423: in 1863, 845. Pop. in 1851, 31,941; in 1861, 37,658. Houses, 6,696. more ...

John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72)

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Archives & Libraries

The Wigan Heritage Service provides Archives, Museums and Local History Services for the Wigan area.

Wigan Library, Reference Department, Rodney Street, WIGAN WN1 1D Tel: 0942 827619

Wigan Record Office, Town Hall, Leigh, Lancs WN7 2DY - Tel: 01942 672421 ext 266

Cemeteries

**Anglican**
All Saints, Wigan, Church of England
St Catharine, Whelley, Church of England

**Congregational / Independent**
St Paul, Wigan, Independent

**Cemeteries**
Wigan, Gidlow Cemetery

**Presbyterian / Unitarian**
Chapel Lane, Wigan, Presbyterian

**Roman Catholic**
St John, Wigan, Roman Catholic
St Mary, Wigan, Roman Catholic

Census

Details about the census records, and indexes for Wigan.

Churches

There are more than 30 churches identified in this place. Please click here for a complete list.

Civil Registration

The Register Office covering the Wigan area is Wigan and Leigh.

Description & Travel

You can see pictures of Wigan which are provided by:

Directories

Extracts from directories.

Gazetteers

The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland - 1868

"WIGAN, a parish, post, and market town, municipal and parliamentary borough, exercising separate jurisdiction, but locally in the hundreds of West Derby and Salford, county Lancaster, 17 miles N.W. of Manchester, 30 S. of Lancaster, and 1951 N.W. of London by railway, or 199 by road. It has stations on the London and North-Western and the Lancashire and Yorkshire railways. The parish contains, besides the borough and township of its own name, the townships of Abram, Aspull, Billinge Chapel End, Billinge Higher End, Dalton, Haigh, Hindley, Ince, Orrell, Pemberton, Up Holland, and Winstanley. It is situated on the banks of the Douglas, which rises under Rivington Pike, and was made navigable in 1719 to its junction with the Ribble, but which is now superseded by the Leeds and Liverpool canal. From the junction of three Roman roads at this point it has been supposed to occupy the site of a Roman station; but seems rather to owe its origin to a castle built during the Saxon period, and said to have been the scene of some sanguinary struggles between the Saxons and Britons. It is a borough by prescription, having been first chartered by Henry III., and sent two members to parliament twice in the reign of Edward I., but not again till that of Edward VI. In Leland's time it was "as big as Warrington, but better builded," In the Civil War it took the side of the Royalists, and was often the head-quarters of the Earl of Derby, who, in 1651, was defeated here by Colonel Lilburne. In 1745 it was visited by Prince Charles Edward the Pretender, who was sheltered in the Bishopgate house for several days, while he was endeavouring to effect his escape from the kingdom. Under the Municipal Reform Act it was divided into five wards, viz:, Scholes, St.

George's, Queen-street, Swinley, and All Saints' wards-and is governed by a mayor, 10 aldermen, and 30 town councillors, assisted by a recorder, coroner, town clerk, and other officers, with the style of "mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough of Wigan" The borough, the bounds being those of the township, returns two members to parliament. The mayor is returning officer. The population of the borough in 1851 was 31,948, and in 1861, 37,658, inhabiting 6,696 houses. The town, which stands on several acclivities, consists of the old town on the right, and of the more modern suburb of Scholes on the left bank of the Douglas, here spanned by several bridges. Both are irregularly built, the streets of the older portion being narrow and crooked, but in the modern part there are several new streets of good houses; the main street is nearly a mile and a half in length, running N. and S., from which the other streets diverge towards the E. and W. It is lighted with gas, paved, and well supplied with water. The public buildings are the townhall, in the market-place, rebuilt in 1720; the Public Hall, in King-street; Moot Hall, Corn Exchange, and Commercial Buildings, mechanics' institute and reading-rooms, library and museum, dispensary, borough gaol, a pillar to Sir J. Tyldesley, the Royalist, put up by Sheriff Rigby in 1679; theatre, union poorhouse, savings-bank, two commercial banks, corn-mills, gas-works, besides about 20 factories and spinning mills, comprising some of the largest in the kingdom. An extensive coal-field surrounds the town, yielding cannel and other coal; and the easy means of transit by water and railway give peculiar facilities for manufactures, which are carried on to a large extent. The staple productions are calicoes, fustians, and other cotton fabrics; linens, checks, cotton twist, ginghams, and tablecloths; there are besides several brass and iron foundries, iron forges, corn-mills, blacksmiths' workshops, rope-walks, and dye works. Wigan is the head of a Poor-law Union, new County Court district and superintendent registry. It. is likewise a sessions town and polling place for the county elections., In the immediate vicinity of the town are The Larches, Bellingham Lodge, and Westwood House, to which last is attached a Roman Catholic chapel, dedicated to the Sacra Coeur. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chester, value £1,600. The parish church, dedicated to All Saints, was restored in 1860, and contains monuments to the Bradshaighs of Haigh from the reign of Edward III., and a monument to Bishop Hale, who was once rector. The other churches are St. George's, erected in 1781; St. Thomas's, St. Catherine's, and St. James's. There are besides eight churches in the parish, most of which are in the patronage of the rector, the Hon. and Rev. G. T. 0. Bridgeman, M.A., who is also rural dean. The Independents, Wesleyans, Primitive and Free Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and Christian Brethren have chapels. There are a free grammar school, founded in the reign of James I., which has an income from endowment of £250; a blue-coat school, established in 1773, but now united with the National schools; also National, British, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, ragged, and Sunday schools. The local charities produce about £1,200 per annum, including the school endowments. Market days are Monday and Friday. Fairs are held on the day before Holy Thursday, 27th June, and 28th October."

"SCHOLES, a ward in the parish and borough of Wigan, hundred of West Derby, county Lancaster, adjoining Wigan, of which it is a suburb. It is situated on the eastern bank, and near the source of the river Douglas. Many of the inhabitants are engaged in the cotton mills, and some in the neighbouring collieries. The living is a curacy in the diocese of Chester, value £150, in the patronage of the Rector of Wigan. The church was erected in 1840 at an expense of £3,225, partly defrayed by the parliamentary commissioners."

Ask for a calculation of the distance from Wigan to another place.

Genealogy

ENG-LAN-WIGAN is an e-mail list for Wigan genealogy.

Historical Geography

In 1835 the parish of Wigan contained the townships of Wigan, Haigh, Aspull, Ince in Makerfield, Hindley, Dalton, Upholland, Orrell, Pemberton, Billinge, Winstanley and Abram.

Maps

View maps of Wigan and places within its boundaries.

View a map of the boundaries of this town/parish.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SD581064 (Lat/Lon: 53.552166, -2.633734), Wigan which are provided by:

OpenStreetMap
Google Maps
StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
Bing (was Multimap)
Old Maps Online
National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

Occupations

Poor Houses, Poor Law

Poor Law records held at Wigan Archives.

The Workhouse site has an interesting description of Wigan workhouse.

Probate Records

For probate purposes prior to 1858, Wigan was in the Archdeaconry of Chester, in the Diocese of Chester. The original Lancashire wills for the Archdeaconry of Chester are held at the Lancashire Record Office.

Societies

You can also see Family History Societies covering the nearby area, plotted on a map. This facility is being developed, and is awaiting societies to enter information about the places they cover.