CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF ECCLES
By
T. SWINDELLS
“Lancashire County Cricket Records”
etc.
Printed by
JAMES F. WILKINSON THE GUTENBERG WORKS, PENDLETON
1914
PREFACE.
In the
course of little more than half a century Eccles has risen from the position of
a village to that of a Municipal Borough and the centre of a Parliamentary
Division. Its population has increased rapidly, and many changes have taken
place in the appearance of the neighbourhood. This little volume is an attempt
to bring together a number of matters connected with the history of Eccles. It
does not profess in any way to be an exhaustive history of our borough, but
rather the basis upon which some future writer may build that history.
The
Parliamentary history of Eccles has been too brief to merit a separate chapter,
for it only dates from 1885, since when the Division has been represented in
Parliament successively by the Hon. A. F. Egerton, Mr. H. J. Roby, Mr. 0. Leigh
Clare, and Sir George Pollard.
For
some of the items of information I am indebted to John Harland’s “Parish Church
of Eccles,” various publications of the Chetham Society, E. Moss’s “Eccles and
its Wesleyan Sunday Schools,” an unpublished volume on
“
The Borough of Eccles” by W. Bogg, and
various newspaper articles and letters.
I
certainly hope that at some future time some writer better equipped for the work
than I am will provide us with an extended history of the borough.
T.
SWINDELLS.
Monton
Green, January, 1914.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
PAGE
CHAPTER 1.—THE PARISH CHURCH..............................................7
CHAPTER 11.—THE WAKES.......................................................25
CHAPTER III.—THE BOOTHS OF BARTON......................................35
CHAPTER IV.—MONT0N CHAPEL AND CHURCH...............................39
CHAPTER V.—THE MAKING OF THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL................46
CHAPTER VI.—OTHER COMMERCIAL CHANGES AND DEVELOPMENTS...52
CHAPTER VII.—GLIMPSES OF ECCLES A CENTURY AGO
AND IN MORE RECENT DAYS.......................................................67
CHAPTER VIII.—THE FIRST PASSENGER RAILWAY...........................76
CHAPTER IX.—SOME HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT
OF ECCLES..............................................................................81
CHAPTER X.—A FEW LOOSE STRINGS...........................................88