lancashiretodundee

Early History The public park known as Rhyddings or formerly Riddings was part of an old estate lying East of the main road and North of Fielding Lane (both old roads). There is some historical information about who owned it at various times, but I cannot put my finger on it just now. There was a medieval manor house at the Eastern end. The estate extended westwards as far as Catlow Hall Street. It is visible on the first edition OS 6” map from the mid-1840s. You can find it on MARIO, the Lancashire County map archive. To the South East beyond High Street was Broadfield pit (two pits are marked). The landlord was Sir Robert Peel bt. But the pits were operated by the Simpson family. Initially it was under James Simpson of Methven, but after his death it was under his nephew Thomas. There was a tramway from Broadfield going North down the hill across Birch Crescent and High Street then near Hawthorn Avenue. It then passed West of the grounds of Paddock House. It then turned East to go...

(Full disclosure – I went to the primary school linked to the Chapel mentioned below. The Head was Mr Chew. It was not the nearest school. My great grandfather David was as far as I know the first Wesleyan. Previous generations were linked to the Church of England) My source only deals with the Wesleyan (mainstream) Methodists. There was no mention of the Primitive Methodists, nor of the Methodist New Connection. Ranked in terms of numbers of congregations (in 1851) the order is Wesleyan, Primitive, Calvinistic, Association, and New Connection. Wesleyans are by far the most numerous. This count excludes Independent (some of which may be Methodist and some perhaps Congregationalist) who are 2 nd to Wesleyan and Bible Christian. Baptists rank 3 rd . The Wesleyans seemed to regard the Primitives as disorganised and chaotic and did not speak to them. The Wesleyans wanted respectability, which they thought the Primitives did not attract. There was a big Primitive Chapel in my town t...

This clergyman who remonstrated with the Wesleyans in Duncan Square, Oswaldtwistle and called them “babblers” was Rev Jonathan Topping, assistant curate at Church Kirk in July 1807 then curate in 1809 until March 1810. I assumed at first that his residence would be the Old Parsonage. All that remains of this is Parsonage Street. It is parallel to Market Street opposite the railway station entrance. Duncan Square was five minutes’ walk away behind the disused Palladium cinema. However, as he was only a curate and not the incumbent, this was probably not the case. He resided at Church Bridge where his first child was born, according to the baptismal record. This would be the bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool canal at its mid-point. This is marked as Church Kirk Bridge on the old OS map. There is an old house West of the bridge which I assume was and is a farmhouse. Perhaps he took lodgings there. Perhaps he had business at the old parsonage and took the opportunity to bother Mrs Haworth ...

Alfred Waine of Roughlee (1867-1937) was my 2 nd great uncle. He was the younger brother of David Waine, my great grandfather. He was a bit of an entrepreneur who turned a redundant cotton mill, Roughlee Lower Mill, into a place of recreation. In December, 1911, the Corporation of Nelson invited offers for the purchase of Roughlee Mill and appurtenances. I was given to understand that Alfred was the only party to put in a bid. I found a report from 1888 when Nelson Local Board resolved to purchase the mill from the Stuttards, who also owned other mills in the area, owing to the depression of trade. They kept the mill for 22 years before deciding to sell. The place became Roughlee Lake and Pleasure Ground. It continued as such until about 1970. Alfred was a cotton twister and loomer before this up until 1911. He must have been one of the first Waines to get out of coal. My two times great grandfather John Waine who was a pit shaft sinker moved to Roughlee to help him with the wate...

My great uncle Sgt Thomas Baldwin was one of those lost when HMT Lancastria sank with great loss of life on 17 June 1940. She was anchored off Saint Nazaire about 3 miles from the shore when she took 4 bomb hits from a Ju 88 and sank in 20 mins. The background to these events follows. In late May 1940 the BEF (and Britain) was comprehensively defeated by Heinz Guderian’s blitzkrieg. Everyone has heard of the subsequent Dunkirk evacuation (operation Dynamo) which rescued nearly 340,000 men. Most equipment and stores were lost. A positive spin was put on Dynamo to hide the appalling scale of the disaster. This was followed by operation Cycle, which evacuated from Le Havre, and operation Ariel which evacuated from Atlantic ports, operations which are not so well-known. They recovered a further 190,000 troops. These evacuations were at the cost of heavy losses, but the recovery of over half a million men could be considered worth the cost if the war was to be continued. The Lancastria disa...

In 1851 a report was presented to a Commons committee on non-conformist churches and chapels in England and Wales giving numbers as follows: Wesleyan 4,450 Independent 2,572 Baptist 1,943 Primitive Methodist 1,662 Roman Catholic 597 Calvinistic Methodist 778 Bible Christian 415 Society of Friends 330 Wesleyan Methodist Assn 322 Methodist New Connection 281 Unitarian 260 Church of Scotland 12 Free Church of Scotland 77 United Presbyterian Church 61 Lady Huntingdon's Connection 30 New Jerusalem Church Jews Minor sects 350 There are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from these statistics. Remember that these are churches that are not Anglican, but not necessarily orthodox, creedal Christian, or even Christian in any sense. If you merge together the different flavours of Methodism, you find that 52% of the churches were Methodist. That is an impressive proportion. It may be even bigger, as I excluded Bible Christian as this is ambiguous. It could mean the Bibl...