Lancashire genealogy links

Genealogical and historical information and links for anyone researching their ancestors in England and the British Isles

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Themes	Explorers and Adventurers	Nobel Prize Winners
Actors and Directors	Famous People	Places of Interest
Anglo-Saxons and Danes	Historic Events	Prime Ministers
AONB (National Landscapes)	Inventors and Scientists	Royal Consorts and Heirs
Artists and Architects	Monarchs	World Heritage Sites
Composers and Musicians	National Parks	Writers and Poets

Nature

Lancashire
Wildlife Trust

Books
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985)	A semi-autobiographical account of an adopted girl growing up on a Lancashire council estate.

Lancashire

Lancashire lies in north-western England on the Irish Sea. In 1974 the two new counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester were created out of parts of the county and Lancashire's southern border was transferred to Cheshire and the Furness area to the newly formed county of Cumbria. Both Merseyside and Greater Manchester have since been broken up into smaller authorities.

Towns include the county seat of Preston, the Victorian centre for the cotton industry at Manchester and the major port of Liverpool.

Lancashire was formerly the world centre for cotton manufacture.

Actors and Directors

The thin half to Laurel and Hardy, Stan Laurel was born as Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Ulverston (then Lancashire) in 1890. He emigrated to the United States in 1910 on the same ship as Charlie Chaplin, for whom he had acted in England as an understudy. The partnership with Oliver Hardy began in 1926 and their 1932 short film The Music Box won an Academy Award. Full length feature films followed and their style was so successful that they survived the passing of silent movies.

The film and stage actor Sir Rex Harrison was born as Reginald Carey Harrison in 1908 in Houghton. He won an Academy Award for his role of Professor Henry Higgins in the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady, thus reprising the success of the Broadway production for which he had won a Tony Award in 1956.

Rex Harrison

The writer and stage and film director Mike Leigh was born in Salford in 1943. After initially working for the stage, television and film he began to concentrate on filmmaking. He approached serious themes through touching comedies such as Life is Sweet (1990) showing families in working class London struggling with everyday life.

He had success at the Cannes Film Festival winning best director for Naked (1993) and the Palme d'Or for Secrets & Lies (1996).

Mike Leigh (1998)

Mike Leigh (2003)

Anglo-Saxons and Danes

Formed part of the kingdom of Northumbria which itself had been formed from the smaller kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. Deira reached from the Humber in the south to the river Tees in the north. North of the Tees reaching as far as the Forth of Firth lay the kingdom of Bernicia of which Bamburgh was the capital.

AONB (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) | National Landscapes

The Forest of Bowland was designated in 1963. The area is part of the Pennine mountain range and is divided between the counties of Lancashire in the west and Yorkshire in the east. Isolated upland fells and heather-covered moorland make up most of the area.

The Arnside and Silverdale National Landscape was designated in 1972 covering an area running down to the shores of Morecambe Bay and divided between the counties of Cumbria in the north and Lancashire in the south. The landscape includes valleys and woodlands and limestone hills which offer views out to the Kent Estuary and east to the Lake District.

Artists and Architects

L.S. Lowry was born as Laurence Stephen Lowry in Salford, Manchester in 1887, many of his paintings depicted the industrial landscapes of his native Lancashire.

L.S. Lowry

Composers and Musicians

William Walton was born in Oldham in 1902. From 1949 he lived in Italy on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. He died at La Mortella - his home on the island - in 1983.

William Walton

The four Beatles were born in Liverpool within three years of each other. Ringo Starr was born in Dingle at 9 Madryn Street in the July of 1940 as Richard Starkey. In October the same year John Lennon was born at the Oxford Street Hospital (since closed) followed in 1942 by Paul McCartney at Walton Hospital and in 1943 by George Harrison who was born at 12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree.

The Beatles (1967)

Ringo Starr (1968)

John Lennon (1965)

Paul McCartney (1968)

George Harrison (1966)

The Beatles

The Beatles: A Day in the Life (Lennon/McCartney)

The singer Davy Jones was born as David Thomas Jones in Openshaw, Manchester in 1945. After working as an actor (Coronation Street episode in 1961) and initially training as a jockey he got the part of the Artful Dodger in the musical Oliver! in London which in 1963 moved to Broadway. In New York he witnessed Beatlemania close up when he appeared with the cast on the same Ed Sullivan Show where the Beatles played to a US TV audience for the first time.

In 1966 together with Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith he starred in the TV series The Monkees, a highly successful sitcom depicting a pop group struggling for stardom. For five years the group became one of the most commercially successful recording nine studio albums and a string of hit singles including Daydream Believer.

Davy Jones

The Monkees

The Monkees: Daydream Believer (Stewart)

The guitarist-songwriter Noel Gallagher was born in Longsight, Manchester in 1967. In 1972 his brother Liam was born there too. In 1991 together with Paul Arthurs, Paul McGuigan and drummer Tony McCarroll (followed by Alan White after their first album in 1995) they formed the band Oasis. Noel Gallagher wrote the songs. Liam sang them.

Liam Gallagher (1994)

Oasis (1995/Lineup 1)

Oasis (1995/Lineup 2)

Noel Gallagher (2019)

Oasis

Oasis: The Masterplan (Noel Gallagher)

It's up to us to make
The best of all the things that come our way
The Masterplan (1995)

Explorers and Adventurers

Born in Manchester in 1892, John William Alcock with Arthur Whitten Brown navigating, became the first people to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean in 1919. They took off from Newfoundland in Canada and crash-landed at Clifden, County Galway in Ireland. Alcock died later the same year in a plane crash in France.

John William Alcock

Famous People

The Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was born as Emmeline Goulden in Manchester in 1857. She lead the movement to win the right for women to vote. Shortly before her death in 1928 women were finally given equal voting rights with men.

Emmeline Pankhurst

Historic Events

Important Events

In 1819 the Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Fields in Manchester when a mass meeting on parliamentary reform was forcibly broken up. Eleven people died.

Rebellions and Plots

In 1812 the Luddite movement, which had begun in Nottinghamshire the previous year arrived in the cotton industry areas of Lancashire and the wool industry in neighbouring Yorkshire triggering a massive crackdown by the government.

Organized groups of craftsmen, feeling that their livelihoods were at threat by the introduction of new textile machinery, destroyed the machines. Their name came from their fictitious leader Ned Ludd and their protest rejected violence against people.

In 1812 a factory owner ordered the raiders be met with guns and the resulting Luddite deaths and the revenge-killing of the owner led in 1813 to many leaders being either executed in York or transported to Australia, heralding the beginning of the end for the popular protest.

Inventors and Scientists

Richard Arkwright was born in 1732 in Preston. He invented a mechanised spinning frame to produce cotton thread which revolutionised its production.

Richard Arkwright

Seen as the "father of atomic theory", the chemist John Dalton died in Manchester in 1844. His research had led him to describe colour blindness or "Daltonism" in 1794 and later to his ground-breaking work in atomic theory.

John Dalton

National Parks

In 1951 the Peak District became Britain's first National Park.

Nobel Prize Winners

Chemistry

The chemist Arthur Harden was born in Manchester in 1865. In 1929 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the naturalised Swedish scientist Hans Euler-Chelpin for their research into the fermentation process.

Arthur Harden

The chemist Norman Haworth was born as Walter Norman Haworth in Chorley in 1883. In 1937 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the Swiss scientist Paul Karrer for their research into the structure of vitamin C.

The biochemist Richard L.M. Synge was born as Richard Laurence Millington Synge in Liverpool in 1914. In 1952 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with A.J.P. Martin for their research into protein structure.

The Canadian biochemist Michael Smith was born in Blackpool in 1932. In 1956 he emigrated to Canada and in 1993 shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the American Kary B. Mullis.

Physics

One of the pioneers of nuclear physics the physicist J.J. Thomson was born as Joseph John Thomson in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester in 1856. In 1906 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his revolutionary discovery of the electron. In 1937 his son George was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. The Thomsons were one of only 5 fathers and sons to have received the award.

J.J. Thomson

The physicist Charles Glover Barkla was born in Widnes in 1877. In 1917 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his research into X-rays.

Physiology or Medicine

The biochemist Rodney R. Porter was born as Rodney Robert Porter in Newton-le-Willows in 1917. In 1972 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with the American Gerald M. Edelman for their work on antibodies.

Places of Interest

Universities

The University of Manchester received a Royal Charter in 1880 as the Victoria University of Manchester. It was created from Owens College (founded 1851) and in 2004 merged with the city's other university - UMIST - whose roots go back to 1824. It was the first of the six civic universities founded in the country's new industrial centres which also included Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol. This new generation of "redbrick" universities (to be followed by more throughout the 20th century) were the first to be founded in England after those at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and London.

The University of Liverpool received its Royal Charter in 1903 having been founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool. It was one of the six civic universities founded in the country's new industrial centres which also included Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol. This new generation of "redbrick" universities (to be followed by more throughout the 20th century) were the first to be founded in England after those at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and London.

Prime Ministers

The Prime Minister in 1834-35 and 1841-46, Robert Peel was born at Chamber Hall in Bury in 1788. He created London's police force whose members were nicknamed "Bobbies" after him.

Robert Peel

The Earl of Derby, three times Prime Minister in 1852, 1858-59 and 1866-68, was born as Edward Stanley in 1799 at the ancestral home of Knowsley Hall in Prescot. He died at the house in 1869 and is buried in St Mary's in the village of Knowsley.

Earl of Derby

Prime Minister four times in 1868-74, 1880-85, 1886 and 1892-94, William Ewart Gladstone was born in Rodney Street in Liverpool in 1809. In 1892 Gladstone became the oldest ever Prime Minister when at the age of 83 he formed his fourth government.

William Ewart Gladstone

Swimming for his life, a man does not see much of the country through which the river winds.
(Diary, 1868)

Born to Welsh parents in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Manchester in 1863, David Lloyd George was Britain's last Liberal Prime Minister, governing from 1916-22.

David Lloyd George

The world is becoming like a lunatic asylum run by lunatics.
(Observer, 1933)

Andy Burnham was born as Andrew Murray Burnham in Aintree in 1970. In 2026 he became Prime Minister, succeeding Keir Starmer who resigned after two years in the position.

World Heritage Sites

Six areas of the Historic docks and the City of Liverpool were designated a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2004. In the 18th and 19th centuries Liverpool was one of the major trading ports in the world.

The site was delisted by the UNESCO in 2021.

Writers and Poets

The American novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett was born as Frances Eliza Hodgson in Manchester in 1849. She emigrated with her family to America in 1865 where she later wrote many books including The Secret Garden.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

The poet Matthew Arnold died in Liverpool in 1888.

Matthew Arnold

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done.
Empedocles on Etna (1852)

The novelist Beryl Bainbridge was born in Liverpool in 1933. After starting her career acting in the theatre she became a writer and five of her books would be shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Beryl Bainbridge

The playwright Shelagh Delaney was born as Sheila Delaney in Broughton, Salford in 1939. She left school at 16, aged 17 she saw a play by Terence Rattigan which prompted her to write her own at the age of 18: A Taste of Honey (1958) was written in two weeks.

It became one of the "kitchen sink dramas" of the time (named as a reaction to the "drawing-room dramas" of Terence Rattigan and Noel Coward). It dealt realistically with domestic life of the working classes and the problems facing young women and was a success in London and on Broadway. She adapted the play with Tony Richardson who directed the film version in 1961 starring Rita Tushingham.

In 1985 she wrote the critically-acclaimed screenplay for Dance With a Stranger, the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain.

Shelagh Delaney

Women never have young minds.
They are born three thousand years old.
A Taste of Honey (1959)

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