WikiPortallus: Lancashire.html

The history of Lancashire is thought to have begun with its founding in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book (1086), some of its lands had been treated as part of Yorkshire. The area in between the rivers Mersey and Ribble (referred to in the Domesday Book as "Inter Ripam et Mersam") formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Once its initial boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Cheshire.

Lancashire emerged during the Industrial Revolution as a major commercial and industrial region. The county encompassed several hundred mill towns and collieries. By the 1830s, approximately 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire.³ Accrington, Blackburn, Bolton, Chorley, Darwen and Burnley were major cotton mill towns during this time. Blackpool was a major centre for tourism for the inhabitants of Lancashire's mill towns, particularly during wakes week.

History

Early history

The county was established in 1182⁴ and later than many other counties. In the Domesday Book, its lands between the Ribble and the Mersey were known as "Inter Ripam et Mersam"⁶ and were included in the returns for Cheshire.⁷ Although some have taken this to mean that south Lancashire was, at that time, part of Cheshire,⁶⁸ it cannot be said clearly to have been part of Cheshire.⁹¹⁰¹¹ It is also claimed that the territory to the north formed, at that time, part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.⁸ It bordered on Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Cheshire. The county was divided into the six hundreds of Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale, Salford and West Derby.¹² Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North, which was the detached part north of Morecambe Bay (also known as Furness), and Lonsdale South.

Modern history

Lancashire is now much smaller than its historical extent, following a major reform of local government.¹³ In 1889 an administrative county of Lancashire was created, covering the historical county except for county boroughs such as Blackburn, Burnley, Barrow-in-Furness, Preston, Liverpool, Manchester.¹⁴ The area covered by the Lord-Lieutenant (termed now a ceremonial county) continued to cover the entirety of the administrative county along with the county boroughs, and thus was expanded slightly whenever boroughs annexed areas in other neighbouring counties. Examples of this include Wythenshawe (an area of Manchester south of the River Mersey and historically in Cheshire), and southern Warrington. This area also did not cover the western part of Todmorden, where the ancient border between Lancashire and Yorkshire runs through the middle of the town.

During the 20th century the county became increasingly urbanised, particularly the southern part. To the existing county boroughs of Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn, Bolton, Bootle, Burnley, Bury, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, St Helens and Wigan were added Blackpool (1904), Southport (1905), and Warrington (1900). The county boroughs also had many boundary extensions. The borders around the Manchester area were particularly complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs – Lees urban district formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire.¹⁵

By the census of 1971 the population of Lancashire (including all its associated county boroughs) had reached 5,129,416, making it then the most populous geographic county in the UK. The administrative county of Lancashire was also the most populous of its type outside of London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961. On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the administrative county of Lancashire was abolished, as were the county boroughs. The urbanised southern part largely became part of two new metropolitan counties. The south-western part became part of Merseyside, the south-eastern part was incorporated into Greater Manchester.¹⁶ The new county of Cumbria took the Furness exclave.⁴

Geography

Divisions and environs

Geology, landscape and ecology

The highest point of the ceremonial county is Gragareth, near Whernside, which reaches a height of 627 m (2,057 ft).²⁵ However, Green Hill near Gragareth has also been cited as the county top.²⁶ The highest point within the historic boundaries is Coniston Old Man in the Lake District at 803 m (2,634 ft).²⁷

Politics

Local elections for 84 councillors from 84 divisions are held every four years. The council is currently controlled by the Conservative Party.²⁹

Duchy of Lancaster

The Duchy of Lancaster is one of two remaining royal duchies in the United Kingdom. It has large landholdings throughout the region and elsewhere, and operates as a property company, but also exercises the right of the Crown in the County Palatine of Lancaster,³⁰ which includes areas that were removed from Lancashire as part of the 1974 boundary changes.

High Sheriffs for Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside are appointed "within the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster".³¹

The Duchy administers bona vacantia within the County Palatine, receiving the property of persons who die intestate, and where the legal ownership cannot be ascertained.

There is no separate Duke of Lancaster, the title having merged in the Crown many centuries ago – but the Duchy is administered by the Queen in Right of the Duchy of Lancaster. A separate court system for the county palatine was finally abolished by Courts Act 1971. A particular form of The Loyal Toast is still in regular local use: 'The Queen, Duke of Lancaster'.

Economy

Lancashire in the 19th century was a major centre of industrial activity and hence of wealth. Activities included mining and textile production (particularly cotton), though on the coast there was also fishing. Historically, the docks in Preston were an industrial port, though are now disused for commercial purposes. Lancashire was historically the location of the port of Liverpool while Barrow-in-Furness is famous for shipbuilding.

Economic output

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire at current basic prices published (pp. 240–253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Education

Lancashire has a mostly comprehensive system with four state grammar schools. Not including sixth form colleges, there are 77 state schools (not including Burnley's new schools) and 24 independent schools. The Clitheroe area also has secondary modern schools. Sixth form provision is limited at most schools in most districts, with only Fylde and Lancaster districts having mostly sixth forms at schools. The rest (most schools) depend on FE colleges and sixth form colleges, where they exist. South Ribble has the largest school population, with Fylde the smallest (only three schools). Burnley's schools have had a new broom and have essentially been knocked down and started again in 2006. There are many Catholic secondary schools in Lancashire.

Transport

Demography

The major settlements in the ceremonial county are concentrated on the Fylde coast (the Blackpool Urban Area), and a belt of towns running west-east along the M65: Preston, Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley, Nelson and Colne. South of Preston are the towns of Leyland and Chorley; the three formed part of the Central Lancashire New Town designated in 1970. The north of the county is generally sparsely populated, with Morecambe and Lancaster forming a small conurbation. Lancashire is home to a significant Asian population, numbering over 70,000 and 6% of the county's population, and concentrated largely in the former cotton mill towns.

Settlements

The table below has divided the settlements into their local authority district. Each district has a centre of administration; for some of these correlate with a district's largest town, while others are named after the geographical area.

Symbols

The Red Rose of Lancaster is a symbol for the House of Lancaster, immortalised in the verse "In the battle for England's head/York was white, Lancaster red" (referring to the 15th century War of the Roses). The traditional Lancashire flag, a red rose on a white field, was never officially registered. When an attempt was made to register it with the Flag Institute it was found that this flag had already been officially registered by the town of Montrose, Scotland, several hundred years earlier with the Lyon Office. As the Flag Institute will not register two flags of the same design (within the UK) Lancashire's official flag is now registered as a red rose on a gold field.

Sport

Cricket

Football

The six professional league teams based in Lancashire, as of the start of the 2009/10 season, are:

Rugby

Lancashire used to accommodate a substantial number of Rugby League teams who now fall in other counties. The county was a focal point for many of the sport's professional competitions including the Lancashire League competition which ran from 1895 to 1970, and the Lancashire County Cup which was abandoned in 1993. Rugby League has also seen a representative fixture between Lancashire and Yorkshire contested 89 times since its inception in 1895.

Archery

In 2004 Lancashire took the winning title at the Inter-counties championships from Yorkshire who had held it for the past 7 years. The win received much media attention as the team consisted of 3 archers from the same family. One of these being 5 times World Record holder and Lancashire Sports Personality of the year in 2004 and Lancashire archery squad member Melissa-Jane Daniel from the Bowmen of Skelmersdale.⁴⁴

Another notable Archer based in Lancashire is Richard Priestman of the Burscough Archers Archery Club.⁴⁶ Richard and his wife Vlada are both former international archers, with Richard winning an Olympic bronze medal at both the Seoul and Barcelona Olympic games in 1988 and 1992. In 2009 Richard signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bangladesh Archery Federation (BAF) and will train the national archery team for the upcoming 11th South Asian Games to be held in Dhaka from January 29 to February 9, 2010.

Other

Music

Lancashire has a long and highly productive tradition of music making. In the early modern era the county shared in the national tradition of balladry, including perhaps the finest border ballad, "The Ballad of Chevy Chase", thought to have been composed by the Lancashire-born minstrel Richard Sheale.⁴⁷ The county was also a common location for folk songs, including "The Lancashire Miller", "Warrington Ale" and "The soldier’s farewell to Manchester", while Liverpool, as a major seaport, was the subject of many sea shanties, including "The Leaving of Liverpool" and "Maggie May",⁴⁸ beside several local Wassailing songs.⁴⁷ In the Industrial Revolution changing social and economic patterns helped create new traditions and styles of folk song, often linked to migration and patterns of work.⁴⁹ These included processional dances, often associated with rushbearing or the Wakes Week festivities, and types of step dance, most famously clog dancing.⁴⁹⁵⁰ A local pioneer of folk song collection in the first half of the nineteenth century was Shakespearean scholar James Orchard Halliwell,⁵¹ but it was not until the second folk revival in the twentieth century that the full range of song from the county, including industrial folk song, began to gain attention.⁵⁰ The county produced one of the major figures of the revival in Ewan McColl, but also a local champion in Harry Boardman, who from 1965 onwards probably did more than anyone to popularise and record the folk song of the county.⁵² Perhaps the most influential folk artists to emerge from the region in the late twentieth century were Liverpool folk group The Spinners, and from Manchester folk troubadour Roy Harper and musician, comedian and broadcaster Mike Harding.⁵³⁵⁴⁵⁵ The region is home to numerous folk clubs, many of them catering to Irish and Scottish folk music. Regular folk festivals include the Fylde Folk Festival at Fleetwood.⁵⁶

Lancashire had a lively culture of choral and classical music, with very large numbers of local church choirs from the seventeenth century,⁵⁷ leading to the foundation of local choral societies from the mid-eighteenth century, often particularly focused on performances of the music of Handel and his contemporaries.⁵⁸ It also played a major part in the development of brass bands which emerged in the county, particularly in the textile and coalfield areas, in the nineteenth century.⁵⁹ The first open competition for brass bands was held at Manchester in 1853, and continued annually until the 1980s.⁶⁰ The vibrant brass band culture of the area made an important contribution to the foundation and staffing of the Hallé orchestra from 1857, the oldest extant professional orchestra in the United Kingdom.⁶¹ The same local musical tradition produced eminent figures such as William Walton (1902–88), son of an Oldham choirmaster and music teacher,⁶² Sir Thomas Beecham (1879–1961), born in St. Helens, who began his career by conducting local orchestras⁶³ and Alan Rawsthorne (1905–71) born in Haslingden.⁶⁴ It also produced more populist figures, such as early musical theatre composer Leslie Stuart (1863–1928), born in Southport, who began his musical career as organist of Salford Cathedral.⁶⁵ The Royal Manchester College of Music was founded in 1893 to provide a northern counterpart to the London musical colleges. It merged with the Northern College of Music (formed in 1920) to form the Royal Northern College of Music in 1972.⁶⁶

Liverpool produced a number of nationally and internationally successful popular singers in the 1950s, including traditional pop stars Frankie Vaughan and Lita Roza, and one of the most successful British rock and roll stars in Billy Fury.⁵³ Many Lancashire towns had vibrant skiffle scenes in the late 1950s, out of which by the early 1960s a flourishing culture of beat groups began to emerge, particularly around Liverpool and Manchester. It has been estimated that there were around 350 bands active in and around Liverpool in this era, often playing ballrooms, concert halls and clubs, among them the Beatles.⁶⁷ After their national success from 1962, a number of Liverpool performers were able to follow them into the charts, including Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Searchers, and Cilla Black. The first act to break through in the UK who were not from Liverpool, or managed by Brian Epstein, were Freddie and the Dreamers, who were based in Manchester,⁶⁸ as were Herman's Hermits and The Hollies.⁶⁹ Led by the Beatles, beat groups from the region spearheaded the British Invasion of the US, which made a major contribution to the development of rock music.⁷⁰ After the decline of beat groups in the late 1960s the centre of rock culture shifted to London and there were relatively few local bands who achieved national prominence until the growth of a disco funk scene and the punk rock revolution in the mid and late 1970s, after Liverpool and Manchester had been removed from the county boundaries.⁷¹

Cuisine

Lancashire is the origin of the Lancashire hotpot, a casserole dish traditionally made with lamb. Other traditional foods from the area include:

Places of interest

Notes and references

^ http://www.flaginstitute.org/index.php?location=10
^ Vision of Britain – Lancashire
^ Gibb, Robert (2005). Greater Manchester: A panorama of people and places in Manchester and its surrounding towns. Myriad. p. 13. ISBN 1-904736-86-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d George, D., Lancashire, (1991)
^ ^a ^b ^c Local Government Act 1972. 1972, c. 70
^ ^a ^b Sylvester (1980). p. 14.
^ Morgan (1978). pp.269c–301c,d.
^ ^a ^b Booth, P. cited in George, D., Lancashire, (1991)
^ Harris and Thacker (1987). write on page 252:

Certainly there were links between Cheshire and south Lancashire before 1000, when Wulfric Spot held lands in both territories. Wulfric's estates remained grouped together after his death, when they were left to his brother Aelfhelm, and indeed there still seems to have been some kind of connexion in 1086, when south Lancashire was surveyed together with Cheshire by the Domesday commissioners. Nevertheless, the two territories do seem to have been distinguished from one another in some way and it is not certain that the shire-moot and the reeves referred to in the south Lancashire section of Domesday were the Cheshire ones.
^ Phillips and Phillips (2002). pp. 26–31.
^ Crosby, A. (1996). writes on page 31:

The Domesday Survey (1086) included south Lancashire with Cheshire for convenience, but the Mersey, the name of which means 'boundary river' is known to have divided the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and there is no doubt that this was the real boundary.
^ Vision of Britain – Lancashire ancient county divisions
^ Berrington, E., Change in British Politics, (1984)
^ ^a ^b Vision of Britain – Lancashire ancient county boundaries
^ Lord Redcliffe-Maud and Bruce Wood. English Local Government Reformed. (1974)
^ ^a ^b Jones, B. et al, Politics UK, (2004)
^ OPSI – The Cheshire, Lancashire and Merseyside (County and Metropolitan Borough Boundaries) Order 1993
^ FORL Retrieved 7 November 2008
^ ABC Counties Retrieved 7 November 2008
^ Vision of Britain – Divisions of Lancashire
^ Lancashire County Council – Lancashire districts
^ OPSI – The Lancashire (Boroughs of Blackburn and Blackpool) (Structural Change) Order 1996
^ Lancashire County Council – Map of Lancashire (Unitary boundaries shown)
^ Government Office for the North West – Local Authorities
^ BUBL Information Service – The Relative Hills of Britain
^ Administrative (1974) County Tops
^ Historic County Tops
^ Opening of the new Town-Hall at Preston. The Times. September 15, 1882.
^ Lancashire County Council – County Councillors by Area
^ The Duchy of Lancaster - Boundary Map
^ High Sheriffs, The Times, March 21, 1985
^ Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
^ includes hunting and forestry
^ includes energy and construction
^ includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured
^ Transport for Lancashire – Lancashire Inter Urban Bus and Rail Map (PDF)
^ A Vision of Britain through time, Lancashire Modern (post 1974) County: Total Population, http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data_cube_page.jsp?data_theme=T_POP&data_cube=N_TOT_POP&u_id=10097848&c_id=10001043&add=N, retrieved 2010-01-10
^ Vision of Britain – Lancashire boundaries 1974
^ Chandler, J., Local Government Today, (2001)
^ ^a ^b Youngs. Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England. Volume 2. Northern England.
^ LCCC contact details
^ List of ECB Premier Leagues
^ Archery clubs in Lancashire
^ Bowmen of Skelmersdale
^ Lancashire Archery Records
^ Burscough Archers Archery Club
^ ^a ^b D. Gregory, ‘“The Songs of the People for Me’’: The Victorian Rediscovery of Lancashire Vernacular Song’, Canadian Folk Music/Musique folklorique canadienne, 40 (2006), pp. 12-21.
^ J. Shepherd, D. Horn, and D. Laing, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World (London: Continuum, 2003), ISBN 0-82647-436-5, p. 360.
^ ^a ^b Lancashire Folk, http://www.lancashirefolk.co.uk/Morris_Information.htm, retrieved 16/02/09.
^ ^a ^b G. Boyes, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology, and the English Folk Revival (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 0-71902-914-7, p. 214.
^ E. D. Gregory, Victorian Songhunters: the Recovery and Editing of English Vernacular Ballads and Folk Lyrics, 1820-1883 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2006), ISBN 0-81085-703-0, p. 248.
^ Folk North West, http://www.folknorthwest.co.uk/harry_boardman.htm, retrieved 16/02/09.
^ ^a ^b P. Frame, Pete Frame's Rockin' Around Britain: Rock'n'Roll Landmarks of the UK and Ireland (London: Music Sales Group, 1999), ISBN 0-71196-973-6, pp. 72-6.
^ J, C. Falstaff, ‘Roy Harper Longest Running Underground Act’, Dirty Linen, 50 (Feb/Mar '94), http://www.dirtylinen.com/feature/50harper.html, 16/02/09.
^ S. Broughton, M. Ellingham and R. Trillo, World Music: Africa, Europe and the Middle East (Rough Guides, 1999), ISBN 1-85828-635-2, p. 67.
^ 'Festivals', Folk and Roots, http://www.folkandroots.co.uk/festivals.html, retrieved 08/01/09.
^ R. Cowgill and P. Holman, Music in the British Provinces, 1690-1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007), ISBN 0-75463-160-5, p. 207.
^ R. Southey, Music-Making in North-East England During the Eighteenth Century (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), ISBN 0-75465-097-9, pp. 131-2.
^ D. Russell, Popular Music in England, 1840-1914: a Social History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), ISBN 0-71902-361-0, p. 163.
^ A. Baines, The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), ISBN 0-19311-334-1, p. 41.
^ D. Russell, Popular Music in England, 1840-1914: a Social History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), ISBN 0-71902-361-0, p. 230.
^ D. Clark and J. Staines, Rough Guide to Classical Music (Rough Guides, 3rd edn., 2001), ISBN 1-85828-721-9, p. 568.
^ L. Jenkins, While Spring and Summer Sang: Thomas Beecham and the Music of Frederick Delius (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005), ISBN 0-75460-721-6, p. 1.
^ J. McCabe, Alan Rawsthorne: Portrait of a Composer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), ISBN 0198166931.
^ A. Lamb, Leslie Stuart: Composer of Floradora (London: Routledge, 2002), ISBN 0-41593-747-7.
^ M. Kennedy, The History of the Royal Manchester College of Music, 1893-1972 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1971), ISBN 0-71900-435-7.
^ A. H. Goldman, The Lives of John Lennon (A Capella, 2001), ISBN 1-55652-399-8, p. 92.
^ "'Dreamers' star Freddie Garrity dies" Daily Telegraph, 20/05/2006, accessed 1 August 2007.
^ V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, p. 532.
^ V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 1316-7.
^ S. Cohen, Rock Culture in Liverpool: Popular Music in the Making (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), ISBN 0-19816-178-6, p. 14.
^ Keating, Sheila (11 June 2005). "Food detective: Bury black pudding". The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article1080357.ece. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
^ History of fish and chips
^ "Lancashire Cheese History". Lancashire Cheese Makers. http://www.lancashirecheese.com/history.htm. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
^ "EU Protected Food Names Scheme: Beacon Fell traditional Lancashire cheese". Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/industry/regional/foodname/products/registered/beacon.htm. Retrieved 14 October 2009.

Bibliography

Filmography

Whistle Down the Wind, 1961, directed by Bryan Forbes and set at the foot of Worsaw Hill and in Burnley, starring local Lancashire schoolchildren

Lancashire.html

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