The county was the cradle of the industrial revolution. Faster roads, the pioneers of the canal system, and the new-fangled railways all helped to make the county the 'workhouse of the world'. Men, women and children worked in a huge variety of industries.
The county was
most famous for its cotton and coal, but it was home to other industries such as
glass, transport, engineering and ship-building. Many Lancashire products were on show at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Cotton goods were still
Britain’s largest export at the turn of the twentieth century. The Manchester Ship Canal, which opened in 1894, had rejuvenated
Lancashire manufacturing after a trade slump.
But two world wars, and foreign competition, led to an inexorable
decline in the fortunes of Lancashire’s most famous industries: one by one,
cotton mills and coal mines closed their gates for good.
If your ancestor worked in Lancashire, then try searching local record office catalogues for accident registers, apprenticeship records, cash books, friendly society records, sick club records, staff records, pensions, wage books, trade union records etc., which are all useful sources for genealogy.
Images from author's collection:
Steam
manufactory, Bolton, Lancashire
Illustrated, 1832. Rothwell, Hick & Co.’s works made steam engines and
industrial machinery. Horse power was still important even during the age of steam; horses were used to haul locomotives round
the factory.
Wigan
pit brow lassies. Cassell’s Illustrated History of England
Vol. IX, (Cassell, Petter and Galpin, c.1874).
Shipment
of Lancashire locomotives and rolling stock at Manchester Docks, Lancashire Industrial & Commercial,
1935.
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