Lancashire Archives: Red Rose Collections

Lancashire Archives, Preston has just launched its new online digital resource, the Red Rose Collections. (It replaces the old Lancashire Lantern website). This wonderful resource includes: over 30,000 historic photos, an index to old Lancashire newspapers, an index to historical documents including Whittingham Asylum records, an index to the Preston Guild Rolls 1397-1992, an index of officers who served in Lancashire Constabulary, and the Fleetwood Online Archive of Trawlers.
If you find a record relating to the ancestor you are interested in, then you can contact Lancashire Archives and order a copy (but sadly an ordering facility is not currently available for the photos of Fleetwood trawlers).
There is also an ongoing project to index people and places named in the local history book collection, these indexes will appear on the Lancashire Libraries catalogue.
I did a 'quick search' for 'Manchester', and 'Salford' in the online search box and there were over 2000 results for Manchester and nearly 800 for Salford, so if your ancestors came from those cities or any other towns in historic Lancashire, it's well worth your time exploring the site.

It's worrying, however, that Lancashire County Council is thinking of making more changes to services like libraries owing to the unprecedented squeeze on local authority funding by the government - this is on top of the recent closures of five Lancashire's museums.
To think when I was growing up, I took it for granted that amenities like libraries and museums and social housing were an immutable part of the landscape. By the Tories' austerity ideology has run its full course we will have nothing left. There would be plenty of money for all these facilities if the big corporations and businesses paid a meaningful amount of tax instead of parking it offshore. In my humble opinion, anyway.

Roman Catholic Ancestors

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

My latest feature for Your Family History magazine (November issue) is on tracing Roman Catholic ancestors.

In 1534 Henry VIII severed the country’s links with Rome and the Pope, and the Anglican Church was born. Elizabeth I confirmed the Anglican Church’s status with the Act of Supremacy (1559), and the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer. 

 Although there were penalties for ‘recusancy’, Roman Catholics wished to be baptized and married according to the rites of their church. Lancashire families in particular clung on stubbornly to the ‘old religion’. So your Catholic ancestors may have been baptized, or married, once in an Anglican church, and again in a Catholic church in secret.
Things improved for Catholics following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.

Furness Abbey.

I’ll be exploring this subject further in Tracing Your Manchester and Salford Ancestors, which will be published by Pen and Sword in the spring of next year. In the meantime, the MLFHS website has a free list of RC churches in Manchester and Salford, with addresses and dates of their opening and closure, and name changes.

Images:

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, consecrated in 1967. © Sue Wilkes.

Elizabeth I. Pictorial Record of Remarkable Events, (Frederick Warne & Co., 1896).

Chapter House, Furness Abbey. Engraved by R. Sands from a drawing by T. Allom. People’s Gallery of Engravings Vol.2 (Fisher, Son & Co., 1845). 

Foundlings and Orphans

One of the most famous children’s charities was the Foundling Hospital for unwanted and abandoned infants, founded in 1741 by Captain Thomas Coram. The first premises used by the hospital were some houses in Hatton Garden; later a grand new building was erected near Gray’s Inn. William Hogarth was one of the hospital’s patrons; later famous philanthropist Sir Thomas Bernard was a member of the hospital committee.

When mothers gave their unwanted baby to the hospital, they left a small token to help identify their child in case they ever wanted to reclaim it (only a tiny number ever did).  A silk purse, a coin, and even a lottery ticket were some of the items deposited (John Brownlow, Memoranda, or Chronicles of the Foundling Hospital, Sampson Low, 1847). 

Many charities like the Foundling Hospital, the Female Orphan Asylum at Lambeth (founded by John Fielding in 1758), and the Edinburgh Orphan School, apprenticed out the children in their care when they were old enough.

Some charities specialised in caring for the children of soldiers or seamen, like the Royal Hospital Schools at Greenwich, the ‘cradle of the navy’, founded in 1715. However it was not until 1783 that a special school-room and dormitories for 200 children were built inside the Royal Greenwich Hospital. In 1821 the Royal Hospital Schools merged with the Royal Naval Asylum for naval seamen’s orphans (founded in Paddington in 1798).  The schoolboys in the Hospital moved to the Queen’s House at Greenwich (where the Asylum had moved in 1818). If your ancestor was cared for by one of these institutions, my book Tracing Your Ancestors' Childhood has more information on archives and the types of records available.

Despite the work of charities like these, during the nineteenth century cities like London had ever-growing numbers of orphaned, destitute and criminal children and in my next blog post I’ll be discussing the way that the Victorians tackled these problems.

Images from the author’s collection:

Captain Thomas Coram. Hogarth’s Complete Works, Third Series. Chatto & Windus, 1874.

Orphan School, Edinburgh, Views of Edinburgh and Its Vicinity, 1819.

Royal Naval Schools, Greenwich:  ‘the cradle of the navy’. Old and New London Vol. VI, (Cassell, Petter & Galpin, c. 1895).

Bands of Hope

In my recent feature on youth organizations for Who Do You Think You Are? magazine I looked at the societies and organizations for children and young people which grew up during the nineteenth and early twentieth societies: Scouts and Guides, Bands of Hope, the Boys' Brigade, Church Lads' Brigade, etc.

The misuse of alcohol has caused many social evils down the ages, and in the 1830s several temperance societies like the Independent Order of Rechabites sprang up in the UK. Joseph Livesey of Preston was perhaps the greatest spokesman of the movement.‘Seven men of Preston’, including Livesey, signed the pledge (not to drink intoxicating liquors) at Preston on 1 September 1832. 

Preacher Jabez Tunnicliff  founded a temperance society for children and the first Band of Hope meeting was held at the South Parade Baptist Church, Leeds In 1847.  Members signed a pledge book promising to abstain from alcohol, and were given a certificate in return. Bands of Hope provided activities such as games, sports and outings for their child members.

You can use the records of societies like these to research your ancestors' childhood, and there's more in-depth guidance on the location of their archives, and the types of records available, in my latest book for Pen & Sword.

To get you started, the University of Central Lancashire has put digitised images of its temperance collections online here.  
Images from author's collection:
Procession of juvenile abstainers passing the Scott monument at Edinburgh, Illustrated London News, 19 July 1851.
Titles of temperance tracts 1910.
A book review (image below and left) mentions the Lancashire and Cheshire Band of Hope Union's concerts, with music by William Hoyle, at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.

Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve just signed a new book contract for Pen & Sword! In Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood, I’ll be exploring the history of childhood and education in England and Wales, and discussing relevant records and archives for family historians. I’ll be looking at your ancestors’ childhood experiences at home, school, work, and in institutions such as workhouses for the period from 1750-1950. This handy reference guide will include court records, charities, wartime children, and child emigrants to the USA, Australia and Canada.
I’ll update this blog when more information becomes available about a release date.
Photo: The author growing up in Salford in the 1960s. Author’s collection.

Birmingham Children's Lives

I recently discovered a very interesting new blog about children's lives, a project by Birmingham Archives and Heritage. The blog has historical photos of children and images of documents which give an insight into their lives such as school logbooks, so do take a look if you are interested in exploring your ancestors' childhood records. 

Birmingham was home to the metal trades, such as the manufacture of steel pens. The two biggest factories were Joseph Gillott & Co. and Hinks,Wells & Co. In the 1860s, conditions in Gillott's factory were clean, and few children under thirteen were employed, but at Hinks's works like Jack Parden worked in rags because the vitriol  used to clean the steel strips for the pens splashed onto their clothes. The boys often cut their hands on the metal strips.

I hope to have some exciting news for you soon, so keep checking back for updates! 

Image: Rolling steel for pens at Hinks, Wells & Co., Birmingham. Some of the boy helpers were as young as nine years old. Illustrated London News, 22 February 1851.

Canal Boat Registers

Canal boat or ‘health’ registers were a sanitary measure following George Smith of Coalville’s successful campaign for the statutory regulation of living conditions on board canal boats. Some canal boats, particularly the narrowboats of the midland canals, were extremely overcrowded. The Canal Boat Acts of 1877 and 1884 specified minimum standards for living space and accommodation. Systems of registration and inspection were set up by local sanitary authorities to ensure that the law was complied with. The registers, if they have survived, are a good source for finding out more about your canal ancestors.

For example, the Wigan Canal Boat Registers for the Wigan Urban Registration Authority from 1878 to 1951 have been transcribed and put online by the Wigan Archives Service in collaboration with the Waterways Archive.
The boat’s entry in the register gives the date when the boat was first registered, owner’s name and address, master’s name, place of registration and number, specified what type of boat it was (e.g. fly boat), the number of people it was permitted to carry, and the cabin dimensions. The inspectors' records like these (also transcribed from the Wigan Archives collection), may also contain useful information on your ancestors.

Images: George at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port. A 1910 Leeds and Liverpool short boat built for the Wigan Coal and Iron Co.; a rare survivor. The crew cabin is aft. © Sue Wilkes.
Facsimile of a requisition form for a master boatman’s registration certificate under the Canal Boats Act, 1877. Our Canal Population (London, 1879). Author’s collection.