Blackburn
Blackburn is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-northwest of Manchester. Blackburn is at the centre of the wider unitary authority area along with the town of Darwen. It is the second largest town in Lancashire.
At the 2011 census, Blackburn had a population of 117,963, whilst the wider borough of Blackburn with Darwen had a population of 150,030; 30.8% of the population of town were people of ethnic backgrounds other than white British.
A former mill town, Blackburn has been the site of textile production since the mid-13th century, when wool was woven in people's houses in the domestic system. Flemish weavers who settled in the area in the 14th century helped to develop the woollen cottage industry. The most rapid period of growth and development in Blackburn's history coincided with the industrialisation and expansion of textile manufacturing.
Blackburn's textile sector fell into decline from the mid-20th century and subsequently faced similar challenges to other post-industrial northern towns, including deindustrialisation, economic deprivation and housing problems. Blackburn has had significant investment and redevelopment since 1958 through government funding and the European Regional Development Fund.
History
Toponymy
The origins of the name are uncertain. It has been suggested that it may be a combination of the River Blakewater, and an Old English word "burn", meaning stream. Local author William Abram, in his 1877 history of the town and parish, cited the ancient name as Blake Burne. Abram also confirms that the region, later known as the Blackburn Hundred, was known as Blakeburneshyre. Blackburn was recorded in Domesday Book as Blacheburne and Blacheburn. By the time of John Speed's map of 1610, the spelling of the town was Blackburn, while the region was Blackburne. There is anecdotal speculation that the name of the town may simply mean "black burn", or "black stream".Prehistory
There is little evidence of prehistoric settlement in the Blakewater valley, in which Blackburn developed. Evidence of activity in the form of two urn burials has been discovered from the Bronze Age in the hills around Blackburn. In 1879, a cinerary urn was discovered at a tumulus at Revidge, north of the town; another was excavated in 1996 at Pleasington Cemetery, west of the town, by gravedigger Grant Higson. The presence of a sacred spring—perhaps in use during the Iron Age—provides evidence of prehistoric activity in the town centre, at All Hallows Spring on Railway Road.Roman era
Blackburn is located where a Roman military road crossed the river Blakewater. The road linked Bremetennacum Veteranorum and Mamucium. The route of the road passed east of Blackburn Cathedral and probably crossed the river in the Salford neighbourhood just east of the modern town centre. It is not clear whether the road predated the settlement.George C. Miller, in his Blackburn: The Evolution of a Cotton Town, says:
The ancient military way from Mamucium to , passing over Blacksnape, plunges on its unswerving course through Blackamoor, over the scarp at Whinney Heights, to pass across the Blakewater in the vicinity of Salford. This fact alone presents a reasonable argument for the existence of a British oppidum or walled village on the site, it being customary for such primitive communities to cluster in the vicinity of a ford or bridge.
According to William Abram :
The Parish of Blackburn contains many interesting vestiges. Three of the four principal roads constructed by the Romans in Lancashire traversed some portion of the Parish : —I. The lower road from the south to Carlisle, intersected the township of Walton-in-le-Dale. 2. The road from Manchester to Overborough crossed the Parish at its broadest part. 3. The road from the sea to the interior, which formed the conmiunication between the "Sistuntian Port" and Ribchester, Ilkley-in-Wharfedale, Aldborough andYork, enters Blackburn Parish at Ribchester, by a ford over the Ribble. The late Rev. E. Sibson, in a paper on the Roman Roads of the Wigan district, speaks of a road of this kind which branched off eastward from Blackrod, "Street-fold and Water-street, near Rivington, and by White Hough, in Tockholes, to the small Roman station at Blackburn, near the new road to Preston."
Roman temple spring at All Hallows
All Hallows Spring was excavated by Antiquarians in 1654 and found to contain an inscribed stone commemorating the dedication of a temple to Serapis by Claudius Hieronymus, legate of Legio VI Victrix.Middle Ages
Christianity is believed to have come to Blackburn by the end of the 6th century, in either 596 or 598 AD. The town was important during the Anglo-Saxon era when the Blackburnshire Hundred came into existence as a territorial division of the kingdom of Northumbria.The name of the town appears in the Domesday Book as both Blacheburne and Blacheburn, a royal manor during the days of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror. Archaeological evidence from the demolition of the medieval parish church on the site of the cathedral in 1820 suggests that a church was built during the late 11th or early 12th century. A market cross was also erected nearby in 1101. The manor came into the possession of Henry de Blackburn, who divided it between his two sons. Later, one half was granted to the monks of Stanlow Abbey and this moiety was subsequently granted to the monks of Whalley Abbey. During the 12th century, the town's importance declined as Clitheroe became the regional centre. In addition to a settlement in the town centre area, there were several other medieval domiciles nearby.
Industrial Revolution and textiles
Textile manufacturing in Blackburn dates from the mid-13th century, when wool produced locally by farmers was woven in their homes. Flemish weavers who settled in the area in the 14th century developed the industry. By 1650 the town was known for the manufacture of blue and white "Blackburn checks", and "Blackburn greys" became famous not long afterwards. By the first half of the 18th century textile manufacture had become Blackburn's main industry. From the mid-18th to the early 20th century Blackburn evolved from a small market town into "the weaving capital of the world", and its population increased from less than 5,000 to over 130,000.John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles provides a profile of Blackburn in 1887:
Blackburn. parl. and mun. bor., parish and township, NE. Lancashire, E. of Preston and NW. of London by rail – par., 48,281 ac., pop. 161,617; township, 3681 ac., pop. 91,958; bor., 6974 ac., pop. 104,014; 4 Banks, 2 newspapers. Market-days, Wednesday and Saturday. It is one of the chief seats of cotton manufacture, besides producing calico, muslin, &c., there being over 140 mills at work. There are also factories for making cotton machinery and steam-engines. Blackburn has been associated with many improvements in the manufacture of cotton, among which was the invention of the "spinning jenny" which was invented in nearby Oswaldtwistle by James Hargreaves, who died in 1770. There are several fine churches and public buildings. A Corporation Park is on the outskirts of the town. Several lines of railway converge here, and pass through one principal station belonging to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Ry. Co. B. returns 2 members to Parliament.
File:Weaving shed, Queen Street Mill - geograph.org.uk - 680867.jpg|thumb|A typical weaving shed at Queen Street Mill Textile Museum, Burnley
From around 1750, cotton textile manufacturing expanded rapidly. Supplied with cotton by merchants, and paid by the piece, cottagers spun cotton into thread and wove it into cloth. The merchants arranged for cloth to be bleached and dyed.
After 1775, spinning mills were built in the town. Early mills were warehouse conversions; the first purpose-built spinning mill was constructed in 1797 and by 1824 there were 24. The number of spindles reached 2.5 million by 1870 and spinning mills were constructed up to that time – 24 since 1850. Spinning declined between 1870 and 1900 as the sector transferred to south Lancashire.
In 18th-century Blackburn, weaving was primarily undertaken by handloom weavers working from their own cottages. However, as powerlooms were introduced into the mills after 1825, the percentage of handloom weavers began to decline and this occurred more rapidly in areas closer to the town. In 1826 the Power-loom riots cam through Blackburn in response to the loss of jobs and low wages. Handloom weavers continued to make up a sizable portion of the workforce in outlying rural areas. The last handloom shop in Blackburn closed in 1894.
1800s
In 1807, the Daniel Thwaites & Co brewery was established; the company is still in business today and is now based at Sykes Holt in Mellor.Improvements to the power loom in the early 1840s, and the construction of a railway line in 1846, led to greater investment in power looms in Blackburn in the second half of that decade. The railway brought opportunities for expansion of the cotton trade, and in subsequent decades many new mills were constructed: between 1850 and 1870, sixty-eight weaving-only and four combined weaving/spinning mills were built and nine weaving mills were built per decade between 1870 and 1890.
Improvements in power loom efficiency meant that weaving, the primary source of wealth and income for handloom weavers, began to transfer from the cottage industry to factories. This led to high rates of unemployment: according to figures published in March 1826, some 60 per cent of all handloom weavers in Blackburn and Rishton, Lower Darwen and Oswaldtwistle were unemployed. High unemployment led to the Lancashire weavers' riots. At 3:00 pm on 24 April 1826, a mob arrived in Blackburn after attacking power looms in Accrington. Proceeding to Bannister Eccles' Jubilee Factory on Jubilee Street, the mob destroyed 212 power looms in the space of 35 minutes. They then turned their attention to John Houghton and Sons' Park Place factory, located nearby, and destroyed another 25 looms, before seeking more machinery to attack. The crowd began to disperse at around 6:00 pm, troops having arrived at 3:30 pm to try to quell the rioting.