Genealogy Chat

Thanks mon ami - interesting website. Liz

Hi Monsieur Leclerc, is this the Accrington area?

'Allo, allo' - I'm not interested in Bacup, just wanted to say I like your name!!

Hi I'd like to share this with you especially if your rellies came from the Bacup area. I've just recieved my Gt Granfathers death cert today, I was curious as to why he died at the early age of 31, well he was crushed to death between the buffers of an engine in a quarry in Bacup. I was then looking for info on where he lived i.e. Temple Court, and looking through LCC website came across this paper that was written on urban renewal http://www*lancashire*gov*.uk/environment/archaeologyandheritage/historictowns/BacupComplete_LowRes.pdf It gives a great insight into the living conditions back then and is well worth a read if it connects with your history. I've copied one para. from the paper which just about sums up what our ancestors had to put up with. It makes you think, well it did me, especially the bit about the 1851 census 'Bacup in the mid–nineteenth century In sharp contrast to the image of opulence and prosperity recorded by Corry in 1825 is the picture of almost unremitting squalor drawn by William Lee, the Superintending Inspector of Public Health, who visited Bacup in 1849. The census figures available for Newchurch township indicate that the population doubled from 8557 in 1821 to 16,915 in 1851, and as Bacup was the most populous part of the township (see pp20-21) it seems likely that the rate of increase there might have been even greater. Certainly, the figure of 8000-10,000 inhabitants suggested by Lee seems to be a considerable underestimation (Lee 1849, 6). At the same time, the town’s residential districts were still confined to the earlier handloom weavers’ cottages along the main roads and the area between Market Street and St James Street, south of the old town centre (OS 1849 1:10,560). This inevitably resulted in gross overcrowding, and at the 1851 census there were 77 houses in the Temple Court area containing 500 people. One four-bedroomed house contained thirteen beds and twentyeight persons, and in one room people slept five to a bed (Bowden 1994, 45). Lee was particularly concerned about the shortage of privies, with ratios of one to ten or more dwellings being commonplace; in King Street people still emptied chamber pots in the street (Lee 1849, 6). Out of 647 houses only 94 were considered adequately supplied with water, and in some cases the nearest well or spring was over half a mile away (Bowden 1994, 46). Lee noted that most of the houses were stone-built and a great number were built in flats or floors with flights of steps outside to the upper dwellings. There were also twenty-six cellar dwellings in the town. He drew attention to some good brick-built cottages in Clay Street, but he was not impressed by the Club Houses, where there were cellar dwellings whose residents had to use the privy at Bankhouse (Lee 1849, 9; Bowden 1991, 15). During this period the mill owners continued to build their own grander residences in Bacup. In about 1856 John Maden built Oak House, which later became the offices of his business, John Maden and Son; Joshua Lord, who had Tong Mill on Burnley Road, provided Bankside House for his son (Ensum nd, 16, 22). '