2015 saw the commemoration of the 300 year anniversary of the Battle of Preston, thought to be the last battle to take place on English soil. The anniversary was marked with events across Preston including re-enactments, talks, tours and workshops, and included participation from local history and community groups, cultural services, the University of Central… Continue reading The 1715 Battle of Preston at The National Archives
Lancaster and the West Indies in the Eighteenth Century
Among the documents deposited at Lancashire Archives by the Governors of Queen Mary’s Grammar School, Clitheroe, is a log book of five voyages made by the big or brigantine Dolphin between Lancaster and the West Indies from 1774 to 1778. Unfortunately, there is no certain information as to how this book came to be among these… Continue reading Lancaster and the West Indies in the Eighteenth Century
Lancashire’s Manorial Records
If you are interested in the history of a particular place and the people who lived there long ago, manorial records are an invaluable resource. The manorial system had its roots in the mists of time and certainly predated the Norman Conquest. It put a Lord (or very occasionally a Lady) in control of a specific… Continue reading Lancashire’s Manorial Records
All of Life, Once a Quarter
The Petitions to Quarter Sessions in the Lancashire Record Office [Ref: QSP] are an extremely large and varied collection of documents beginning in 1606, and apart from a small number of gaps for individual sessions, and a gap in all sessions from 1642/3 to 1646 owing to the Civil War, extend to 1908. They also… Continue reading All of Life, Once a Quarter
A Colourful Past
It might be just me, but I really struggle to imagine the past in colour. Everything pre-1960 for me is pretty much black and white (or sepia) with the occasional smattering of red. So, when I see archives that show the colours people saw around them in the early nineteenth century, it brings me up short, particularly when… Continue reading A Colourful Past
The Letters of Richard Hodgkinson of Atherton
[This article first appeared in the Lancashire Record Office Annual Report for 1961] In 1792 Louis XVI of France had been dethroned and was shortly to be guillotined : in England George III had already reigned for 32 years, the American Colonies had been lost and the country was preparing for the long war with… Continue reading The Letters of Richard Hodgkinson of Atherton
The Scarisbrick Estates
The Scarisbricks were an old Roman Catholic Lancashire family who rose to some prominence in the early nineteenth century as the recipients through marriage of the estates of two other leading Catholic families, the Ecclestons of Eccleston and Sutton, and the Dicconsons of Wrightington and Parbold. The latter were an industrious yeoman family who… Continue reading The Scarisbrick Estates
