Description
Eccles, an ancient parish and a municipal borough, incorporated in 1892, in Lancashire. The parish lies on the Manchester Ship Canal, and on the Manchester and Liverpool railway, 4 miles W of Manchester, and has a station on the railway, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Manchester. Eccles, Monton, and Winton, form a district governed by a mayor and corporation. The parish is lighted with gas by the Salford Corporation, and supplied with water by the Corporation of Manchester. It is in reality a suburb of these boroughs. Area of the parish, 22,004 acres; population, 29,633. A town-hall was erected in 1881 by the local board at a cost of about £5000. The Eccles Junior Liberal Club was erected in 1890, and the Barton-upon-Irwell Liberal and Conservative Clubs in 1879 and 1881 respectively. There are two weekly newspapers. Many of the inhabitants are employed in cotton and silk mills, and the town is noted for its cakes. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester; gross value, o£900 with residence. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church belonged anciently to Whalley Abbey, contains monuments of the Breretons and the Booths, and is in good condition. The Church of St Andrew's is a building in the Early English style, erected by subscription and consecrated in 1879; it contains a memorial window, erected in 1886, to Dr Eraser, the late Bishop of Manchester. The living is a perpetual curacy; gross value, £400 with residence, in the gift of trustees. Trinity Church (Reformed Church of England) is an iron building erected in 1886. There are Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, New Connexion, Primitive, and United Welsh Methodist chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, and a Friends' meetinghouse. Ainsworth the lexicographer was a native, and the Eight Hon. W. Huskisson, after sustaining a deadly accident at the opening of the railway, died in the parsonage.
Eccles Parliamentary Division of South-east Lancashire was formed under the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, and returns one member to the House of Commons. Population, 78,102. The division includes the following:- Manchester (part of)-Barton-upon-Irwell, Clifton, Flixton, Pendlebury (such part as is not included in the municipal borough of Salford), Urmston, Worsley.
