Description
Warrington, a parliamentary and municipal borough, a market-town, a township, and a parish, in Lancashire. The town stands on the river Mersey at an intersection of railways near the Sankey and the Manchester Ship Canals, 18 miles by road E of Liverpool, and 182 by rail from London. It is thought by some antiquaries, but not on good evidence, to date from the ancient British times, and to occupy the site of a Roman station; was known to the Saxons as Weringtun, and at Domesday as Wallintun; belonged in 1379 to the Botelers, who then founded an Augustinian friary; possessed importance for commanding a practicable ford on. the Mersey; acquired there in 1496 a bridge which was used by Henry VII. on his visit to Lathom, and which occasioned the place thenceforth to be regarded as a military key to Lancashire; was garrisoned by the Royalists, and twice taken from them by the Parliamentarians, in the Civil Wars of Charles I.; was the scene of a defeat of the Scots in 1648, and of a defeat of the Royalists in 1651 by Lambert; was. the scene also of the capture of part of Charles Edward's insurgent army in 1745. It had as masters or pupils of an academy founded here in 1757, Dr Aikin, Dr Priestley, Dr Taylor, author of the " Hebrew Concordance," Enfield, author of the "Speaker," and the Rev. G. Wakefield. It gives the title of Earl to Earl Stamford. It was made a parliamentary borough in 1832, and a municipal borough in 1847; sends one member to Parliament, and is governed by a mayor, 9 aldermen, and 27 councillors, has a separate commission of the peace, is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and publishes three newspapers. It consists partly of spacious well-built streets, partly of narrow ill-built ones, some of which have been much improved, and has a head post office, two railway stations, three banks, a town-hall, a public hall, a market-hall, a theatre, public baths, several churches, numerous dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a public cemetery, a museum, library, and art gallery, a bridewell, an endowed grammar school, a blue-coat school, a school of art, erected in 1883, a clergymen's daughters' college, a training college for national schoolmistresses, a temperance hall, Liberal, Conservative, and gentlemen's clubs, an infirmary and dispensary, an infectious diseases hospital, a gymnasium, built in 1891-92, almshouses, and a workhouse.
The Bankquay railway station was erected in 1854 at a cost of nearly £30,000. The town-hall, formerly the seat of Lord Winmarleigh, was purchased by the corporation, together with the grounds of over 18 acres, in 1872, for the sum of £22,000. The grounds have been thrown open to the public as a park. A new public hall was erected in 1895. It consists of a large hall, 90 by 48 1/4 feet, surrounded by corridors, and with galleries capable of accommodating about 2000 people. The public baths were erected in 1866 at a cost of £2000, and were purchased by the corporation in 1873. St Elphin's Church is Decorated English and cruciform, and was restored in 1862-67 at a cost of more than £15,000. Trinity Church was built in 1761, St Paul's in 1830, St Anne's in 1869; St Peter's, in the Gothic style, was erected in 1890; St Bamabas, in the Early English style, was erected in 1881. The museum and library was erected in 1857, was enlarged in 1876 and in 1881, is highly ornamental, and contains about 20,000 volumes. The grammar school was founded in 1526 and rebuilt in 1864, is a handsome red brick edifice, and has about £900 a year from endowment, and three exhibitions of £50 per annum. The blue-coat school was founded in 1665 and. rebuilt in 1782; it lodges, boards, clothes, and educates fifty-seven children, admits day scholars, and has £1500 a year from endowment. The clergymen's daughters' college and the training college are under one roof, and form a great pile of buildings in the Elizabethan style. The infirmary and dispensary is also in the Elizabethan style, and was erected; in 1872; and the infectious diseases hospital was built in 1878 at a cost of £7000. The workhouse stands on an. isolated spot, and includes a general hospital, a fever hospital, lunatic and vagrant wards, and a chapel, and will hold about 400 inmates. A weekly market is held on Wednesday, fairs on 18 July and 30 November, and there are cotton mills, a large soap manufactory, extensive forges, iron foundries, chemical works, breweries, mailings, wire-drawing establishments, and manufactories of pins, files, tools, bar and rod iron, weighing machines, glass, and glass bottles. It is also the centre of the northern tanning trade for heavy sole leather, and there are more than twenty-five tanneries within a radius of a few miles a great part of the leather used in the manufacture of boots for the army and police being made in the neighbourhood. Large docks have been constructed here in connection with the Manchester Ship Canal, and at Latchford are the first locks from the entrance to the canal. The municipal and parliamentary boroughs are not co-extensive- the former was extended by the Warrington Extension and Water Act, 1890. They both include parts of the townships of Warrington, Latchford, and Thelwall. Acreage of municipal borough, 1975; population, 52,743; of the parliamentary borough, 55,349.
The township of Warrington comprises 2811 acres of land and 76 of water; population, 49,124. The parish contains also the townships of Burtonwood, Poulton-with-Fearnhead, Woolston-with-Martinscroft, and Rixton-with-GIazebrook. The manor came to the Botelers in the time of Henry III., passed to the Earl of Leicester in the time of Elizabeth, went afterwards through many hands, and belongs now to the Blackburne family. There are six ecclesiastical parishes viz.-St Elphin's (the mother parish; population, 13,628), St Paul's (formed in 1839; population, 7195), St Anne's (constituted in 1868; population, 6960), Holy Trinity (constituted in 1870; population, 6346), St Peter's (constituted in 1874; population, 8729), and St Barnabas', Bankquay (formed in 1884; population, 5863). The living of St Elphin's is a rectory, and the others are vicarages in the diocese of Liverpool. Net value of St Elphin's, £530 with residence: patron, Lord Lilford; of St Paul's, £200 with residence; of St Anne's, £169 : patrons, Simeon's Trustees; gross value of Holy Trinity, St Peter's, and St Barnabas, £380, £149, and £200: patrons, respectively the Eector of Warrington, the Rector of Warrington and Vicar of St Paul's alternately, and the Vicar of St Paul's. St Luke's Church was erected in 1893 at a cost of nearly £5500, with accommodation for 500 persons. It consists of chancel, nave, and N aisle. The livings of Burtonwood, Hollinfare, and Padgate are separate benefices.
