Description
Widnes, a manufacturing town, a township, a municipal borough, and an ecclesiastical parish, in Prescot parish, Lancashire. The town stands on the river Mersey, 8 miles from Prescot, 11 ESE of Liverpool, and 189 from London; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts. It began in 1847 to be a seat of extensive chemical works; produces annually a large quantity of the several products of soda, and of nitrogenised bone manure; has likewise copper-smelting, silver, borax, and size works, iron-works, foundries, soap, locomotive and waggon grease, oil and paint works, and sailcloth manufactories, and exports coal largely. It has a head post office, five stations on the L. & N.W., the Cheshire Lines Committee, and Sheffield and Midland Joint railways, waterworks constructed in 1869 at a cost of £40,000, a town-hall, Liberal and Conservative clubs, a county court-house, a county police station, a technical school and public library, erected in 1894-95 at a cost of about £10,000, a theatre, three churches, a chapel of ease, Roman Catholic, Congregational, Primitive and Free Methodist, Welsh Congregational, Welsh Presbyterian, and Wesleyan chapels, a drill-hall, baths, assembly-rooms, an hospital for infectious diseases, and an accident hospital. A cemetery was laid out in 1895. There are also docks and an iron bridge over the Mersey, standing on two stone piers; it is 1000 feet long and 95 feet above high-water mark. The township comprises 3025 acres of land and 314 of water; population, 30,011. It was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1892, and is divided into six wards. The manor belongs to the Hutchinson family. There are two ecclesiastical parishes-St Mary's, constituted in 1859; population, 18,608; and St Ambrose's, constituted in 1884: population, 5840. The livings are a vicarage and a perpetual curacy respectively in the diocese of Liverpool; gross value of St Mary's, £330; of St Ambrose's, £225, both with residences. St Mary's Church was built in 1856, and consists of chancel, nave, and bell-turret; St Ambrose's is in the Early English style, was erected in 1883, and consists of chancel, nave, and aisles. St Paul's, a chapel of ease to St Mary's, is a handsome structure, and consists of chancel, nave, and aisles.
Widnes Parliamentary Division of South-West Lancashire was formed under the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885, and returns one member to the House of Commons. Population, 64,507. The division includes the following:- Prescot (part of)-Crouton, Ditton, Huyton-with-Roby, Torbock, Widnes, Garston; Childwall (part of)-Allerton, Hale, Halewood, Speke, Woolton (Little), Woolton (Much).
