Professional Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning Wigan, Greater Manchester

05/08/2021

The history of Wigan

Wigan is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas, 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Bolton, 12 miles (19 km) north of Warrington and 16 miles (25.7 km) northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and its administrative centre. The town has a population of 103,608, and a wider borough of 318,100. Wigan is within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire.

Wigan was in the territory of the Brigantes, an ancient Celtic tribe that ruled much of what is now northern England. The Brigantes were subjugated in the Roman conquest of Britain and the Roman settlement of Coccium established where Wigan lies.

Wigan was incorporated as a borough in 1246, following the issue of a charter by King Henry III of England. At the end of the Middle Ages, it was one of four boroughs in Lancashire established by Royal charter.

The Industrial Revolution saw a dramatic economic expansion and rapid rise in population. Wigan became a major mill town and coal mining district; at its peak, there were 1,000 pit shafts within 5 miles (8 km) of the town centre. Coal mining ceased in the later 20th century.

Wigan Pier, a wharf on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, was made famous by the writer George Orwell. In his book The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell highlighted the poor working and living conditions of inhabitants in the 1930s. Following the decline of heavy industry, Wigan Pier’s warehouses and wharves became a local heritage centre and cultural quarter. The DW Stadium is home to Wigan Athletic Football Club and Wigan Warriors Rugby League Football Club.

Etymology

The name Wigan has been dated to at least the 7th century, and probably originally meant a “village” or “settlement”. It has also been suggested that the name is Celtic, named after a person called Wigan, a name corresponding to Gaulish Vicanus, Old Welsh Uuicant or Old Breton Uuicon. This may have been linked with Tre (meaning homestead) to give the original name of Trewigan. Derivation from Brittonic *wig, ‘dwelling’, plus the nominal suffix -an has also been suggested (c.f. numerous places in France named Le Vigan). The name of the town has been recorded variously as Wigan in 1199, Wygayn in 1240, and Wygan in numerous historical documents.

Brigantes Wigan

There is very little evidence of prehistoric activity in the area, especially pre-Iron Age; however, Celtic names in the area around Wigan—such as Bryn, Makerfield and Ince—indicate that the Celtic people of Britain were active in the area in the Iron Age.

Roman Wigan

In the 1st century, the area was conquered by the Romans. The late 2nd-century Antonine Itinerary mentions a Roman settlement called Coccium 17 miles (27 km) from the Roman fort at Manchester (Mamucium) and 20 miles (32 km) from the fort at Ribchester (Bremetennacum). Although the distances are slightly out, it has been assumed that Coccium is Roman Wigan.
Possible derivations of Coccium include the Latin coccum, meaning “scarlet in colour, scarlet cloth”, or from cocus, meaning “cook”. Over the years chance finds (coins and pottery) provided clear indications that a Roman settlement existed at Wigan, although its size and status remained unknown. In 2005 investigations ahead of the Grand Arcade development, and in 2008 at the Joint Service Centre development, have proven that Wigan was a significant Roman site in the late first and second centuries AD. The excavated remains of ditches at Ship Yard off Millgate were consistent with use by the Roman military and possibly formed part of the defences for a fort or a temporary camp. More remains were excavated to the south, in the area of McEwen’s Yard (opposite Wigan baths), where foundations of a large and important building were discovered, together with many other Roman features. The building is 36 by 18 metres (118 by 59 ft) in size with stone walls and a tiled roof. It contained around nine or ten rooms including three with hypocausts. It had a collonaded portico on the northern side, which presumably formed the main entrance. The structure’s ground plan and the presence of the hypocausts show it may have been a bathhouse. A timber building excavated at the Joint Service Centre (top of the Wiend) has been interpreted as a barrack block. This suggests a Roman fort occupied the crest of the hill, taking advantage of the strategic position overlooking the River Douglas. The evidence gained from these excavations shows that Wigan was an important Roman settlement, and was almost certainly the place referred to as Coccium in the Antonine Itinerary.

Anglo-Saxons Wigan

In the Anglo-Saxon period, the area was probably under the control of the Northumbrians and later the Mercians. In the early 10th century there was an influx of Scandinavians expelled from Ireland. This can be seen in place names such as Scholes – now a part of Wigan – which derives from the Scandinavian skali meaning “hut”. Further evidence comes from some street names in Wigan which have Scandinavian origins.

Domesday Book Wigan

Wigan is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, possibly because it was included in the Neweton barony (now Newton-le-Willows). It is wrongly claimed that the mention of a church in the manor of Neweton, which actually refers to the church of St.Oswald (Winwick), is Wigan Parish Church. The rectors of the parish church were lords of the manor of Wigan, a sub-manor of Neweton, until the 19th century. Wigan was incorporated as a borough in 1246 following the issue of a charter by King Henry III to John Maunsell, the local church rector and lord of the manor.
The borough was later granted another charter in 1257–1258, allowing the lord of the manor to hold a market every Monday and two annual fairs. The town is recorded on the earliest surviving map of Britain, the Gough Map made around 1360, which highlights its position on the main western north-south highway with distance markers to Preston and Warrington.

Edward II visited Wigan in 1323 in an effort to stabilise the region which had been the source of the Banastre Rebellion in 1315. Edward stayed in nearby Upholland Priory and held court in the town over a period of several days. During the medieval period, Wigan expanded and prospered and in 1536, antiquarian John Leland described the town, saying “Wigan paved; as big as Warrington and better built. There is one parish church amid the town. Some merchants, some artificers, some farmers”.

Civil War Wigan

In the English Civil War, most people in the town were Royalists and James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, a prominent and influential Royalist in the civil war, made Wigan his headquarters. His forces successfully captured Preston but failed in assaults on Manchester and Lancaster and two attempts to capture Bolton. Abandoning attempts to secure Lancashire, he took his forces to the Isle of Man to secure his holdings there. The Earl of Derby was absent when Wigan fell, despite fortifications built around the town, Wigan was captured by Parliamentarian forces on 1 April 1643, the takeover was complete in two hours and the town was pillaged before the defences were broken down and the Parliamentarians retreated. In 1648, Royalist forces under James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, occupied Wigan after they had been defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Preston. The soldiers looted the town as they retreated to Warrington, and afterwards, it experienced pestilence. Cromwell himself described Wigan as “a great and poor town, and very malignant”.

The Battle of Wigan Lane was fought on 25 August 1651 during the Third English Civil War, between 1,500 Royalists under the command of the James Stanley, Earl of Derby marching to join the King at Worcester and 3,000 of the New Model Army under the command of Colonel Robert Lilburne hunting them. Lilburne arrived at Wigan to find the Royalists leaving to march towards Manchester but with his force consisting mostly of cavalry recognised it would be dangerous to engage in the narrow lanes around the town and decided to wait for his foot soldiers to arrive and flank the town. The Royalists seeing an opportunity to engage the divided force turned around to engage but Lilburne decided to hold his ground deploying cavalry on Wigan Lane and infantry in the hedgerows to the sides, The Royalists made several charges but after two hours were unable to break the Parliamentarian line and were forced to flee after being overwhelmed by superior numbers. Although Stanley was injured he managed to find refuge in the town. David Craine states, “those who did not fall in the fighting [were] hunted to their death through the countryside”.
A monument on Wigan Lane marks the place where Sir Thomas Tyldesley a Major General commanding the Royalist troops fell, it was erected 28 years after the battle in 1679 by Alexander Rigby, Tyldesley’s standard-bearer.

Industrial Revolution Wigan

Wigan was described by Celia Fiennes, a traveller, in 1698 as “a pretty market town built of stone and brick”. In 1720, the moot hall was rebuilt, funded by the members of the borough. It was used as the town hall and the earliest reference to it dates from the 15th century. Prior to its final destruction in 1869, the hall was rebuilt in 1829. Wigan’s status as a centre for coal production, engineering and textiles in the 18th century led to the Douglas Navigation in the 1740s, the canalisation of part of the River Douglas and later the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The canal from Liverpool to Leeds was originally to serve Wigan on a spur, transporting cloth and food grown on the West Lancashire Plain to the Port of Liverpool. When construction restarted in the 1790s, after a decades pause, coal was rising in importance due to the progress of the Industrial Revolution. The route was altered at the request of mill owners, with the spur becoming the primary route and Wigan a hub for transport of coal from the Lancashire coal pits to Liverpool and Leeds.

As a mill town, Wigan was an important centre of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, but it was not until the 1800s that cotton factories began to spread into the town. This was due to a dearth of fast-flowing streams and rivers in the area, but by 1818 there were eight cotton mills in the Wallgate part of Wigan. In 1818 William Woods introduced the first power looms to the Wigan cotton mills. These mills swiftly became infamous for their dangerous and unbearable conditions, low pay and use of child labour. As well as being a mill town, Wigan was also an important centre for coal production. It was recorded that in 1854 there were 54 collieries in and around the town, about a sixth of all collieries in Lancashire.

In the 1830s Wigan became one of the first towns in Britain to be served by a railway; the line had connections to Preston and the Manchester and Liverpool Railway. Wigan began to dominate as a cotton town in the late 19th century, and this lasted until the mid-20th century.

Modern-day Wigan

In 1911 the town was described as an “industrial town … occupying the greater part of the township, whilst its collieries, factories … fill the atmosphere with smoke”. After the Second World War, there was a boom followed by a slump from which Wigan’s textile industry did not recover. While the town’s cotton and coal industries declined in the 20th century, the engineering industry did not go into recession. The last working cotton mill, May Mill, closed in 1980.

In 1937, Wigan was prominently featured in George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier which dealt, in large part, with the living conditions of England’s working poor. Some have embraced the Orwellian link, as it has provided the area with a modest tourist base over the years. Others regard this connection as disappointing, considering it an insinuation that Wigan is no better now than it was at the time of Orwell’s writing.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Greater Manchester is one of the country’s most successful city regions. Home to more than 2.8 million people and with an economy bigger than that of Wales or Northern Ireland. Our vision is to make Greater Manchester one of the best places in the world to grow up, get on and grow old. We’re getting there through a combination of economic growth, and the reform of public services.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is made up of the ten Greater Manchester councils and Mayor, who work with other local services, businesses, communities and other partners to improve the Greater Manchester City Region.

The ten councils (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan) have worked together voluntarily for many years on issues that affect everyone in the region, like transport, regeneration and attracting investment.