By Miss I. E. Gaddes, Librarian
The following is an outline list of some of the material held at the Lancaster library [Ed now held primarily at Lancashire County Archives Preston] which may be of interest to researchers in local history.
It is a preliminary listing which will be added to as time permits.
[Ed This information is written prior to the census returns and newspaper archives being readily available on the Internet for a subscription, also available at local libraries]
- Census Enumerator’s Returns these are on microfilm and cover the returns for 1841 (no specific places of birth), 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881. They cover lancaster district, an area within about a 15 mile radius of Lancaster.
- Directories from the 1770’s approximately every five years, to 1970. Earlier directories tend to exclude all but gentry and master tradesmen.
- A “Finding list” of streets is not available until 1899.
- Electoral Rolls or Roll Books from 1784, with a gap from 1888 to 1908 inclusive. They gradually become more comprehensive as electoral reforms extended the franchise. Women appear in the 20th century.
- Rolls of Free Burgesses printed ones cover 1680-1840 and have indexes; professions stated. Father usually named. Originals at Lancaster town hall [Ed may now be at Lancashire County Archives] and in progress. Men only listed.
- Apprentice Registers for Lancaster (microfilm) 1736 to late 19th century. An earlier volume is at Lancaster town hall. Most useful and more comprehensive from 1736 to c.1810. Parent and master and trade are listed. Card index of apprentices in 18th century excludes the town hall’s volume.
- Lancaster Charity School Register 1770-1819. Notes Parentage and future master and trade. Card index of boys.
- Lancaster Royal Grammar School register printed and very selective with short biographical notes of notable scholars.
- Biographical Index and Files the library has an alphabetical index of biographical items including manuscripts which may date back several centuries. Some items have been put in manilla files under the family name. Items are mostly sporadic but for some families we have more numerous documents of printed pedigrees; for instance, Backhouse, Cumming, Faithwaite, Parkinson, Beakbane.
- Biographical and Obituary Cuttings of local notable people from 1800 to 1932. Then there is a gap until the 1950’s when cuttings began to be taken systematically once again.
- Newspaper Index sporadic from 1801 to date. As well as the subject entries there are alphabetical entries under personal names and names of houses and streets. Births, marriages, and deaths have only been entered in detail for the early years of the 19th century. There is a list of the general subject headings which are commonly used.
- Colonel Chippindall’s Files and Books the colonel died in the 1940’s and left a set of files which are kept alphabetically under family name. These include manuscript pedigrees and transcripts of families in the Lune Valley area and some from Lancaster. Colonel Chippindall published books which include much interesting detail on Ireby, Tunstall and Gressingham parishes.
Sets of Transactions and Publications of Societies
- Chetham Society
- Lancashire Parish Register Society (Warton registers, vol 73)
- Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society Transactions
- Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire Catholic Record Society
- Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society
Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 10 Winter 1985
Barry Ayres was an amateur local historian, editor of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) magazine Keer to Kent, a Silverdale and latterly an Arnside resident. He was an active member of the Mourholme and led many history walks in the area. He also collected a large quantity of historic documents relating in particular to local history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After Barry’s death his wife, Monica, donated his files and collections to the Arnside Archive. A small team of volunteers was assembled by the Morecambe Bay Partnership to produce a detailed description of the contents.
This index can be downloaded below. Please note this is a PDF format taken from an excel spreadsheet, so the formatting may be awry. The latter half of the PDF seems to have preserved the tabulation.
The content itself can be access by a visit to the Arnside Archive – details of arrangements are given on their website here.
Farms and Farming in Silverdale before 1914 – Jenny Ager
John Lucas, writing in the eighteenth century described Silverdale and Lindeth as a Kind of Peninsula, almost environd by the Sea and Mosses.
This study looks at the farm owners, occupiers and their families. The area being considered is the village of Silverdale and the hamlet of Lindeth. Silverdale’s area is about 1,1678 acres, Lindeth’s about 576 acres. The time chosen is the early part of the twentieth century, before the First World War brought so many changes in its wake.
The use of fairly recently released material, the Valuation Office survey carried out between 1910 and 1915 and the household schedules of the 1911 census, enable more detailed studies of the people, their work, property and land holdings, to be undertaken than has been possible before.
Landscape History of Leighton Moss – 2012 – Phil Henderson MA
This work examines the history of Leighton Moss Nature Reserve, north-west Lancashire. It looks specifically at how land-form has changed over time, and what the impacts of changes have been on wildlife, specifically avifauna. It relates well to the academic field of historical ecology, and employs a plethora of evidence types, including documentary sources, palaeoenvironmental discovery, and archaeological excavation. Its underlying aim is to show the huge potential of historical research to nature conservation strategy.
Phil Henderson is an amateur landscape historian, with a passion for uncovering and promoting man’s interaction with nature through time. He studied Geography and Mediaeval History at the University of St Andrews, and produced the paper Forest and Fen: The Nature of Wilderness in Mediaeval England in 2010. In 2012 he gained an MA in Landscape Archaeology from the University of York. Professionally Phil has worked for a number of conservation organisations, and is currently employed as an apprentice woodsman in Kent.
Silverdale’s Water Supply 1800-1940 – Michael Wright, 1993
Silverdale had no mains water supply until 1938. Before that date its inhabitants and farm animals were dependent on wells and springs, and on rain water collected from roofs. Why was a piped supply so late in arriving in Silverdale? Michael Wright, once Secretary and then Chairman of the Mourholme Society, completed his dissertation in 1993 for the University of Lancaster Diploma in Local History. The work is amply illustrated with colour photographs, maps, charts and diagrams, and ranges across the geology, geography, social history and local politics of Silverdale and its surrounds. It remains the pre-eminent work on this topic, and is an excellent read too.
The Chimney at Jenny Brown’s Point
In 2014 the Morcambe Bay Partnership (MBP) recruited a team of volunteers – including a number of Mourholme members – to work with some professional archaeologists to examine the chimney at Jenny Brown’s Point. Over a period of 5 years this team undertook documentary research and field investigations. MBP completed a report into the investigations, and with their permission, the report is featured here.
The Yealand Friends’ Meeting School – 2018 – Sheila Jones from research undertaken by Dr Joan Clarke
The Friends Meeting House at Yealand, because of its importance as one of the earliest meetings, and as one that has continued in existence since its inception, has been much written about. However, some time ago notes of her research on the meeting made by Joan Clarke, one of the Mourholme Local History Societys founder members and a great contributor to our books, were given to us in the hopes that we would write them up as she had been unable to before her death. Joans subject was the school rather than the meeting itself, and her interests were all-encompassing: the funding, the schools origin, the school premises, the schools place within Quaker education, its continuity, the curriculum, the teachers and the pupils.
Warton Crag Hilltop Enclosure – 2017 – Historic England
In June 2016 Historic Englands Aerial Investigation & Mapping (AIM) and Assessment Teams North (now both part of the Historic Places Investigation Team within Research Group) were approached by Heritage at Risk (HAR) colleagues in the North West Planning Group to undertake mapping and ground-based investigation of fine resolution (0.25m gridded) lidar data of Warton Crag. The lidar had been commissioned jointly by the HAR team and the Headlands to Headspace (H2H) Landscape Partnership Scheme as part of moves to develop a conservation management plan for a small multi-vallate hilltop enclosure that lies on the summit of the Crag. That monument has traditionally been classified (and is scheduled) as an Iron Age hillfort, but is here re-interpreted as some form of non-defensive hilltop enclosure, possibly dating to the Late Bronze Age.
Click here to visit Historic England’s webpage from where you can download the full report (as a pdf),
