Updated - March, 2008
Bury Parish Church
Bury Register Office -
Town Hall,
Manchester Road,
Bury,
Lancashire
BL9 0SW.
Tel: 0161 253 6026. E-mail: registrars@bury.gov.uk
Cheques payable to Bury MBC. Credit cards accepted.
BURY FAMOUS PEOPLE FROM BURY BURY WORKHOUSE RADCLIFFE
BURY
Our family surnames of – WOLFENDALE,
BARLOW & CHAPMAN Lived in Bury, as well as Radcliffe.
These
towns are about 8 miles North of Manchester, Lancashire UK.
The borough of Bury has had a few different spellings in the past, including the first spelling as it is now in 1230: - Bur in1190, Byri and Biri in 1247, Burgh in1292, and Byry in 1295.
Bury has grown over the centuries from small Bronze Age settlements along the banks of the river Irwell. By Medieval times, it was a market town for surrounding agriculture areas.
In the early 19th century, the industrial revolution brought prosperity to Bury and the surrounding area, with businesses engaged in the manufacture of cotton, bleaching and calico printing, also paper-making.
POPULATIONS OF BURY IN 1773 AND THE 1800’s
1773 -
2,090 -
463 HOUSES
1801
- 7,072
1811
- 8,762
1821 -
10,583
1831 -
15,086
1841 -
20,710
1851 -
26,155
1861 -
30,397
1871 -
32,611
1881 - 38,667
FAMOUS
PEOPLE FROM BURY
Sir
Robert Peel (1788-1850) - Born at Chamber Hall in Bury, the
famous son of a famous father who owned cotton spinning mills and branched
out into calico printing. Prime Minister in 1834 and again in 1841 for
five years, he was the man who set up the Metropolitan Police Force, they
started with the nickname ‘Peelers’, then ‘Roberts’ and then
‘Bobbies’. Should be remembered for the repeal of the corn laws and
the work that he did cutting back on children working long hours, very
young in the mills and down the mines.
John
Kay (born 1704 at Park, Ramsbottom) - A clever man with an inventive
mind, but lacking the hard-nosed business acumen needed at the time to
make money out of the Fly Shuttle, that he invented in 1733. He was driven
out of Bury by workers who feared a loss of jobs and by the mill-owners
who liked the invention, but didn’t want to pay John Kay the Royalties.
Robert
Kay (son) 1726-1802 - Also an inventor who developed the ‘drop box’
that let patterns and colours come into the weaving.
Henry
Dunster (1609-1659) - First president of Harvard University.
Sir
Edward Ebenezer Kay (1882-1897) - Lord Justice of Appeal
Sir
John Holker (1826-1882) - Attorney General and Lord Justice of Appeal.
Lord
Hewart of Bury (1870-1943) - Lord Chief Justice.
Prof.
Sir John Charnley (1911-1982) - An Orthopaedic surgeon who led the way in
hip surgery and replacement. Freeman of the Borough.
Reg
Harris - World champion cyclist born in the borough in 1920.
John
Spencer - World professional snooker champion, born 1935.
Peter
Skellern - Musician, composer, etc. Born in Bury in 1945, the son of
Councillor Jack Skellern, Mayor of Bury in 1971-2.
Bury Union Workhouse
The Bury Board of Guardians founded the workhouse c1840, the infirmary in
1857. Situated in Rochdale Old Road, Jericho, Bury.
In 1930 it became known as Jericho Hospital, the Public Assistance
Infirmary. In 1948 under the NHS it was renamed as Fairfield General
Hospital
Up
to 1834
In a parliamentary report of 1777, Bury was listed as having a workhouse with accommodation for 50 inmates.
A workhouse also operated at Radcliffe
In
a 1797 survey of the poor in England, it was reported of Bury that:
The Poor are supported partly at home, partly in a Workhouse, where there were in December, 1795, 37 persons of whom 16 were children, 3 young women and the rest old and infirm. Six of the boys are at work at a cotton printer's, and earn from is. 6d. to 3s. a week. The earnings of the others is trifling. The house is in an open airy spot about a mile from the town. The beds are of flock and are tolerably well provided with covering. There are 6 or 7 in each room, and upon the whole the house seems clean and neat. The diet is regulated according to the discretion of the master, but the usual bill of fare is : Breakfast—every day, oatmeal pottage or hasty pudding, bread and beer. Dinner—Sunday, Thursday, bread, broth, beef potatoes, etc. ; other days, bread, butter and potatoes. Supper hasty pudding as at breakfast. In summer milk is supplied with hasty pudding, in winter treacle. Bread and boiled milk is sometimes substituted for hasty pudding.
After
1834
The
Bury Poor Law Union was formally declared on 8th February 1837.
Prior to the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, and for over thirty years after its passing, the Bury Poor Law Union made use of a number of parish workhouses to accommodate its paupers. In 1851, the Poor Law Board proposed the building of a joint workhouse for Bury and the adjacent Union of Rochdale which was in a similar position. In 1852, the Bury Guardians borrowed £6,000 and advertised for plans for a workhouse to accommodate 400 inmates, with a separate 60-bed hospital. A further £8,000 was borrowed in 1855, and in 1856, work on the new buildings commenced. When the workhouse opened in 1858, the total expenditure had risen to £20,481. Over the next twenty years, various additions were made including accommodation for infants in 1862, and for the insane in 1868. In 1876, a new 32-bed infectious hospital was built at the west of the site. It comprised four ward-blocks connected by a wide, open covered way, and was designed in conjunction with the Local Government Board. A contemporary report described the new wards as 'excellent in themselves and greatly in advance of anything hitherto attempted'. Additional buildings erected at the same time included a nurses' home and mortuary.
In 1903-5, a new 126-bed infirmary was erected to the south of the workhouse. Designed by A Hopkinson, and built from Accrington plastic bricks, it comprised a central administrative block flanked by two double pavilions. Accommodation for 17 nurses was provided in the administrative block.
By 1912, the number of inmates in the workhouse was well over 700, including 83 children and vagrants. In 1914 a military hospital was established at the site. The workhouse later became Bury Union Institution, then Jericho Institution.
In 1940, it became a decontamination centre. In the same year, a bomb fell in the grounds but caused relatively little damage or injury.The site is now known as Fairfield hospital and most have the old workhouse blocks have been replaced by modern buildings.
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