ACCRINGTON - Lancashire County Council

Lancashire Historic Town Survey
Accrington
from 1848 by the enforcement of the Nuisances Removal Act (Babbage 1850, 15).
However, it was clear that overall improvement in sanitary conditions could be occasioned
only if the town’s development was controlled and basic standards enforced.
Under the remit of the Public Health Act of 1848, a Local Board of Health was constituted
for the two townships in 1853 (Farrer and Brownbill 1911, 426; Atkinson 1972, 31), giving
Accrington the beginnings of an urban local government. In 1859 a resolution to combine
the townships of Old and New Hold into one parliamentary borough was passed (Whalley
nd, 1). It was not until 1878, however, that the two townships joined and Accrington was
incorporated (Farrer and Brownbill 1911, 426). This allowed Accrington to enforce byelaws
under the terms of the Public Health Act of 1875 to improve, amongst other matters, house
and road building standards and sanitation (Turner and Hodson 1928, 101). By the 1880s
the municipal borough extended over an area of 3425 acres (Croston 1889, 413).
Urban expansion in the later nineteenth century
A highly significant event for the future development of Accrington had occurred before the
formation of a Local Board in 1853 – the arrival of the railway. In 1848 the East Lancashire
Railway Company simultaneously opened railway lines linking Accrington with Blackburn,
Burnley and Manchester (Singleton 1928, 31), creating a triangular rail terminus to the west
of the then built-up area.
The coming of the railways and the forming of the Local Board must have been partly
responsible for the unprecedented growth Accrington experienced during the 1850s.
Primarily as a result of immigration, the population of the two townships which made up
Accrington increased from 10,374 in 1851 to 17,688 in 1861 (Tindall 1943, 16; Lupton
1981, 19). As a result, by 1856 more new streets had been laid out on a gridiron pattern to
the east of Abbey Street between Birtwistle Street and the Blackburn-Burnley railway line,
as well as north of the line towards the Hag Works, around the Globe Works, and to the
south of Broad Oak Mill (AGWC Plans 1-4). In all, 62 new streets were built between 1850
and 1856 and others, including Royds Street, Edmund Street and Robert Nuttall Street,
had been planned but not laid out (Babbage 1850; AGWC Plans 1-4). Many of the new
streets were only gradually built up over the next two decades (LRO MBAC acc 8099/1).
However, blocks of streets built to a gridiron plan developed over the next fifty years. By
1870 they had formed a ring around the old town centre (Atkinson 1972, 19). By the 1880s
even the seeming barrier to development posed by the grounds of Accrington House had
been overcome, with the mansion itself demolished in 1889 (Whalley nd, 19) and its site
sealed in the 1890s under Clarendon Street, Oswald Street and Spencer Street (AGWC
Plan 6; LRO MBAC acc 8099/1). In the peak years for house building in Accrington – 1881
and 1889 – 339 and 310 new houses respectively were made available for occupation
(Singleton 1928, 73). Much of the town’s present character is owed to the later nineteenthcentury
developments.
Industrial sites
Accrington continued to grow as a centre for the textiles industry in the later nineteenth
century, being primarily concerned with calico printing and cotton weaving. The textile
industry spawned an engineering industry that eventually became more important to the
town’s success than textiles. In 1853 a loom manufactory was established which grew into
the Globe Works, an engineering plant producing cotton spinning and weaving machinery.
This was the foremost engineering works in later nineteenth-century Accrington. By 1894
this had grown to occupy a large area to the south of the railway station (OS 1894).
Further major expansions were undertaken in the later 1890s (LRO MBAC acc 8099/1). In
the early 1860s the works employed a workforce of 500, but this rose to a peak of 6000 in
the early 1920s (Randall 2000, 36-41). Such manufactories with their large workforces
fuelled the population expansion of Accrington and its development of services and
facilities.
© Lancashire County Council 2005 26