Victorian Chorley
Sometimes, things happen to us without us really noticing. How often have we looked at our house and garden and decided that they are clean and tidy, only to realise a week or so later that our rooms are covered in dust and our flowerbeds full of weeds? Things can happen unnoticed on a global scale as well; consider the rise of information technology and the internet, or the onset of climate change. Both have huge implications for humankind, but have apparently just appeared and grown in significance in an unchecked, unplanned way.
Something as far reaching came about in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the industrial revolution transformed first Britain, then the rest of the world. Over the course of fifty years or so, the population of the UK massively increased, and at the same time, the majority of people found themselves living in towns and cities rather than rural areas, and working in factories rather than agriculture. This enormous demographic change occurred in a largely unplanned, unmanaged way, and while it made the lives of some better, it led to severe hardship for others. Hardship was made greater by the laissez-faire approach of successive British governments, who prioritised economic growth over the welfare of the population, and were tardy at establishing the physical and social infrastructure that the new towns and cities needed.
As the centre of the cotton textile industry, Lancashire was in the vanguard of the economic and demographic changes brought about by the industrial revolution, and its little market towns, including Chorley, were transformed into huge manufacturing centres. In my article ‘Georgian Chorley’, I related how Chorley grew and industrialised in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In this article I will consider Chorley during the reign of Queen Victoria (reigned 1837-1901), and will focus on how the town slowly came to terms with the changes that the industrial revolution had brought about.
The demographic changes that happened to Chorley in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were stark. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Chorley was a small market town, with a population no greater than 1,000. By 1801, its population had increased fourfold to 4,516. By 1841, early in Victoria’s reign, it had trebled again, to 13,139, and by the end of her reign in 1901, it had doubled once more to 26,852, representing a near six-fold increase during the course of the nineteenth century. By way of comparison, the population of England and Wales as a whole increased 3.65 times during the same period (Preston grew at a greater rate, from 12.000 in 1801 to 115,483 in 1901, a nine-fold increase). While Chorley remained among the smaller towns in the Lancashire cotton manufacturing area, it was still a massive upheaval for its residents and community leaders to absorb. How the town adapted during the Victorian era is the subject of this article.
Victorian Values
Politicians today sometimes wistfully hark back to ‘Victorian values’, and suggest that Britain would be a better place if we returned to them. But what did the Victorians value, and how did their values affect British society in the 19th century?
Utilitarianism: This provided the ethical underpinning for Victorian social and economic policy. Derived from the writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism held that it was morally right for people to seek pleasure and well-being and avoid pain and discomfort. Acts and entities were held to be good to the extent that they were useful in promoting well-being – and anything that promoted individual well-being was good. If individuals' needs and wishes conflicted with each other, society should be based on the principle of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. In principle, these ideas are uncontroversial, but in the hands of the Victorians they could produce a harsh, individualistic and unfeeling society. Individual desires were prioritised over the common good. Economic usefulness was prioritised over human needs. The needs of the few rich and powerful were prioritised over those of the many poor (conveniently forgetting the ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ principle). Charles Dickens bitterly criticised utilitarianism in his novel Hard Times, portraying a fictional grim, factory-filled, worker-oppressing town that existed solely to make money for its factory owners. He named it Coketown, but it was modelled on Preston.
Free-Market Economics: This was the economic expression of utilitarianism. Following the theories of Adam Smith and others, the Victorians promoted free trade, with a minimum of tariffs and constraints, and industrialists and entrepreneurs wanted nothing to get in the way of their ability to grow their businesses. Successive governments agreed with them, and were reluctant to pass legislation to improve living and working conditions for the masses, lest it reduced profits. The provision of utilities, education and other social institutions was left to private enterprise, or to charities. Consequently, towns and cities grew in an unplanned way, with minimal provision for public health, education or leisure, and maximum opportunity for factory owners to make money.
Imperialism: The British were proud of their empire, which by the end of the Victorian period was the most extensive that the world had seen. The British empire promoted free trade - by ensuring that most of it was British trade. Supported by the British Navy, the empire allowed Britain to maintain its prominent position in global politics. It provided a ready market for the goods produced by British factories, sometimes by suppressing competing industries in the countries that Britain ruled. It cemented the British feeling of superiority over other nations and races, and allowed the British to regard it as natural that their officials and missionaries exercised social control (sometimes violently) to ‘civilise’ client peoples. Colonies such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa also allowed Britain to rid itself of some of its unwanted poor through emigration, especially from Ireland and Scotland, and of criminals through court sentences of transportation.
British (male, upper-class) Exceptionalism: Society in Victorian times was profoundly class-ridden and unequal. The rich were universally regarded as superior to the mass of poor and under-educated workers that produced the goods and worked the land that made them wealthy. The British way of life and its social, legal and political institutions were regarded as superior to those of the rest of the world. Other European nations, their governments and institutions, were regarded as second-rate, and non-white races as little more than savages (it must be remembered that until the 1860s the cotton worked by Chorley’s textile manufacturers had been gathered by slaves). Women were inferior to men – the Victorian attitude to women would be viewed approvingly by today’s Taliban. Women were unable to vote, become members of parliament, take university degrees or join professions such as law, medicine or the Church. Middle class and upper class women were discouraged from working, their role being that of homemaker. Lower class women often had to work, to make ends meet, but were regarded disdainfully for doing so (while being exploited unmercifully). Even the much-vaunted Victorian prudery around sexuality only really applied to women – men could more-or-less do what they liked and ‘fallen women’ got the blame for their misdemeanours.
Self-help: The laissez-faire attitudes of Victorian governments, and the relative lack of social and economic provision for the poor was offset in part by charities, churches and self-help movements. Savings Clubs and Friendly Societies helped workers save for a rainy day and church schools and Mechanics Institutes offered opportunities for education and self-improvement. Trades Unions became tentatively established, and later in the century, 'going off' clubs helped workers save for a few days annual holiday in resorts such as Blackpool.
Progress: Underpinning all these values was the overriding sense among the Victorians that their age was one of progress – and there certainly were profound changes made during the sixty years of Victoria’s reign. Progress, of course, meant different things to different groups. Women, of all classes, could be forgiven for thinking that progress had passed them by, as their social and political lot changed little. But for the technically-minded, progress meant ever better machines, goods and products, as displayed at the hugely popular Great Exhibition of 1851 (the environmental consequences of manufacturing industry were, of course, largely ignored). For factory owners and businessmen, progress meant using their wealth to join the landed elite by ‘purchasing an estate’ and taking on the life of a country gentleman. For imperialists, progress meant bringing more and more of the world under the 'Pax Britannica'. For the growing ‘white collar’ middle classes, progress meant a house with a garden in one of the newly-expanding suburbs. And the working classes saw progress too. Reluctantly, governments were persuaded, often through lobbying by social reformers, to pass legislation improving their living conditions. By the end of the Victorian period, public health (and life expectancy) had improved; universal free schooling had been provided; working hours and conditions, though still austere by modern standards, were shorter and better; leisure hours and provision were enhanced, and most men (though still no women) had the vote. A few years after the death of Victoria, state pensions were introduced. Progress had been made – though the poor, and the subject peoples of the empire, may have felt that it had not gone far or quickly enough, and for millions, life in Victorian times was tough.
So these were the values, positive or otherwise, that underpinned Victorian society. We will move on to focus on how these values influenced little Chorley during Victorian times, and the changes that happened to the town during Victoria’s sixty year reign.
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| A sign of progress. Chorley's Victorian Town Hall, opened in 1879 to replace the previous, 1802 building |
Industry and Commerce
The driver for the 19th century expansion of Chorley was, of course, the expansion of the cotton industry in the town. In the 1820s, there were two cotton spinning mills in Chorley, supported by a few hundred home-based handloom weavers. By the mid-1840s, four firms operated a total of eight mills. A spate of new mill building happened during the 1850s, as handloom weaving was gradually replaced by mechanised weaving sheds. There were periodic slumps, especially during the “cotton famine” of the early 1860s, caused by the reduction of cotton imports during the American Civil War, but by 1891 there were sixteen cotton manufacturing firms in Chorley, with over twenty factories, several carrying out both spinning and weaving. Outside the town, there were also mills for the ‘finishing’ trades (bleaching, dyeing and printing) at Heapey, Lower Healey and Birkacre. By far the largest proportion of Chorley’s working population was employed by the cotton textile industry. Prominent mill-owning families included the Smethursts, who ran the North Street Mills; the Lawrences, whose mills were around Lyons Lane, and the Browns, with mills on Friday Street and East Way, to the east of the railway station.
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| Chorley's oldest surviving mill, a spinning mill on Standish Street rebuilt following fire in 1829. It was owned by the Lightoller family firm until it went bankrupt in 1881, and was then taken over by James Gillett, who owned nearby Brunswick weaving mill. After WWII it became a printing works. In 2021 it was announced that the mill would become apartments, but at the time of writing it is still derelict. |
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| Many former mill sites have been repurposed as retail parks or industrial estates. The site of Victoria mill, another Lightoller factory, is now occupied by a Morrisons supermarket. The mill's chimney remains as a monument - and a source of free advertising |
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| The site of Lyons Lane mills, owned by William Lawrence and Sons, is now an industrial estate and housing. Only a small memorial remains to two of Chorley's larger cotton factories. |
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| Primrose mill, on Friday Street, is one of Chorley's last surviving weaving sheds. It was owned by George Brown and Co., who also owned a spinning mill on nearby East Street. Primrose mill now houses an auction house and other businesses, but it's founding date is still displayed over the main entrance. |
The next most prominent industry in Chorley, albeit employing ten times fewer people, was coal mining. There were pits encroaching on the town centre itself, while other workers walked each day to pits at Birkacre, Coppull and Duxbury. A variety of small firms pursued other industries. For much of the century there was a rope walk running parallel to West Street, off Market Street. From the 1860s a railway wagon works, situated in George Street, manufactured wagons for the national railway companies as well as for mines and other industrial concerns; it continued to trade until the 1920s. A former cotton mill, Waterloo Mill on Water Street, was converted to manufacture linoleum by the firm of Thomas Witter and Co. Finally, there were some small ironworking and engineering firms, including the Phoenix Foundry, first situated on Water Street and later on Steeley Lane, and the little firm of Richard Baxendale and Sons, established in 1866 in a small factory on Albert Street and still trading, under its modern name of Baxi.
Along with the rise of industry, Chorley maintained its position as the local market town. The permanent market moved to its current site in the 1820s. In the early 1870s, waste land off Union Street was levelled and became the site of the cattle market. It became known as the Flat Iron (no one knows why), and weekly markets and other events were held there until recently, when it was swallowed up by new development.
Local Government
As late as the 1820s, Chorley's government resembled that of a medieval village. In charge was the Lord of the Manor, Thomas Gillibrand of Gillibrand Hall, who convened regular 'Courts Leet' to consider misdemeanours and 'nuisances'. Law and order was maintained by a single Constable, supported by a local magistrate. The Parish Vestry administered the Poor Law and concerned itself with other local matters. The provision of amenities such as gas lighting and piped water, was left to private enterprise.
Thomas Gillibrand died in 1828 and his son Henry allowed the courts leet to lapse, although he continued to act as a magistrate. He died in 1854, and the Lordship of the Manor passed to his nineteen-year-old son, who promptly blew himself up while unwisely smoking a cigar during a visit to Chorley colliery. He was succeeded by his sister, who married and moved away from Chorley, thus ending the family's increasingly tenuous role in the town's affairs. The Poor Law Act of 1834 passed responsibility from the Parish Vestry to the newly founded Chorley Poor Law Union (which also embraced Leyland and the surrounding rural areas), with the focus of provision being the Workhouse on Eaves Lane (later Eaves Lane hospital, and now a modern housing estate), which was rebuilt and enlarged in 1872. The role of Constable was abolished when Chorley came under the Leyland Police district in 1846.
These factors meant that by 1850 there was effectively no specific local government for the town of Chorley, despite its massive population increase. This vacuum was filled in 1854 by the establishment of an Improvement Commission (discussed further in the next section), which became a de facto town council. It was a semi-democratic body, with a limited electorate of wealthier rate payers. It was dominated by local mill-owners, and tended to reflect their interests, though it did carry out various public works during its 26-year existence, including a new Town Hall (the present building, pictured above), opened in 1879. But by then, local pressure was for Chorley to become a borough, with a council elected by a wider franchise and reflecting a wider range of interests, and the town was granted borough status in 1881 (though the first Mayor was, inevitably, a cotton-master, Augustus Smethurst).
Finally, a reorganisation of constituencies in 1885 led to Chorley gaining its own seat in Parliament. Its first M.P. was Joseph Fielden, a Conservative from Blackburn.
Public Health
In 1852, Robert Rawlinson, a surveyor and civil engineer, visited Chorley (where his father had once worked as a stonemason) to inspect the sanitary conditions of the town on behalf of the General Board of Health. This body had been established following the passing into law of the Public Health Act of 1848, the government's response to concerns about the state of sanitation in British towns, and in particular to outbreaks of cholera. The Act empowered the General Board of Health to make inspections of towns and recommendations for public health improvements.
Mr Rawlinson encountered a degree of complacency among Chorley's elite. Dr Thomas Bamford, surgeon to the Chorley Poor Law Union, told him that "the general opinion of the inhabitants was that Chorley was one of the healthiest towns in the kingdom", and he himself regarded it as a healthy place. Statistics told otherwise, however: Chorley's average age of death was 24 years 10 months, while in a similar sized town in Furness (Ulverston) it was 41 years 8 months. Chorley's death rate of 31 per 1000 was well above the 23 per 1000 threshold for implementing the Public Health Act and was similar to that of nearby Preston, which had the reputation of being one of the deadliest towns in the country.
The reasons were familiar to Mr Rawlinson, who had witnessed them in many other Lancashire cotton towns. Firstly, housing for the working class was of poor quality, often with inadequate ventilation and protection from damp, and frequently overcrowded. Of particular concern were cellar dwellings, often repurposed handloom weaving workshops, in which families lived semi-underground in damp and dark conditions. The worst areas were around Water Street and Bengal Street (ironically adjacent to Hollinshead Street and Park Road, where Chorley's elite lived), and the area adjoining Bolton Street (which included Standish Street, where Chorley's Irish immigrants tended to congregate, often in very overcrowded conditions). Secondly, only half of the dwellings in the town had piped water supplied by the Water Company, the rest using water from wells that was of poorer quality. Thirdly, and most importantly, sanitation and waste disposal were inadequate. Most houses had outdoor privies in yards over 'long-drop' cesspits, that were cleaned out infrequently and often leaked. There were few sewers; much refuse was dumped into the river Chor, which was effectively an open sewer as it ran through Astley Park, or flooded the streets, which were poorly drained. Fourthly, graveyards were a health hazard: at the time, cremation was illegal and burials had to be in consecrated ground, which meant that graveyards became over-filled, with new burials on top of previous ones, and smells, fluids and sometimes bones leaking out of the ground. Finally, there was little recognition among the poor of the need for cleanliness (or the ability to achieve it), and many kept pigs and other livestock in their yards, adding to the existing health hazards. Rawlinson observed that the suspension of the role of the court leet in dealing with 'nuisances' had likely contributed to the accumulation of squalour in the town.
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| Typical Victorian houses on Crown Street, built in the 1860s. The front doors of adjacent houses are close to each other, with a shared lobby that leads to the yards behind. In the yard was the privy, usually of the 'long drop' design, with a cesspit under the seat that was infrequently emptied, the waste being removed through the lobby. In poorer houses, the lobby and yard were often used to keep pigs or chickens. Such insanitary conditions were a breeding-ground for infectious diseases. Crown Street was, nevertheless, a slightly more upmarket road, as the houses had three bedrooms and a separate kitchen and scullery, and were occupied by skilled artisans, factory overseers, schoolteachers and the like. |
Mr Rawlinson's recommendation was that Chorley establish a Local Board of Health, as permitted by the Public Health Act: an elected body of ratepayers with the power to raise money for health related improvements. Instead, as noted above, Chorley's ratepayers opted for an Improvement Commission, a smaller, less representative body with more limited powers, that was dominated by cotton masters and generally served their interests (by contrast, Preston had had an Improvement Commission since 1817 and set up a Local Board of Health in 1850). The Improvement Commission did, however, make some improvements. A new sewerage system was installed (engineered by Robert Rawlinson), with a main sewer to take waste away from the River Chor; the municipal cemetery was set up off St Thomas's Road; steps were taken to phase out cellar dwellings, and improved gas street lighting was installed (and, of course, there was the new Town Hall). Later in the century, the Borough Council established a sewage disposal works, and the town's first cottage hospital was opened in Gillibrand Street in 1891. The death rate remained high, however, as it did in neighbouring Preston, and did not fall significantly until the 20th Century.
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| Houses built in the 1850s on St George's Street for members of Chorley's elite. Cotton manufacturers, medical practitioners and other professionals lived here. The archway in the middle of the terrace led to stables sited behind the houses. St George's church was built in the 1820s to supplement the medieval church of St Laurence's, and was joined during Victorian times by St Peter's and St James's. |
Infrastructure, Institutions and Amenities
Chorley grew at an unprecedented rate during the first half of the 19th century, and its underpinning infrastructure struggled to keep up, not helped by the vacuum in leadership in the town, and the reluctance of national government to force social change. The town's facilities developed in a piecemeal fashion, through a combination of private enterprise, churches and charities, individual donations and, somewhat reluctantly, the Improvement Commission and, later, the Borough Council. It took until the end of the century for Chorley to gain the essentials of a modern town.
Transport: By the start of Victoria's reign, Chorley was served by the Wigan to Preston turnpike road, that ran through the centre of the town along Market Street and Park Road. In 1843, the Chorley to Finnington Bar turnpike was completed (the last turnpike to be established in Lancashire), linking Chorley to Blackburn. The Leeds-Liverpool and Lancaster canals ran through the town, with wharves at Botany Bay. In 1843, transportation was transformed when the Bolton to Preston railway reached Chorley, and in 1869 the line from Wigan through Chorley to Blackburn was completed.
Churches: Chorley's medieval church, St Laurence's, became a parish church as late as 1793, but by 1825 it had been joined by St George's. As the town grew, St Peter's church was added in 1851 and a fourth parish church, St James in 1872. St Mary's Catholic Church was completed in 1854 (its "medieval mockery" entrance arch on Market Street was added in 1912). Methodism was strong in the town, with early chapels being replaced in 1842 by a fine building on Park Road. By the end of the century there were also chapels for Independent and Primitive Methodists. A Unitarian chapel had been established on Park Street in the 1720s, and a Congregationalist chapel on Hollinshead Street in 1792. Baptists were less numerous in Chorley, but had a small chapel in Chapel Street.
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| Chorley's Victorian Non-conformist churches tended to be austere. This Baptist chapel on Chapel Street has been somewhat improved by the modern frontage of Malcolm's Musicland. |
Education: Prior to the 1870s there was no compulsory education in the UK, and little state involvement in education. Chorley, like other towns, had a patchwork of schools. The Grammar school had been established in 1602, for the sons of the 'middling sort', and in 1868 it moved from its site adjacent to St Laurence's church to a new building on Queens Road (this site is now a car park). In the early 20th century it merged with the newly built Technical School on Union Street (now Chorley's central library; the descendant of the technical school is Parklands High School). Elementary education for the poor was largely provided by Church organisations. A Church of England National School opened in 1826 at the bottom of Market Street, and during the century Church schools proliferated, with Catholic, Methodist and Unitarian schools being added to newly founded C of E Parish schools. The influence of the Churches on education in Chorley has continued today; nine of the thirteen primary schools in the town are voluntary aided Church schools, as are two of the five secondary schools.
A Mechanics Institute for adult education opened in a former Methodist chapel on Chapel Street in 1844, and public lectures were held from time to time in the Town Hall. Chorley's first public library opened in 1899 on Avondale Road, with start-up funds donated by H.T. Parke of Withnell Fold Paper Works (the council was reluctant to spend ratepayers money on a library, and at least some councillors preferred the working class to remain ignorant).
Leisure
Factory workers in the first half of the 19th century did not have much leisure time. Those employed in manufacturing in the UK worked an average of 63 hours per week in the 1830s, and in Lancashire it often exceeded that figure; a shift in a cotton mill could be from 5.30 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. (with breaks), six days per week. Until their working days were limited to 10 hours in the 1850s, women and children's shifts could be as long as the men's. The only day off was Sunday.
Leisure activities were consequentially limited. The main options were to go to church, or to go to the pub. There were nine churches of different denominations in Chorley by the mid-1850s – and no fewer than 69 inns, taverns and beerhouses. Churches began to organise activities to try to persuade men to keep out of the pubs.
There were some traditional leisure occasions. Whit Sunday was 'walking day', when children and adults paraded around the neighbourhood in processions organised by churches and societies. The fairs, held at Easter and early September, included stalls and attractions as well as markets (after 1874, the fairs were held on the Flatiron cattle market). Bowling was well established by mid-century, with three bowling greens in the town by 1846.
Chorley's first cricket club was established in 1848, originally playing on a long-lost ground at Whittle Springs. The team included members of cotton-owning families such as the Lightollers and Smethursts, along with paid professionals. Chorley football club was founded in the mid-1870s, originally playing rugby football, but switching to association football in 1883. The cricket and football clubs organised an annual athletics event that attracted large numbers of entrants and spectators and included running races and, later, cycling races.
There was a theatre of sorts in the town from the 1860s, and travelling circuses and other attractions visited on occasion. In 1893 an impressario named George Tiesto Sante (really George Mulhall from Salford) opened a theatre in a large wooden building on the edge of the flatiron, and attracted a wide range of acts and artistes to the town (sadly, it burned down in 1914).
By the end of the 19th century, the average working week in the UK had fallen to 54 hours, and a new leisure attraction had swept the Lancashire cotton manufacturing towns – the seaside holiday. The advent of the railways had brought the seaside within reach of the working classes, and a portion of the relatively good wages earned in the cotton mills could be put aside in a 'going-off club' to pay for a holiday.
There was no paid annual leave (it did not become mandatory in the UK until 1939), but as the 19th century went on, workers gradually negotiated more unpaid leave days with the mill owners, all mills in the town closing at the same time. In the 1860s, Chorley's mill workers had just two holiday days each year, enough for a day trip by train to Blackpool, Southport or Liverpool, and a 'walking day'. In 1872, representatives of Chorley's Friendly Societies negotiated holidays on the Friday and Saturday of Whit Week, and the first Saturday of August. By 1887, the annual holiday stretched from Thursday afternoon until the following Monday, enough for a few days by the seaside (some ventured as far as the Isle of Man). By the late 1890s, 'Chorley holidays' lasted a full week (Chorley's mill workers achieving this milestone before those of Burnley and Bolton), and Scotland and Ireland vied with Blackpool and the other Lancashire resorts as destinations. At first, most holidays were arranged by Churches or Friendly Societies, but by the turn of the century many families made their own arrangements for going away. The tradition of 'Chorley holidays' lasted well into the 20th century, but the decline of large-scale manufacturing in the area has led to the practice dying out.
Conclusion
The increase in Chorley's population slowed as the town entered the 20th century, though new mills continued to be built in its early years, including the massive Talbot mill, built in 1906 on the eastern side of the canal. Gradually, however, the cotton industry died out, as cheaper foreign imports began to dominate the market, and one by one Chorley's mills closed. Many have been demolished, their sites repurposed as retail parks, industrial estates, or housing. New large-scale industries came to employ many Chorley residents, such as Leyland Motors, Baxi and the Royal Ordnance factory, but these have now also disappeared or shrunk in size, and most Chorleyites now work in the public or service sectors, often commuting to larger towns such as Preston or Manchester. Surprisingly little remains of Victorian Chorley. There are still some streets of terraced houses and Victorian churches, and the Improvement Commission's town hall still dominates the town centre, but many other public buildings (such as the grammar school, the workhouse, the cottage hospital, the original library) have been replaced and demolished along with the mills and other industries that gave Chorley its raison d'etre in the 19th century. Even the Flatiron, a focus for the community for nearly 150 years, has gone, swallowed up by retail and hospitality buildings (and car parking).
At the beginning of Victoria's reign, the people of Chorley were experiencing some of the worst aspects of utilitarianism and free market economics. There was a vacuum in local government and the town was dominated by the penny-pinching self-interest of the cotton masters. Such public services as existed had been established by private enterprise and did not reach the whole of the population. Daily life for mill workers was as gruelling as that in Dickens's Hard Times, and the complacent local attitude that Chorley was a healthy and pleasant place was shattered by Robert Rawlinson's devastating report. People in Chorley were dying at a greater rate, and at a younger age, than those in towns outside the cotton-manufacturing belt.
As the century wore on, progress was made, albeit slowly and in the face of the reluctance of the bosses to spend money on their workers (though they did provide a self-aggrandising town hall). Some mill-owning families, such as the Smethursts, were more charitable than others, and donations from other wealthy locals, such as H.T. Parke, who gave funds for Chorley's first public library, assisted the town's development. Self-help flourished in the town, and the churches provided a focus for alleviating the lot of Chorley's factory workers. But perhaps the biggest sign of progress of all was that, by the end of the Victorian era, Chorley closed for a week each year, and everyone went on holiday.
Sources Used
Historic Maps available at National Library of Scotland
Newspaper articles available at the British Newspaper Archive
Trade Directories available at Historical Directories of England and Wales
Census Returns available at The Genealogist
Heyes J (1994) A History of Chorley. Lancashire County Books
Hodkinson K (1987) Old Chorley: A pictorial record of bygone days. CKD Publications
Morgan N (1993) Deadly Dwellings: The Shocking Story of Housing and Public Health in a Lancashire Cotton Town. Mullion Books
Smith J (2017) Secret Chorley. Amberley Publishing
Wilson A.N. (2002) The Victorians. Arrow Books
