Chorley and South Ribble History Pages

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 occurr

‘ The two most fascinating subjects in the universe are sex and the 18th century’ – Bridget Brophy Sorry, but this article is about the 18 th century. It was indeed a fascinating time, when Britain gradually evolved from a rather sleepy agricultural nation into the world’s first industrial economy and global power. The massive changes that began during the Georgian ‘long eighteenth century’ even touched little Chorley, sited as it was in one of the cradles of industrialisation. In this article, we will focus on Chorley in Georgian times, and consider how it became part of industrial Lancashire (the history of sex in Chorley remains to be written – though probably not by me). The 18th Century Manse adjacent to Chorley Unitarian Chapel, the childhood home of Sir Henry Tate The Georgian Period – the Long Eighteenth Century The Georgian period covers the reigns of the four successive Hanoverian King Georges, who held the British throne from 1714 to 1830. The scene was set