Blackburn

Blackburn, a town of Lancashire, 21 miles NNW. of Manchester, and 9 E. of Preston. It stands on a stream from which it appears to derive its name, a branch of the Ribble. The surrounding district, formerly known as Blackburnshire, or Blagbornshire, was long very wild and dreary, but now is densely populous. Coal was formerly plentiful, and lime still abounds in it. Blackburn had acquired some importance as a market-town in the 16th century. Its manufacturing prosperity can be traced back at least to the middle of the 17th century, when it was noted for the production of a kind of linsey-woolsey known by the name of Blackburn Checks, afterwards superseded by the Blackburn Grays, so called from their being printed unbleached. In the course of the 18th century the cotton manufacture became the chief industry of the town, which is now the largest and most important cotton manufacturing town in the world, the number of cotton-factories being very great, and many of them employing from 1000 to 2000 operatives. Great improvements in machinery for the cotton manufacture have been made in Blackburn, among which the first place in importance as well as in date must be assigned to the invention of the spinning-jenny by James Hargreaves (q.v.), a native of the town, in 1767. His invention, however, was regarded with so much dislike, that he was compelled to remove from the town, and it was not till the beginning of the 19th century that it came into general use. The growing importance of Blackburn is seen best in the increase of its population from 36,629 in 1831 to 63,126 in 1861, to 104,014 in 1881, and to 120,064 at the census of 1891. The chief public buildings are the town-hall (1856), an Italian edifice built at a cost of £30,000, the Gothic exchange (1865), the infirmary (1862), and St Mary's Church, of very ancient foundation, but almost entirely rebuilt (1826-57). There is a corporation park of 50 acres, part of which is 700 feet above sea-level, and commands a wide view; a new Queen's Park of 35 acres was opened on Jubilee day, 1887. The grammar-school was established by Queen Elizabeth in 1567; in 1888 the Prince of Wales laid the foundation-stone of the technical school. Blackburn has returned two members since 1832; and it received its municipal charter in 1851. See Abram's History of Blackburn (1878).