Rochedale

Rochedale, a thriving manufacturing town of Lancashire, a municipal, parliamentary, and county borough, on the Roche, 11 miles N. by E. of Manchester and 202 NNW. of London. St Chad's parish church, on an eminence approached by a flight of 122 steps, dates from the 12th century, but is mainly Perpendicular in style. It is a handsome edifice, on which £10,000 was expended in 1884-85. The town-hall, erected in 1866-71, is a very fine Domestic Gothic building. The town besides has an infirmary (1883), a free grammar-school, founded in 1565 by Archbishop Parker, and rebuilt in 1846, a free library (1884), a post-office (1875), public baths (1868), a bronze statue of John Bright (1891), and a public park of 12 acres. Still, many as are the improvements in the architectural and sanitary condition of Rochedale within recent years, it is beautiful only in site, and derives its importance wholly from its extensive and varied manufactures. To the growing of wool was added a trade in woollen goods in the days of Elizabeth, when cotton goods also were sold here, and coal-pits worked. Under the Stuarts the woollen manufacture was in full activity; but it was not till 1795 that the first cotton-mill was built, in which in 1802 the father of John Bright began his career as a weaver. Flannels and calicoes are now the staple manufactures, but there are also cotton-mills, foundries, ironworks, machine-shops, &c. Rochedale is the birthplace of Co-operation (q.v.), and the membership of its Equitable Pioneers' Society (1844) has increased from 28 to over 11,000, with an annual business representing more than a quarter million. Since 1832 Rochedale has returned one member to parliament, and in 1856 it was incorporated as a municipal borough. The latter in 1872 was made co-terminous with the parliamentary borough, whose boundary had been extended in 1867. The manor of Rochedale (Recedam in Domesday) was originally held by the Lacys of Pontefract, and through their descendants, the Dukes of Lancaster, passed to the crown. In 1628 it was sold to Sir John Byron, whose descendant, the poet Lord Byron (of Rochedale), sold it in 1823. Pop. of parliamentary borough (1851) 29,195; (1891) 71,458. See the history of the parish by Fishwick (1889).