History of St Helens, Merseyside

[5] No archaeological evidence has been uncovered to tie either group specifically to the St Helens area, though Eccleston derives its name from either the Latin Ecclesia or Welsh Eglwys suggesting a link to a church, (none are formally recorded in the township until the 19th century).

[12][13] Before and during this time there was a cotton and linen industry, particularly sail making,[14] that lasted until the mid-19th century as well as salt,[10] lime and alkali pits,[14] copper smelting,[15][16][17] and brewing.

[18] The town and greater area are notable for the construction of the St Helens sections of the Sankey Canal[19] and also the first competition for steam locomotives at the Rainhill Trials.

Some of the most prominent include Windle Chantry (dating to the early 15th century), St Mary's Lowe House (known as "The Poor Man's Cathedral" due to its construction from donated funds from the working class), the red brick Gamble Institute (home to the Central Library and other local authority offices constructed in 1896), the Beechams Clock Tower (built 1877) and The Quaker Friends Meeting House.

Historically this was within the berewick of Hardshaw, a holding in the township of Windle entailing the southern border of that area[23][25] abutting onto the open farmland of Parr to the east, and sharing boundaries with Sutton and Eccleston to the south and west respectively.

The lay of the land was conducive to moving goods to the south and west respectively, towards the larger population centres of ancient Warrington and Chester, plus the rapidly growing and more influential Liverpool.

[7] The manor's name is of unknown origin, but the land within the enlarged estate belonged to several leading families including the Elton Heads, Ravenheads, and Sherdleys.

[8] As a busy thoroughfare it is suggested by historian and genealogist, William Farrer, that a village existed in the vicinity for centuries, later sharing the name of the chapel.

[8] It is known from the diaries of a local Puritan by the name of Adam Martindale,[22] that by the time the King's Head Inn was constructed in 1629 on "the great road" between Warrington and Ormskirk, there were a number of houses, farms and manors in the area.

[22] A school was later built after a donation by local resident John Lyon and in 1679 the Friends Meeting House was established by George Shaw of Bickerstaffe, it is a Grade II Listed building.

[7] Thomas Holland, a local Jesuit priest, was arrested and tried for high treason in October, 1642 as "taking orders by authority of the see of Rome and returning to England" which was the first step in the process of beatification by Pope Leo XIII in 1886.

In 1602 two women were sent to Lancaster Castle for trial, and a decade later, Isobel Roby was submitted to Sir Thomas Gerard, Lord of the Manor, accused of upsetting the ship upon which Princess Anne of Denmark was travelling.

[6] Farrer noted that several old quarries and shafts existed in the area and referred to a "brewery at Portico, and a pottery near Prescot, while glass, watchmakers' tools, and mineral waters are also manufactured".

[6] In contrast two hundred years earlier St Helens was far more scarred and pitted by shallow mining operations, often quickly abandoned, left to flood and prone to collapse.

[25] In 2009, four hundred years after it began, the Council underlined the finality of the coal industries decline in the area when it rejected a planning application for an open cast mine.

[38] Sited on the Lancashire Coalfield, the town was built both physically and metaphorically on coal; the original motto on the borough coat of arms was "Ex Terra Lucem" (roughly translated from Latin to "From the Ground, Light")[39][40][41][42] and local collieries employed up to 5,000 men in the 1970s.

[7][25] In the 18th century coal was the enabling force that opened up opportunities for further commercial and industrial developments,[14] that in turn drove demand for the movement of raw goods not simply out of the town such as coal to Liverpool to fuel its shipping, steel works and its salt works[25] but also in promoting an influx of raw products to be processed within the town itself.

[25] St Helens distant location from the Mersey and its dependence upon strong land transport links emphasised in the 1746 case brought before Parliament made it vital for the townships to continue to promote themselves as rich resource centres essential for the growth of Liverpool, Chester and other coal hungry large industrial towns desperate for raw materials.

[19] The original concept was to make the Sankey Brook navigable, but the result was a fully man-made canal linking St Helens initially to the River Mersey and thereby the city of Liverpool.

The Sankey Canal was opened in 1757, and extended in 1775, to transport coal from the pits in Ravenhead, Haydock and Parr to Liverpool, and for raw materials to be shipped to St Helens.

[25] At the same time the use of machinery for cotton mills such as the spinning mule and later still the forges with the invention of the steam hammer increased the demand exponentially for coal.

[19][25] Copper ore was carried from Amlwch in North Wales to St Helens via the Mersey directly to the point where coal was mined.

The company smelted iron and copper using coal from the Gerard's mines, then moved the end product downstream from a private wharf on the navigable brook.

The global constriction on coal shipments during a turbulent struggle with the US, and the reliance on shipping to the USA during the War of Independence 1775–1783 brought ruin to many and led to the permanent loss of several smaller industries.

[25] The Mining industry recovered when the embargo was lifted, and some lower level smelting returned when the demand for steam engines grew in the later parts of the 19th century.

[25] The abundance of coal, the quality of local sand, the availability of Cheshire salt[10] made glass making an industry in Sutton since 1688 when the French Huguenot descendant John Leaf Snr.

In 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway passed through the southern edge of the town at Rainhill and St Helens Junction, furthering its economic development as a centre of industry.

[46][47] The last colliery in the modern metropolitan borough and in the St Helens area of the South Lancashire Coalfield, was Parkside, in Newton-le-Willows, which was closed in 1992.