Haslingden is a town in the borough of Rossendale, Lancashire, England. It lies north of Manchester. At the time of the 2021 census, the town (including Helmshore) had a population of 15,969. The town is surrounded by high moorland: to the north; Cribden to the east; and Bull Hill to the south.'Murray's Lancashire Architectural Guide', Peter Fleetwood-Hesketh (1955)
The town is the birthplace of the industrialist John Cockerill (1790–1840) and the composer Alan Rawsthorne (1905–1971); it was the home for many years of the Irish Republican leader, Michael Davitt (1846–1906). Haslingden Cricket Club is a member of the Lancashire League.
Toponymy The name Hadlingden means 'valley of the hazels' or 'valley growing with hazels'.Mills, A.D. Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names; rev.2003
History
There is some evidence of Bronze Age human presence in the area of Haslingden. Thirteen Stones Hill is west of the town and probably dates from about 3000BC. There is now just one stone visible.
Part of what is now Haslingden, along with the neighbouring towns of Rawtenstall and Bacup, were part of the Forest of Rossendale, itself part of the Forest of Blackburnshire. During the late 13th and 14th centuries, the forest was a hunting park; the term 'Forest' referred to it being parkland rather than being heavily wooded, as the forest declined much earlier during the Neolithic period. The Forest of Rossendale contained eleven vaccaries (cow pastures) and was poorly populated, with Haslingden being the only town of significance and possessed of a church.Moore, Benita; Dunnachie, Nick; 'Rossendale' Alan Sutton pub. 1994.
Haslingden appears to have held markets during the 16th century, with the first reference in a Court Roll of 1555 where it records a John Radcliffe being fined for being a 'forestaller of the lords market of Haslyngden'. There are later references to markets and fairs in The Shuttleworth Accounts (1582-1621) and the map-maker Richard Blome writing in 1673 describes Haslingden as originally having 'a small Market-town on Wednesdays', and later, at the time of Charles I, the market had been moved to Saturday. The market continued to grow and Haslingden was designated a market town in 1676. It became a coaching station and a significant industrial borough during the Industrial Revolution. Haslingden benefitted in particular with the mechanisation of the wool and cotton spinning and weaving industries from the 18th to the 19th centuries, and the development of watermills, and later steam power. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the diversity and wealth of industry earned the area the name 'The Golden Valley'.
In the 20th century, the population declined from 19,000 in the 1911 census to 15,000 in 1971. The 2001 census recorded a population of 16,849 living in the town.
Railway was once connected to and by railway (Rush, 1983). The East Lancashire Railway built a station here, which remained open to passengers under British Railways until 7 November 1960 and to goods until 2 November 1964. The Bury–Accrington line itself remained in use until December 1966.
Much of the trackbed of the railway is no longer visible, with the A56 by-pass built over it between Grane Road and Blackburn Road; however, the line can still be traced through Helmshore towards Stubbins, where several magnificent viaducts still remain. The East Lancashire Railway Preservation Society was originally established at Helmshore station in the mid 1960s, with the aim of reopening the railway line to Stubbins. The project was abandoned with the organisation relocating to Bury in the 1970s and eventually reopening the Rawtenstall to Bury line.Suggitt, G; 'The Lost Railways of Lancashire'
Industrial Quarrying Haslingden is notable for its stone quarrying and Haslingden Flag (a quartz-based sandstone) was distributed throughout the country in the 19th century with the opening up of the rail network. This stone was used in the paving of London, including Trafalgar Square. Flagstone is a type of sedimentary rock, relatively easy to split or quarry in slabs, and hence ideal for paving. Locally it is also used for making fences and roofing. Geologists have found that it has a hardness and silica content not unlike granite, and its presence was the main reason for the growth of quarrying in Rossendale. Haslingden Flag is unique; two other, common types of flagstone ('rough rocks') are found throughout the Pennines, but a third type is found only in the local Haslingden Flags.
Textiles Like much of East Lancashire, Haslingden has a long association with the textile industry. From the 16th century, after the old Forest of Rossendale was opened up to settlement, farmers raised sheep on the moorlands and made woollen cloth. Initially this was small-scale and local but towards the end of the 18th century cloth workers came together to work in small groups of houses. At the same time advances in technology meant that the first mills were appearing in the area. Most of these were small, water-powered buildings; Haslingden, with its elevated situation, was not a natural place for the development of these early mills. Locally they were situated lower down in the river valleys, such as at nearby Helmshore.The Changing Faces of Rossendale - Production Lines. Rossendale Groundwork Trust and Rossendale Borough Council. 1984.
The long association with wool meant that Haslingden and the other Rossendale towns had expertise with the processes of cloth production, and so were able to switch easily to cotton weaving. Cotton was better suited than wool to industrialised spinning as its fibres were less likely to break than wool. Cotton cloth manufacture quickly became a highly successful industry, and its development was closely associated with its role in the expansion of the slave trade. African slaves being bartered for cotton goods, and cotton being picked by slaves in the Deep South of the U.S.
The growth of mills also had an enormous impact on the landscape and on the lives of its workforce. Cotton weaving in the new factories was largely unregulated and the workforce kept almost at starvation levels. Hunger drove men and women to fight back, and mobs attacked the power-looms that were seen to be the cause of the decline in status of the workforce. In 1826, almost 3,000 people were reported as 'attacking machinery' in Haslingden. A troop of cavalry was stationed in the vicinity, and ring-leaders were arrested. It was reported from Haslingden in the same year that 'a great majority of the unemployed must literally perish from extreme want'. By the 1850 steam power began to supersede water power and mills grew in size.Aspin, Chris; Lancashire: The First Industrial Society, Carnegie 1995 Grudgingly a minimum wage was introduced, and through the efforts of reformers, the churches and a few enlightened mill-owners, conditions for factory workers slowly improved. Conditions were still harsh, despite the whole Rossendale area being known as the 'Golden Valley'. No longer dependent on the rivers as a source of energy, the mill owners were freed to build elsewhere, and Haslingden began to find that successful mills, such as Hargreaves Street Mill, could be built on its higher land.
The long decline of the cotton industry began in the early years of the 20th century. During the First World War, India and Japan were able to develop their own industries and, after the Second World War, immigration – mainly from Pakistan – was encouraged to help bolster a failing industry. By the 1950s, mills were closing at an ever-faster rate. The old buildings were later often reoccupied by small businesses specialising in other occupations.
The Cockerill family William Cockerill (1759-1832) and his son John Cockerill (1790-1840), along with other family members, both sons and daughters, are worth a footnote to the industrial history of Haslingden. Both were born in Haslingden and, as a young man, William showed great skill as an inventor of machinery. The Slubbing Billy, a roving or slubbing machine which twists and draws out yarn, is named after him. Slubbing Billy is also the name of a North West Morris Team. Father and son eventually left Haslingden and settled in Belgium, where they built the John Cockerill company, one of the largest industrial and machinery complexes in mainland Europe. It is said that they instituted the spread of the Industrial Revolution in continental Europe.
William's beginning are obscure, although it is likely that he worked as a blacksmith in Haslingden before travelling to St. Petersburg, Sweden, and finally to Verviers, near Liège, in Belgium. Here he set up spinning and carding machines with his sons Willam, Charles James, and John. John had also been born in Haslingden but moved to Vervier at the age of 12. He was eventually offered a Chateau in Seraing, which then became the heart of Belgium's iron, steel and machine-building industries. He is considered to be the founder of Belgian manufacturing and was known as a humanitarian employer.
Immigration and community In the 19th century, when the cotton industry was thriving, the town became a magnet for immigrants to Britain. In particular, the port of Liverpool was a gateway for waves of immigrants and many of these were attracted by work in the mills. From the late 1840s, a large influx of Irish immigrants forced out of Ireland by the Great Famine of 1846–1852, came to Lancashire and some ended up in Haslingden.Lowe, W.J. 'The Irish in Mid-Victorian Lancashire: The Shaping of a Working-Class Community' (Peter Lang, 1989). At almost the same time, as a result of the political instability in Italy, Italians came to Liverpool and Manchester and a few families moved on to Haslingden. Similarly, in the 1930s, various eastern European refugees fleeing Nazi persecution settled in the area. Immediately after World War II young women from Germany were brought over to work in the mills, and a few came to Haslingden and stayed.Weber-Newth, Dr Inge; German Migrants in Post-War Britain: An Enemy Embrace, Johannes-Dieter Steinert. Routledge 2006
From 1950 onwards, migrants were encouraged to travel from Commonwealth countries to work in the post-war textile industry. Initially this tended to mean young men who travelled from Pakistan, and later Bangladesh, fully expecting to return home after building up their savings. By the 1970s, many were joined by wives and families, settling permanently in Haslingden. As a result, the town is now home to a substantial and vibrant community of people with a South Asian heritage, mainly Bangladeshi and Pakistani. Many of the families come from just a few villages: from the Attock and Mirpur areas of north-west Pakistan, and from Patli Union in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh.Horse and Bamboo: Transcriptions from Interviews with first generation immigrants. Heritage Lottery Fund 2015, available at local libraries.
The town now houses two mosques and a considerable number of Asian grocers and other shops. In the 2011 census, almost 4% of the Rossendale population identify as Muslim, with the majority of these living in Haslingden.
Governance A civil parish was created in 1866 from the township of Haslingden in the ancient parish of Whalley. A local board was formed for the town in 1875 and the district it governed was extended to cover parts of the townships of Henheads, Higher and Lower Booths in the parish of Whalley, and Musbury and part of Tottington in the ancient parish of Bury. Subsequently, Haslingden was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1891 and, in 1894, the civil parish was extended to match the borders of the borough. Following the local government reorganisation; in 1974, Haslingden became part of the Borough of Rossendale.