Wigan Archives Collections
Welcome to the Wigan Archives Service, Collection Catalogues.
There are several ways to get to know the kind of records held by the Archives Service. The best way to get an over-view of the catalogues is to browse through the Guide to the Archives. This PDF document will give you an overview of the entire archive collection. It is a useful way to get to know the types of records we hold and will give you a starting point for your research. Note: The Guide to the Archives was first published in 1996, and provides the best summary guide to the archive collections. Please be aware that new collections are continually received and may not be listed in this publication. Please contact the Archives if you have any questions about the contents.
Additional Notes
Some Wigan Archives Service catalogues, as well as regional and national collections, are available on two online databases:
Throughout our collections, document reference codes are given. Please quote these codes if you have an enquiry concerning the collections or would like to view any of the records in the Archives Searchroom. If you have any questions about any of the material found here, would like to view any records, or cannot find what you are looking for, please contact the Archives Service on (01942) 404430.
Collections
1. Official Records
Public Records
These are the records of various local bodies and institutions and that are subject to the to the Public Records Act, which makes provision for their preservation and access. Records held by the Archives Service in this collection include the records of local courts (Quarter Sessions, Petty Sessions, Magistrates’, Coroner’s, County), hospitals, the rating assessment committee and motor vehicle licensing.
Official Records - Local Government: Wigan
Charters of 1314, 1662, 1685, 1832, 1836, 1974
Although most of Wigan’s official records were destroyed in the Civil War, the surviving borough records for the 17th and 18th century are very rich. These include burgess lists and the files of the Court Leet, 1626 - 1834, and the Borough Sessions, 1733 - 1971.
Official Records - Local Government: Leigh
Leigh town was divided between the separate townships of Bedford, Pennington and Westleigh until Leigh Local Board was formed in 1875. Leigh received its royal charter and became a Municipal Borough in 1899, which it remained until local government reorganisation in 1974 when it became part of the Wigan Metropolitan Borough.
Archives of the former townships, Leigh Urban District Council (from 1894), Leigh Municipal Borough and Wigan Metropolitan Borough can be consulted in the Archive.
Local Government: Other areas
Archives of other townships, poor law records from the late 17th century, archives of the Local Boards and their successors, the Urban and Rural District Councils. These cover the following areas: Abram, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Aspull, Astley, Atherton, Billinge-and-Winstanley, Golborne, Haigh, Hindley, Ince-in-Makerfield, Pemberton, Shevington, Standish-with-Langtree and Tyldesley.
- Transcript of the names recorded on the Window Tax Assessment of the township of Pennington, 1791
- Wigan Canal Boats, Register and Examinations
2. Boards of Guardians of the Poor
Two Poor Law Unions of Wigan and Leigh covered the Wigan Metropolitan area (G/Wi – Wigan and G/Lei – Leigh). The bulk of records that are found in the Archive are those that were generated by the daily operations of Poor Law Unions such as minute books and receipt books. These records are of interest to a wide variety of historians; economic, social and political. Family historians are most interested in those records that contain personal information. A separate leaflet of the records of most interest to family historians can be obtained from the Archive if you contact us.
- Transcript of the Vaccination Register compiled by the Wigan Poor Law Union listing all persons vaccinated by the Union, including those in the Wigan Workhouse, 1899-1909
3. School Records
The earliest school records in the Archive are from Wigan Grammar School and date from 1597 (SR/WGS). The main bulk of school records date from the late nineteenth century. Many of the records come from schools that have since closed. Admissions Registers are the documents most commonly used for family history.
4. Church Records
The Archives Service has a substantial collection of church records. The Archives Service is the Church of England diocesan repository for records of churches in the deaneries of Wigan and Winwick, whilst the collection includes records from over 80 non-conformist chapels throughout the borough.
Family historians and genealogists will know about well-thumbed church registers but much less used are the other records generated by churches. If you find ancestors in the baptisms, marriages and burials, you may gain additional information from the main collections. Various churches have records giving lists of wardens, council and charity group members and Sunday school pupils. New buildings or renovations brought associated lists of subscribers and older parishes kept rate books for the overseers of the poor; in Lowton these records date from the 1760s. These church records are some of the highlights of our collections.
5. Family and Estate Papers
The Archives hold records from several local landed families and their estates.
The Standish family papers are particularly interesting (DD/St). The papers, comprising mainly eighteenth century correspondence are of particular interest for the insight they provide into the society of the time. The collection also contains papers concerning the Jacobite Plot, or Standish Plot, of the 1690s, which were hidden in a garden wall for over 60 years.
The papers of the Andertons of Ince (DD/An) include some excellent Civil War papers, whilst the Crawford collection comprises records of the Haigh Estate during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (DD/Hai).
The bulk of the archive of the Earls of Crawford, including the Bradshaigh family muniments is available at the National Library of Scotland.
- Haigh Estate Records (Title pages)
- Haigh Estate Records (DD.Haigh)
- Haigh Estate Papers, Additional Records and Correspondence (DD/Hai)
6. Solicitors’ Records
Solicitors Records hold some of the hidden gems of the Archive Collections, including everything from property deeds, to turnpike records, mining company documents and workhouse papers.
The papers of Wright and Appleton contain those of Thomas Grimshaw, town clerk and coroner of Wigan between 1818 and 1835: the collections includes a list of militiamen in receipt of alms (1811), leases for shops and houses beneath the Town Hall (1764-1806 – the original Moot Hall depicted on the town seal and other insignia, including the old Wigan Grammar School badge), and the records of the Wigan Indigent Clothing Society. In Leigh, the records of Marsh, Son & Calvert include important documents relating to the foundation of the Leigh Poor Law Union and the workhouses.
Substantial collections of business records appear in Solicitors’ Collections and were retained as important legal documents, essential to the functioning of business operations. The records of Peace & Ellis, Wigan, include files on various colliery (Abram Coal Co., Wigan Coal & Iron Co., Sankey Brook Coal Co.) and railway companies; Marsh, Son & Calvert contains documents concerning the Astley Estate Co., as well as brewing, malting and public houses in Bedford and Leigh.
- Bullough, Boardman, Knowles and Wilson, Wigan (D/DX/Bul)
- Dootson, Leigh (D/DX/Do)
- Heaton, Ackerley and Pigot, Wigan (D/DX/He)
- Lamb and Moore, Wigan (D/DX/La)
- Taylor, Bridge, Baron and Sykes, Wigan (D/DX/Ta)
- Witham, Weld, London (D/DX/Wel)
7. Trade Unions, Clubs and Societies
The collection of Trade Union, Clubs and Societies papers is extremely varied: from the Wigan Filed Naturalists’ Society and Wigan Field Club (DDS/1); to the Woodworkers’ Union (Wigan Second Branch) (DDS/12); to Atherton Light (Salon) Orchestra minutes (DDS/48). The papers add substance to what we know about people in the past. They tell us more about the actual lives and activities, and remind us that they were more than a birth, marriage and death.
8. Business Records
Many local businesses are documented in these collections. Notably the papers of the Leigh cotton spinners J. and J. Hayes (DDY/Ha) dating from the early nineteenth century. Walker brothers of Wigan were for many years leading manufacturers of mining machinery and general engineering products. Contract books and ledgers are held from the 1860s to the early years of the twentieth century (DDY/Pag).
The Wigan Coal and Iron Company, (DDY/WC) was formed in 1865 by the amalgamation of Lord Crawford’s collieries, with those of the Kirkless Hall and Standish companies. This became the Wigan Coal Corporation in 1930 following reorganisation, and remained thus until nationalisation.
9. Miscellaneous Documents Collections
The Archives Service has two major series of miscellaneous records (anything with a reference beginning MMP or D/DZA). These contain some of the most interesting and unusual items in the Archives.
Assembled in these collections are personal and family papers from all areas of society, diaries and journals, collections of title deeds and other legal documents. There are large collections of posters, pamphlets, leaflets and other ephemera from all manner of organisations, societies and individuals. Documents like election candidates’ flyers, theatre programmes and invitations to dinners and speeches are records never intended to last more than a few weeks or months at the most; now they give us a unique insight into the daily lives of local people.
The collections are listed under the Miscellaneous Manuscript Portfolio and the Miscellaneous Records Collection.
10. Edward Hall Diary Collection
The Archive holds a large, artificial collection of diaries, journals and letter books, donated by Edward Hall, a dealer and collector of books (DDZ/EHC).
The collection is of national and international importance; only a few items concern the Wigan area or even the north-west. The people who wrote these diaries were from a variety or social backgrounds, and lived across the country. An index of authors’ names and a comprehensive catalogue are available for use in the Archive Searchroom. Subject and place name indices are currently under development.
The Archive also has the original diary of Roger Lowe (DDZ/A58). Mr Lowe was a shopkeeper of Ashton and Leigh in the seventeenth century. His diary is a unique resource and provides a fascinating account of life in Ashton.
Transcripts of Diaries from the Edward Hall Collections
- Curiosa: Communications from the Unlettered and their Better
- Diary of Raleigh Trevelyan, schoolboy
- An Anonymous Woman's Travel Journal
- The Travel Diary of Henry Foley
- The Diary of Captain Walker
- The Log and Poetry of Littleton Powis
11. Maps & Plans
A comprehensive set of Ordnance Survey sheets for the Metropolitan Wigan area is available. The original Ordnance Survey maps were not located on a nation-wide National Grid, but as a series of maps each based on an individual county. They are often referred to as the county series or six-inch maps of c1847.
The 25-inch series was based on the six-inch maps. Each grid was divided into 16 and numbered in the same way. The first edition was published between 1892 – 1894; the second edition 1908 – 1910; the third edition 1927 – 1929. There is also an incomplete, advanced edition of 1936 – 1937.
The 2.5-inch to a mile scale or 1:25000 was brought out c.1952. The National Grid survey references contain letters and numbers. The archive holds later copies of these maps from the 1950s-1990s.
12. Photographs
The photographic Archive is one of the finest local collections in the country. It includes the famous series made by the Victorian vicar, Reverend William Wickham, of Wigan.
The collection currently stands at over 50,000 photographs, and roughly 250,000 unprinted negatives. The collection is expanding all the time as a result of donations and loans, and many have recently been digitised and are now available to view on-line. The photographs compliment the other archival sources here and help us to obtain a much deeper understanding of our past.
See the Wigan Images Online website or contact the Archives Service for more details.
13. Recent Accessions & Newly Catalogued Archives
New collections (or accessions) arriving at the archives are catalogued and organised by staff and volunteers to make them available for public researchers. You can find a selection of these lists below.
For more details of recent accessions, or if you have or know of any collections you would like to donate to the archives, please contact the Archivist.