Whit Lane

There is still a Whit Lane today but the area was redeveloped.

It lies at the bottom of a hill and is near the River Irwell.

I am not sure about the following but I think the first industrial development was a cotton mill notorious for using child slave labour - the owner of this William Douglas died in 1810 (from information board along River Irwell walk) hence the local name Douglas Green. The coal mine was sunk in the 1820s. St Thomas Church was at the top of the hill, at that time it was a chapel of ease - thats where they went to church, could have their children christened but could not marry there. They had to go to the mother or parish church which was Eccles. Thats about a 50 min walk. Whit Lane in the early 1800s would have been a separate settlement surrounded by countryside. Its about a 40 min walk into Manchester.

As the population of Salford rapidly increased more churches were built. I love the following sites- genuki and the "Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project" you can find lovely photos of the churches and info. St Thomas was rebuilt 1831 and a more local church St Georges was built on Whit Lane in 1858.

Registers for local churches are available on film at Manchester Library and from their lists it would appear that marriages for St Thomas began in 1839, hmm wonder why they went to Eccles then?

There is a brilliant site being developed with old maps of Manchester/Salford, on some of them you can just about see the Whit lane area (I think the earliest one was the Bartholomew 1870) it gives you an idea of what the area was like. And of course you can see the area today using google maps. The old maps can be found at http://manchester.publicprofiler.org (found through a posting on the rootschat site).