Ince in Makerfield, Lancashire
Historical Description
Ince-in-Makerfield, a township in Wigan parish, Lancashire. The township lies on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 1½ mile SW of Wigan, and has a station called Ince on the" L. & Y.B. and another called Lower Ince on a branch of the M.S. & L.R., and a post, money order, and telegraph office- (T.S.O.) under Wigan, of the name of Ince. Acreage, 2320; population, 19, 255. It is governed by a local board of fifteen. members. There are extensive ironworks, one cotton mill, several collieries, and railway waggon works. Ince Hall, formerly the seat of the Gerard family, is a curious, half-timbered, ancient structure. The cemetery of Ince, comprising 6 acres, and a.cemetery of Wigan, comprising 18 acres, are within the township. The township is divided into the two ecclesiastical parishes of Christ Church and St Mary. The ecclesiastical parish of Christ Church was constituted in 1863 (population, 10, 823); of St Mary, in 1888 (8432). The livings are vicarages in the diocese of Liverpool; net value of Christ Church, £420 with residence; and of St Mary, gross value, £300. The church of Christ Church was built'in 1864 at a cost of £6000; that of St Mary, at Lower Ince, was erected in 1887, and is a cruciform building in the Early English style. There are Catholic, Wesleyan, and Independent Methodist chapels, and a county constabulary station.
Ince Parliamentary Division of South-West Lancashire was formed under the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885, and returns one member to the House of Commons. Population, 67, 021. The division includes the following:- Wigan (part of)-Abram, Haigh, Hindley, Ince-in-Maker-field, Orrell, Pemberton; Wigan, municipal borough.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Lancashire | |
| Civil parish | Wigan | |
| Hundred | West Derby | |
| Poor Law union | Wigan |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Lancashire Archives, have images of the Parish Registers for Lancashire online.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Ince in Makerfield from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Ince, or Ince-in-Makerfield)
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Lancashire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Ince in Makerfield are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Lancashire newspapers online: