A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



others ; l an endowment exists, dating from 1 794, 

 for the relief of poor housekeepers. 1 Cuerdley once 

 had a small poor's stock, which has been lost.* Great 

 Sankey and Penketh had a similar stock, and received 

 other benefactions. 4 



WHISTON 



Quitstan, 1245 ; Wystan, Quystan, 1278 ; Whys- 

 tan, Whytstan, Whyghtstan, 1292 ; Quistan, 1346 ; 

 Whistan usual, but Whiston occurs as early as 1355. 



This township has an area of 1,782^ acres.* It 

 occupies irregular ground south of Prescot, in the 

 very prosaic neighbourhood of coal-mines. The 

 grounds of Halsnead Park, in the south-east, a rather 

 bare, sparsely timbered estate, fill up a little more 

 than one quarter of the whole area of the township. 

 To the west of Halsnead is Ridgate. The rest of the 

 land is laid out in pastures and cultivated fields where 

 potatoes, turnips, and corn are raised, the loamy and 

 gravelly soil seeming very fertile. There are oc- 

 casional substantial-looking farms. The northern 

 part of the township is bare and has an unfinished 

 appearance, a good deal of small cottage property 

 standing amongst patches of treeless waste ground. 

 The village of Whiston is almost continuous with 

 Prescot. The roads are generally paved with square 

 stones and are not of the smoothest. The geological 

 formation of the western half of the township consists 

 of the coal measures ; the eastern moiety, of the lower 

 mottled sandstone of the bunter series, except in the 

 north-eastern corner, where the pebble beds of this 

 series of the new red sandstone formation occur 

 southward as far as Holt. 



The western and southern boundaries are formed 

 by two brooks, which unite to flow south through 

 Tarbock. The Prescot and Warrington road, along 

 which run the electric cars, passes through the 

 northern part of the township, and from it two roads 



spread out, passing through Whiston village, and then 

 to the east and west of Halsnead Park to join the 

 road from Huyton to Cronton. The London and 

 North Western Company's railway from Liverpool to 

 Manchester goes through the centre of the area, and 

 the St. Helens branch through the northern part. 



The population in 1901 was 3,430. 



Collieries are worked, and form the chief industry. 

 Formerly women as well as men worked in them. 6 

 Flower pots are made here. There are also file and 

 tool makers. 



Whiston cross stood about a mile and a half south- 

 east of Prescot church ; and the stocks were close 

 by it/ 



The Whiston Parish Council consists of ten mem- 

 bers. The Whiston Rural District Council is com- 

 posed of representatives of all rural townships in the 

 Prescot Union, and has a sanatorium and an isolation 

 hospital in Whiston, in which is also the workhouse 

 for the Prescot Union. 



The earliest record ot WHISTON is 

 MANORS contained in the survey of 1212, in 

 which it is stated that ' Vivian Gernet 

 gave to Robert Travers four plough-lands and a half 

 by the service of the third part of a knight,' parcel 

 of the fee of one knight which he held as chief 

 forester of the forest of Lancaster. 8 As Vivian 

 Gernet lived in the time of Henry II, an approxi- 

 mate date for the grant is afforded. 9 Richard 

 Travers occurs about 1 1 90,' and shortly afterwards 

 Henry Travers was lord of Whiston, and granted to 

 Cockersand Abbey an annual rent of 2/. from the 

 mill." He was succeeded by his son Adam, who con- 

 firmed the gift of his father," and Adam by his younger 

 brother Richard ; the latter in 1252 was holding the 

 four and a half plough-lands in Whiston. 13 



Richard had two sons Roger and Henry ; the 

 elder succeeded to Whiston, the younger receiving Rid- 

 gate from his father, and becoming ancestor of the 



