A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Ralph Smith was in occupation during the town's 

 pleasure.' Two years later, however, Mr. James 

 Smith was minister at Rainford, with an allowance of 



£s° a ye"-' 



The chapel remained in the hands of the Presby- 

 terians,' apparently with the approval of the township, 

 until about 1 700, when it was recovered for the Estab- 

 lished Church, a body of trustees being appointed, 

 with the right of nominating the curate, the vicar of 

 Prescot approving.* The township was formed into 

 a district chapelry in 1869,' and the present church 

 of All Saints was built near the old one in 1878. 

 The registers date from 1 718. 



The later incumbents, nominated by the vicar of 

 Prescot, have been ' : — 



1702 Ralph Sherdley 



1722 Robert Peploe' 



1739 Edward Jones, B.A. 



1745 Richard Hunt 



1778 Matthew Robinson 



1807 William Ellam 



1846 Charles Bullen 



1853 Henry Walker 



1855 Samuel Cavan 



1873 Gilbert Coventr)' Master 



1879 John Barnacle, M.A. (St. John's College, 

 Cambridge) 



1888 John Wright Williams 



1892 John Bridger' 



The old congregation of the chapel, on being 

 evicted, continued their worship elsewhere. Reynald 

 Tetlaw seems to have been minister for about forty 

 years ; his congregation numbered 665, of whom 

 sixty-three had county votes.' A chapel was built in 

 1702 or 1703, and was succeeded in 1867 by the 

 present Congregational church.'" 



The Primitive Methodists have two chapels, built 

 in 1S57 and 1883. 



So long as the Lathoms held Mossborough the 

 Roman Catholic faith and worship were maintained in 

 the district," and there seems to have been a resident 

 priest down to the time when the estate was sold." 

 At Crank also in the seventeenth century the old 

 form of worship was conducted, Anne Singleton in 

 1676 bequeathing £^0 for the priest there, who was 

 to ' celebrate every year six masses for the good of 



her soul and the souls of the family of Mossborough 

 and Crank and the rest of the souls in Purgatory ' ; 

 this was kept up until the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century." For about a century there was no Roman 

 Catholic chapel in Rainford itself; but in 1873 

 land was purchased, and a school-chapel built ; the 

 church of Corpus Christi was opened in 1875." 



WIDNES 



Wydenesse, Wedenes, 1300 ; Wydnes, 1347. 



Apelton, 1180 ; Appelton, 1198 ; Apulton, 1332. 



Widnes appears at first to have been the name ol 

 the district, the township name being Appleton. 

 This hamlet lies close to the centre, with Farnworth, 

 the site of the chapel, on the extreme north, Upton to 

 the north-west, and Denton to the east. Simm's 

 Cross and Lugdale have recently become hamlets or 

 suburbs of Widnes town. The marshy district by 

 the Mersey was interrupted by a projecting piece of 

 higher land, whence a crossing could be had to Run- 

 corn on the Cheshire side. On this ground the 

 town of Widnes has sprung up. 



The flat and open country close to the town itself 

 is absolutely devoid of anything beautiful ; a district 

 more lacking in attractive natural features it would be 

 difficult to conceive. A great cloud of smoke hangs 

 continually over the town, and choking fumes assail 

 the nose, from various works. In the face of such 

 an atmosphere it is not to be wondered at that trees 

 and other green things refuse to grow. Even the 

 riverside is unpicturesque and rendered unpleasant by 

 the unsavoury mud which the tide leaves stranded 

 upon rocks and stones. The more remote and coun- 

 trified parts of the township consist of open fields, 

 with the minimum share of trees. Crops, such as 

 oats, potatoes, and turnips, thrive in a clayey soil. 

 The township lies upon the three sandstone and 

 pebble beds constituting the bunter series of the 

 new red sandstone or trias. The lower mottled 

 sandstone occurs at Upton in the west, the upper 

 mottled sandstone at Denton in the south-east. In 

 the low-lying ground towards the river the strata are 

 obscured by alluvial deposits. 



^ Commonivealtb Cb. Sur-v. (Rec. Soc. 

 LancB. and Chcs.), 79. Timothy Smith 

 signed the * Harmonious Consent ' of 1648. 



' Plundertd Mini. Accls. i, 117, 248. 

 The allowance now was from the tithes 

 of Culcheth, sequestered from Mr. Cul- 

 cheth, recusant ; the endowment of the 

 chapel itself did not exceed £^ a year. In 

 1649 and 1650 James Smith had been 

 minister of Atherton ; Commoniveahb 

 Cb. Surv. 57 ; Plundered Mini. Accts. 

 i, 69, 119. Timothy Smith was in 1657 

 admitted to Longridge ; ibid, ii, 202. 



' Baptisms by Mr. Bradshaw, preacher 

 at Rainford chapel, nonconformist, are re- 

 corded in 16-7 in the Prescot registers. 



It is related that he retained the chapel 

 without conformity by the connivance of 

 fnends on the bishop's staff and the neigh- 

 bouring clergy ; one of the latter would 

 read the statutory services once or twice a 

 year in the chapel, and then the wardens, 

 being merely asked whether the service 

 was read, were able to answer in the 

 affirmative ; Bridgeman, JVigan Cburch 

 (Chet. Soc), iv, 759. Nightingale gives 

 X reference to the Nonconformists' Mem. 

 (1802), ii, 364. 



Among the * Presbyterian parsons and 

 their meeting-places' in 1689 was James 

 Bradshaw, of Rainford chapel ; Kenyan 

 MSS. 231. 



^ Gastrell, loc. cit. ; the curate's salary 

 was then ^^ig 71., made up of £^ interest 

 on the 'old stock,' ^i yi, on ^^27 col- 

 lected by letters of request from Bishop 

 Stratford (probably when the chapel was 

 recovered), ^5 from K-ing's College, and 

 interest on benefactions by Mr. Wells of 

 Wigan, J. Lyon, Thomas Lyon, and Mr. 

 Parr. 'The vicar of Prescot very quickly 

 recovered his right of nomination ; Cbes. 

 Sbeaf{^Td ser.), i, 65. 



* I^nd. Gaz. 22 June, 1869. 



' This list has been supplied by the 

 present vicar, from one in the church, and 

 supplemented from other sources. 



^ Administration granted at Chester, 

 1727. A Robert Peploe, born about 1660, 

 graduated at Oxford in 1682 ; Foster, 

 Alumni Oxon. 



8 Formerly served in Guiana and the 

 Sandwich Islands. 



' Oliver Hey wood. Diaries, iv, 320. 

 His will is printed in full in ffUU (Chet. 

 Soc, New Ser.), i, 180-97. For John 



386 



Marsh's benefaction, see End. Char. Rep. 

 (Prescot), 1902, p. 93. 



'" Nightingale, Lanes. NonconJ. iv, 

 170-8 ; he mentions a local tradition 

 that the nonconformists once worshipped 

 in a cave in a field. 



" The recusant roll of 1628 gives nine- 

 teen names at Rainford ; Lay Subs. 131/ 

 318. Richard Hitchmough in 1716 re- 

 ported that he had used a silver chalice 

 and paten when officiating as priest at the 

 hall ; GiUow in Trans. Hist. Soc. (New 

 Ser.), xiii, 145. In 17 17 Bishop Gastrell 

 recorded 120 families, with 8 'Papist,' 

 71 Presbyterian, and 5 Quaker families; 

 there was a meeting place for the noncon- 

 formists. In 1767 there were seventy-one 

 ' Papists ' here. Gastrell, l.s.c. ; Return 

 in Ches. Dioc. Reg. 



•^ It 18 stated that ' when Father George 

 Fisher went to Appleton (about 1840) 

 there was in the congregation an aged 

 woman who had been baptized at Moss- 

 borough ' ; Liverpool Calb. Ann. 



^ Ibid. ; Granke or Crank was sold by 

 the executors of Richard Pennington of 

 Muncaster to Mr. Pilkington of Rainford 

 Hall. " Ibid. 



