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One well-known association the town has is with the 'Accrington Pals', the nickname given to the smallest home town battalion of volunteers formed to fight in World War I. The Pals battalions were a peculiarity of the 1914-18 war: Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, believed that it would help recruitment if friends and work-mates from the same town were able to join up and fight together. Strictly speaking, the 'Accrington Pals' battalion is properly known as the '11th East Lancashire Regiment': the nickname is a little misleading, since of the four 250-strong companies that made up the original battalion only one was actually composed of men from Accrington. The rest volunteered from other east Lancashire towns such as Burnley, Blackburn and Chorley.
The Pals' first day of action, Saturday 1 July 1916, took place in Serre in the north of France. It was part of the 'Big Push' (later known as the Battle of the Somme) that was intended to force the German Army into a retreat from the Western Front, a line they had held since late 1914. The German defences in Serre were supposed to have been obliterated by sustained, heavy, British shelling during the preceding week; however, as the battalion advanced it met with fierce resistance. 235 men were killed and a further 350 wounded — more than half of the battalion — within half an hour. Similarly desperate losses were suffered elsewhere on the front, in a disastrous day for the British Army.
Later in the year, the East Lancashire Regiment was rebuilt with new volunteers — in all, 865 Accrington men were killed during World War I. All of these names are recorded on a war memorial, an imposing white stone cenotaph, which stands in Oak Hill Park in the south of the town. The cenotaph also lists the names of 173 local fatalities from World War II.
After the Great War and until 1986, Accrington Corporation buses were painted in the regimental colours of red and blue with gold lining. Mudguards were painted black as a sign of mourning.
[edit] Governance
[edit] Geography
[edit] Accrington urban area
Blackburn Road near Church
The 2001 census gave the population of Accrington town as 35,203. The figure for the urban area, which includes Accrington town, Church, Clayton-le-Moors, Great Harwood and Oswaldtwistle), was 71,224, up 1.1% from 70,442 in 1991. For comparison purposes that is approximately the same size as Aylesbury, Carlisle, Guildford or Scunthorpe urban areas.
[edit] Transport
The town is linked to Burnley and Blackburn by railway and by the M65 motorway. There was once a rail link south to Manchester via Haslingden and Bury, but this was closed in the 1960s as part of cuts following the Beeching Report. The trackbed from Accrington to Baxenden is now an attractive linear treelined cycleway/footpath. The section from Rising Bridge to Carr's Industrial Estate at Haslingden is now the A56 dual carriageway road, which provides a link to the M66 motorway. There is now a regular bus service from Accrington to Manchester, via Haslingden.
[edit] Education
The schools of Accrington include:
[edit] Sports
The town's other famous association is with Accrington Stanley F.C.[3], the butt of many (largely affectionate) jokes. The club's name is often invoked as a symbol of British sport's legion of plucky but hopeless causes (much like British ski-jumping's 'heroic failure' Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards). The club entered the Football League in 1921 with the formation of the old Third Division (North); after haunting the lower reaches of English football for forty years, they eventually resigned from the League in 1962, due to financial problems, and folded in 1965. The club was reformed for the 1968/69 season and then worked their way through the 'non-league' divisions to reach the Nationwide Conference in 2003 and in the 2005-06 season Accrington Stanley, after winning against Woking with 3 matches to spare, secured a place back in the Football League and the town celebrated with a small parade and honours places on senior executives of the team. Coincidentally, one of the teams relegated - and thus being replaced by Stanley - were Oxford United F.C., who were voted into the Football League to replace the previous Accrington Stanley. The football stadium is called the Fraser Eagle Stadium, with the Fraser Eagle coach & bus company, who are also sponsors of Burnley F.C., sponsoring the team.
An earlier club, Accrington F.C., were one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888. However, their time in league football was even less successful and considerably briefer than that of Accrington Stanley: they dropped out of the league in 1893 and folded shortly afterwards due to financial problems. The town of Accrington thus has the unique 'distinction' of having lost two separate clubs from league football, over the years.
[edit] Tiffany Glass
The Haworth Art Gallery[4] in Accrington contains an outstanding collection of Tiffany glassware presented to the town by Joseph Briggs, an Accrington man who had joined Tiffany’s in the late 19th century and eventually became art director and assistant manager. The Art Nouveau vases are considered to be the most important such group in Europe. One of the most striking items is a glass mosaic exhibition piece, designed by Briggs himself and entitled "Sulphur Crested Cockatoos".
[edit] Notable residents
- Jon Anderson, singer with rock band Yes
- David "Bumble" Lloyd, a former cricketer, now a pundit for Sky Sports.
- Graeme Fowler, Foxy Fowler, (cricketer), former England batsman, cricket coach and occasional pundit on BBC Radio's Test Match Special
- Jeanette Winterson, an author whose Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is an account of her childhood in the town.
- Harrison Birtwistle (composer).
- John Virtue, artist
- Ron Hill, long-distance and marathon runner, born 25th of September, 1938, won Commonwealth Marathon Gold in 1970.
- John Rex Whinfield, chemist, inventor of Terylene (polyester), the first completely synthetic fibre invented in UK.
- Julie Hesmondhalgh, an actress who plays Hayley Cropper in the TV Soap Coronation Street.
- Yvette Livesey, ex beauty-queen and former squeeze of the late Tony Wilson
- The footballer Mike Duxbury was born in the town.
- Andy Hargreaves, Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.
- Famous ex-residents include darts player Ronnie Baxter, the National Lottery's Mystic Meg and former Lancashire all rounder Bob Ratcliffe
- Mystic Meg was born in the town as Margaret Anne Lake on 27th of July, 1942
- Tony Mills, ex-body building champion and renowned bare fisted boxer. 1950-2007
[edit] References
[edit] Further reading
- William Turner Pals: the 11th (Service) Battalion (Accrington), East Lancashire Regiment ISBN 0-9507892-4-
[edit] External links
(Source: Wikipedia) |
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