Accrington
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Accrington, in the County of Lancashire, is a small former mill town in the industrial north-west of England. Its name is thought to be a corruption of 'acorn-ring-town', although the old oak woods that once encircled the town have long-since gone, victims of the Industrial Revolution. Since the redrawing of the political boundaries in 1974, the town has formed part of the Borough of Hyndburn — a merging of Accrington together with the smaller 'satellite' towns of Oswaldtwistle, Church, Clayton-le-Moors, Great Harwood and Rishton, into one political 'seat'.
The 2001 census gave the population of Accrington town proper as 35,203. The figure for the built-up area ("Accrington Urban Area") 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.
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 is now mostly covered by the A56 dual carriageway road, which provides a link to the M66 motorway.
There is a sizeable shopping area and precinct in Accrington, with a selection of major chain stores such as Marks and Spencer and Boots.
For many decades, the textile industry was the central activity of the town. Mills and dye works provided work for the inhabitants, but often in very difficult conditions. There was regular conflict with employers, most famously in the 1842 'Plug riots' where a general strike spread from town to town, as thousands of strikers walked over the hills from one town to another to persuade people to join the strike. The strike joined up with the Chartist movement, but was not successful in its aims.
Tiffany Glass
The Haworth Art Gallery 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.
The Accrington Pals
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 1914-1918 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 Lancs towns such as Burnley, Blackburn, and Chorley.
The Pals' first day of combat, Saturday 1st 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 Lancs 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.
Accrington's football teams
The town's other famous association is with Accrington Stanley F.C., the butt of many (largely affectionate) jokes. The team'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 went into enforced liquidation and were ignominiously ejected from the League in 1962. The club was reformed for the 1970/71 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.
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.
Famous sons and daughters
Accrington's famous sons and daughters include: Jon Anderson of rock band Yes; author Jeanette Winterson, whose Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is an account of her childhood in the town; and composer Harrison Birtwistle.
David Jones of the Monkees music group was also a native.
Andy Hargreaves Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.
Famous ex-residents include darts player Ronny Baxter and the National Lottery's Mystic Meg!
Geography
Accrington is located at (53.7667, -2.3500)1.
Reference
William Turner Pals: the 11th (Service) Battalion (Accrington), East Lancashire Regiment ISBN 0950789240
See also
Recruitment to the British army during WW I
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