Posted on 23rd Oct 2025 by AWL Team
Marian Harriet Harrison was born 8 March 1852 in Petrograd, Russia (Modern-day St Petersburg). Her Father, Robert was part way through writing a travel book, "Notes of a Nine Years' Residence in Russia, from 1844 to 1853, with Notices of the...
Posted on 23rd Oct 2025 by AWL Team
The census of 1881 reveals Scholes to be a site of concentrated immigration. In the enumeration district which covers Scholes there are 805 men, women and children recorded, 229 of those are shown as being born outside the UK. Many...
Posted on 23rd Oct 2025 by AWL Team
Edward Dicconson lived a life of migration, moving both from and to the Wigan area. Born 30 th November 1670 in Wrightington Hall, aged 14, he left for studies in Douay, Normandy. Douay was an English college where Roman Catholics could...
Posted on 14th Oct 2025 by Archive Volunteer
Henry James Langlois was born 27 th April 1927 on Guernsey in the Channel Islands. At the age of 13, with the fall of France to the Nazis, the Channel Islands were evacuated. Henry arrived in Weymouth and was sent by train to Wigan with other...
Posted on 6th Oct 2025 by AWL Team
The Ghost Sign of Ashton’s Past You might have noticed the mural that’s gone up on the side of Andy’s All-Day Breakfast in Ashton-in-Makerfield. It shows a traditional cobbled street, the sort common in Ashton 100 years...
Posted on 22nd Sep 2025 by AWL Team
During the First World War, following the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914, around 250,000 Belgians came to Britain to escape the conflict. Refugees were mainly civilians but also included wounded and discharged Belgian...
Posted on 16th Sep 2025 by Helen Kavanagh
‘I don’t know much about Michal. Only that when Germany invaded Poland, he was taken prisoner and made to work in the German coal mines... for six months without being allowed up.’ So begins the handwritten note I...
Posted on 1st Sep 2025 by AWL Team
Over the course of eight sessions in the Summer Holidays, Archives: Wigan & Leigh has engaged 115 children in a heritage and technology project that brought local history to life in new ways. Alongside Computer Xplorers, we’ve...
Posted on 19th Jun 2025 by Thomas McGrath
This is part of a new blog series we will be sharing with our colleagues working on the 'Ashton Building History Project'. This post was researched and written by Anna Standring. Front Elevation of the Brian Boru Club on Byrn...
Posted on 11th Jun 2025 by Helen Kavanagh
Two hundred years ago, Ellen Weeton embarked on one of many adventures – this time to North Wales. Recorded in her diary which we hold in the Edward Hall collection, the entries for May to July 1825 reveal a woman ahead of her time....