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Migration Stories: Marian Harriet Harrison - from Petrograd to Standish

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...

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Migration Stories: German families in Scholes

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...

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Migration Stories: Bishop Edward Dicconson: from Wrightington to Appley Bridge via Normandy

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...

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Migration Stories: Henry James Langlois

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...

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The Ghost Sign of Ashton's Past

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...

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Migration Stories: Belgian Refugees

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...

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Migration Stories: Michal Towarnicki, Displaced Person

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...

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History Hackers: A Creative Heritage Project with Leigh's Young People

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...

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From Scandals to Snooker: The Brian Boru Club, Ashton-in-Makerfield

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...

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Ellen Weeton's travels in Wales - 200 years on

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....

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