Victorian halton

The Lancashire town of Halton is a small but vibrant place, situated two miles from Lancaster. It was a working town and had a corn mill and a flour mill. Industry within the city began in 1753, when John Smeaton built the flour mill on the river during that year.

It underwent many changes, beginning only three years before the Victorian era began. In 1834, the Bradshaw family, who had been one of the most prominent landowners in the area, sold many of their properties and decided to move to Australia. Robert Fletcher Bradshaw, the head of the family at the time, took his wife and some of their children on the trip, but for an unrecorded reason he left behind his older children, Robert Fletcher, Sydney Maria (10 years old) and Millicent Jane (9 years old). Well, at least they are not registered as aboard the same ship as their parents and the rest of the family.

The salon was purchased by John Swainson, and the land was purchased by Richard Sparling Berry. Mr. Sparling Berry was evidently quite an eccentric character, as he tried to bequeath all the land to a woman whom he had once seen at York Minister and with whom he had never spoken.

The people who still live in Halton suffered many tragedies, such as a typhus outbreak in 1843, and six years later they lost eight fishermen when they drowned, due to the capsizing of their boat. That same year there was an outbreak of cholera, because a girl went to Liverpool. She brought the disease with her and ultimately killed her and two other residents of the village.

Things were happier towards the end of that year, as the village population was strengthened by the men who worked on the construction of the new railway, one of many that were installed during those years. However, it did not take long for another tragedy to occur, as ten-year-old Isaac Bradley died in 1853 from being bitten by a rabies-infected dog.

Whether faced with tragedy or enjoying prosperity, Halton residents still have great leisure activities, such as the annual regatta and The Harvest, which was a very large event in 1865, with four hundred people entertaining with recitals and glees. at the Corn Mill. They also enjoyed all the entertainments in Lancaster, like the Athenaeum Theater in St Leonardgate, and the frequent dancing, not to mention the many taverns scattered throughout the sprawling city of Lancaster.