Warrington: A resilient town through good and bad

Mar 5 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

Is Warrington much more than the archetypal North West town? Peter Elson delves into its two millennia of history to find out

TO MANY, Warrington is a dirty old town. Yet, in stark contrast, one of the smells that has wafted over its industry and people is the famous soap brand of Persil.

Keeping clean indicated both refinement and progress. Persil, invented by Crosfield’s in 1909 and promoted by Lever’s, was a harbinger of unstoppable consumer capitalism.

Proving that where there’s muck there’s brass in Warrington have been Greenall Whitley’s and Walker’s breweries and Rylands wireworks. Then there’s also steel and ironworking, pin-making, fustian cutting, velvet-making, cotton-milling, glass-blowing and even shipbuilding.

Located at the head of the navigable River Mersey, it was the lowest fording point since Neolithic times around 3000BC.

This natural crossroads guaranteed traffic, transhipment, trade and then industry, which was powered by the nearby Lancashire coalfield.

It also attracted military attention from Roman times and the town was badly mauled in the Civil War.

Initially held for the Royalists by Lord Derby, it fell to the Parliamentarians.

This is commemorated by a statue to Oliver Cromwell, who fought around Warrington in 1648 in the aftermath of the Battle of Preston.

From the Romans’ arrival in AD69 and the building of a major North – South trunk road, Warrington’s natural position benefited from advancing transport links: river, canal, railway and motorway.

All this is energetically and entertainingly told by Dr Alan Crosby, a well-known local historian, in his book A History of Warrington.

He has drawn on Warrington’s excellent Museum and Library archive, and its local studies collection.

Among many striking images from its photographic collections are ruddy-faced artisans building St Elphin’s parish church, blazer-clad men playing bowls at Arpley, and the town infirmary’s operating theatres.

“I wanted to update Warrington’s history and describe how, like many North West towns, it suffered the collapse of many traditional industries,” says Dr Crosby.

“Warrington has had more resilience and recovered from that much more readily. Also, I wanted to look at the wider Warrington of the modern borough and the New Town.” Among the photographs is the now lost Bridewell, with its first floor entrance to withstand attack and siege. This is a reminder of Warrington’s lengthy reputation for drunken brawling and rowdiness.

“Behind the superficial images, there have always been social problems, like any town, but Warrington has been better documented,” says Dr Crosby.

“Warrington, like Liverpool, experienced the great Irish immigration and there were racial tensions and extreme levels of poverty and squalor.” Prior to the ravages of industrialisation, Warrington was an attractive country town, and many residents by the late 19th century were very distressed by the way it was spoiled.

A great Victorian figure was the first mayor of Warrington, William Beaumont, who spoke of “an abundance of quaint picturesque black and white structures, old white houses of single storey, whose thatched roofs, bent and bowed like the shape of a hog’s back, gave them an antique look.”

People like Beaumont and his friend, Alderman Arthur Ben- nett, were unusually pioneering in their concern for conservation and highlighting the “beautiful” Warrington of old.

Even with such concerns long being aired, Cockhedge’s early 15th-century great medieval hall was demolished in 1936, and would now be regarded as a national treasure.

“The civic vandals were at it long before the planning age. Typically, the hall was regarded as worthless and redundant,” says Dr Crosby.

This was nothing new.