Categories of Records
Family History
The main sources for family history are held by Reference and Information Services, Bury Library. These include civil registration indexes, census returns, newspapers and trade directories. A guide to family history research, based on the holdings of Bury Library and Bury Archives is available via the services section of this website.
Some published sources that you might expect to find in the Library are held by the Archives service for preservation reasons. This includes voters lists pre 1974 for the area.
Photographs
The Archives service preserves 15,000 local history photographs. These photographs are available on an internal computer system called Picture Memories. The images are mostly of streets and buildings, but include some photographs of people.
Records of Local Administration (Local Government)
The service holds records of Bury MBC's predecessor authorities from the last 300 years or so. The earliest are those of the townships (or civil parishes) of Bury and Pilkington (Outwood, Whitefield, and Unsworth), which were small bodies, only responsible for local poor relief, highways and law enforcement. Other matters were dealt with by county magistrates, meeting in Quarter Sessions.
In the 19th Century, various single-purpose authorities were created, either to take over existing township functions (e.g. boards of guardians of the poor, turnpike trusts), or to administer functions introduced by new legislation (e.g. local boards of health). There could thus be several different types of authority operating in any given area, often with different administrative boundaries. Boundaries were also subject to significant changes, which can be confusing when trying to establish which records you need to look at for a particular locality.
From the late 19th Century, these diverse functions were increasingly concentrated into the hands of a few multi-purpose authorities. Bury Borough Council was created in 1876 as successor to the old Improvement Commissioners of 1846. In other parts of the area, the new elected county council for Lancashire (established in 1889), shared various functions with the new district councils (Ramsbottom, Tottington, Radcliffe, Whitefield, Prestwich, and Bury Rural District Council covering Walmersley-cum -Shuttleworth, Ainsworth, Outwood and Unsworth) which superseded the old Boards of Health and various other bodies in 1894/5. The records of Lancashire County Council are to be found at Lancashire Record Office in Preston, but various aspects of county administration were devolved to local area committees after the war, some records for which are held here in the archives.
Functions exercised at local level might include public health, gas, libraries, highways, electricity, parks, baths, sewage disposal, public transport, public assistance & social services, cemeteries, fire brigade, markets, town planning watch, civil defense & other wartime administration, housing, education.
In addition, authorities have often been involved in local affairs outside their immediate administrative activities, and this is reflected in the records, particularly the often voluminous correspondence and papers of the town clerk. Accidents of survival mean that a given series may be complete in one area and completely absent in another, or absent over a particular time period. Because of this, and the complexities of local government mentioned above, there are numerous gaps and anomalies not specifically mentioned in the listings in our catalogue. Notes on some of the most common record series:
Minutes often include reports of the Medical Officer and other officials, along with copies of incoming correspondence.
Rate books contain lists of property and the owner or occupier, organised in geographical order.
Building regulation plans are architectural drawings of most buildings or alterations to buildings, required to be deposited with authorities under building byelaws.
Most authorities accumulated large quantities of other maps and plans in connection with various functions.
(For Bury Township only) records of the administration of the poor laws in the form of apprenticeship indentures, bastardy orders, removal and settlement orders; all records detailing the names of individuals and their circumstances in terms of the distribution of poor relief.
Non-Conformist Religious Records
Bury Archive Service holds only records of non-conformist churches, the majority being from the Methodist or Congregational/Independent (now United Reformed) denominations
Records of the Church of England (where deposited) are held by Manchester Central Library archives and local studies department as diocesan record office - the department also holds records for a few non-conformist churches in the southern part of the Bury Metro area. Lancashire Record Office is the official place of deposit for records of parishes in Salford Roman Catholic diocese. A few Methodist marriage registers for the Bury area have been deposited with Greater Manchester Record Office. Detailed lists of holdings for Bury libraries and Archives relating to churches in the area can be found in the Routes guide to family history.
Church records held by Bury Archives service will normally include minutes of the trustees for the church building; records of church membership; baptism and (less often) marriage and burial registers; records of pew rents; and accounts. Most churches had numerous affiliated organisations, such as mutual improvement societies or bands of hope etc., and also ran Sunday schools, which will normally have records of their management committees, teachers' meetings, registers etc. Some also ran day schools; records for those deposited by the church are detailed amongst the church records on the catalogue. Those deposited via Bury MBC Education department appear in the school listings on the catalogue. In many cases there is also a quantity of photos of the church and church events, and ephemera like event programmes etc.
The Methodist church is distinctive in being organised into circuits, which are responsible for providing the ministers and local preachers who circulate among the various chapels or societies in the circuit; evidence for the history of a chapel will therefore be found in the circuit records as well as those of the chapel itself. The church split into several different branches, the great majority of which re-united in 1933, and this division and re-unification, as well as the frequent re-organisation of circuits within each branch leads to considerable complexity in the records. The local branches of Methodism can be summarised as the Wesleyans (W), Primitives (P), United (U) and New Connexion (N). Additional material relating to local Methodism may be found in some family and Business collections (Archives reference: FLH, FFH, BBY).
[note that Edenfield and Ramsbottom Wesleyan churches were part of the Haslingden (Manchester Road) circuit, some records for which have been deposited at Lancashire Record Office]
Business Records
The service actively collects the records of local businesses. These can contain records relevant to many types of researcher. Common records include board minutes, accounts, wage books, publications. Most records date from the 19th and 20th Centuries. They cover industries such as paper making and paper making machinery (industries prominent in the Bury area), dyers and bleachers, woolen manufacturers, cotton spinners, textile machinery manufacturers; ironmongers, boiler makers, brewers, timber merchants. Many small local businesses are also represented in the papers, covering the likes of solicitors, estate agents, painters and decorators, tripe dressers, tinplate workers, physicians and builders.
Family Papers and Deeds
Deeds are donated to the archives service from solicitors firms and property owners. However, deeds can be found in other collections in the archives holdings, being within business, local authority and family papers. Our main collections of deeds relates to the Earl of Derby and Grant-Lawson estates. Many individual deeds are held relating to property and land in the area, the earliest record being from 1679.
The largest collection of family papers in the holdings are those of the Hutchinson family of Bury. These papers were used in the services Cotton Threads Heritage Lottery Project in 2007. Family papers are arranged in collections according to the individual family the papers describe. Family papers consist of varied records, including personal letters, deeds, diaries, photographs, genealogical notes, souvenirs, records relating to their employment/business.
Miscellaneous Manuscripts
These are largely collections of research notes and copies of original documents from other archives, which have been deposited with the service by various individuals.
Trade Unions and Co-operative Societies
Records of local co-operative societies are held. The records include minutes, accounts, store records, contribution books, wage books, membership lists and housing records. Within the records of trade unions you will find letter books, minutes, accounts and cash books. It must be noted that the records of individual co-operatives may only hold one type of record and not types as listed here.
Schools
School records have been deposited by the individual schools or by the borough education department. In some instances, churches have deposited the records of their associated schools. In these instances, the records of the school are described within the church records. Within a collection of school records you can expect to find (some of) the following types of record: log books, admission registers, attendance registers, building plans, trustees records, governors’ minutes and reports, stock books, manager’s minutes, photographs, school magazines, class lists and correspondence. Some records will be closed under the Data Protection Act. Please see individual catalogue descriptions for more details).
Local organisations
The service accepts records from wide ranging organizations, including social, political, educational, sporting and recreational. You can expect to find the following types of records amongst these holdings: photographs, press cuttings, minutes, and registers, rules of membership / pledge books, political correspondence, accounts, cash books, membership books, annual reports, constituency papers, election results, scrap books and score books. Note that for some political records closure periods can apply to more recent records (please see individual catalogue descriptions for more details).
Records relating to Bury – held elsewhere
Records relating Bury could potentially be held in any archive repository in the country. A2A is the main search facility that will look at records from contributing archives nationwide. University and Higher Education archives repositories use the Archives Hub to describe their collections.
The more obvious record offices with records relating to Bury are detailed below with a brief list of holdings.
Bury Coroner’s Court 1971-1973
Bury Area Health Authority 1864-1973, including Bury General Hospital, Ramsbottom Cottage Hospital, Robinson Kay Home, Florence Nightingale Hospital, Aitken Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital (Jericho Institution).
Prestwich Asylum
Motor Vehicle Licensing 1927-1977
Bury Petty Sessions 1872-1975
Methodist Marriage Registers (see Routes for full list).
Family Papers including the Howorth Family of Tottington 1547-1923, the Dearden Family of Bury 1799-1867 and the Wilton family of Heaton Hall.
Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, 1832-1978
Bury Coroner’s Court 1904-1971
Bury Medical Officer of Health Records 1951-1964
Poor Law Administration: Records relating to Tottington Lower-End/ Emmanuel Church Holcombe
Sumner Harker and Co Ltd
Collections of Manchester Jewish Community
Prestwich Co-operative Society
