Blackburn: A brief history and background

Blackburn, with a population a little over 100,000 is the principal town and sub-regional capital of the Pennine Lancashire area.  The town has a long and well known history of textile manufacturing – initially producing woollen cloth but later in cotton.  Blackburn experienced its most significant period of growth during the 19th century – at its beginning the town was essentially a small market town with a population of around 20,000, yet by the end of the 19th century the population had grown 5 fold to 100,000 and the town had become known as the world’s largest producer of cloth.  By its very nature the textile industry was subject to boom periods and depressions, the most notable depressions being in the 1860s, post World War One and the industry’s final decline at the end of the 1970s.  Indeed, one of the towns most notable buildings is symbolic of the boom and bust nature of the cotton industry – in 1861 the town’s dignitaries and industrialists gathered to lay the foundation stone of a Cotton Exchange – a building whose architecture was to be based on the Houses of Parliament – the exchange was never used for this purpose and eventually became a cinema.

Blackburn has an interesting and colourful political history.  Before the advent of the Labour Party the town’s MPs were essentially Tories, drawn from the elite industrial class – the Feildens and Hornbys, who were among the main mill owners, held the position of MP for virtually the entire 19th century.  Of course with the Parliamentary representatives being the employers of most of the town’s residents, true democracy was difficult – particularly before the secret ballot was introduced, and elections in the town often resulted in violence and accusations of bribery.  In fact in 1868 Blackburn was the subject of a Parliamentary investigation and report resulting in an election having to be re-run because one of the candidates had provided ale to voters.

The twentieth century political history of Blackburn has been dominated by the Labour Party.  Philip Snowden was the towns’ first Labour MP, elected to Parliament in 1906.  He subsequently moved on at the end of World War One but the town returned to Labour representation with John Edwards and Barbara Castle (at the time Blackburn was split into two constituencies, West and East, the West being the more affluent and generally returning a Conservative member).  Barbara Castle represented Blackburn East, then Blackburn (when boundaries changed so that the town had only one MP and much of the west constituency was placed into the Darwen Constituency) for 34 years.  She was followed by current Labour MP, Jack Straw, who was elected in 1979.  From 1983 to 2007 Blackburn Council was controlled by the Labour Party, during which time it achieved Beacon Status and was awarded ‘Council of the Year’ in 2002.

Blackburn’s social history has a dominant theme – migration.  The first phase of migration was from the surrounding rural area at the start of the industrial revolution and much of the indigenous population can trace its roots back to the surrounding villages such as Mellor, Wilpshire, Pleasington and Tockholes (and often further afield).  During the Victorian period Blackburn experienced a wave of Irish immigration – the Irish had a long history of coming over to help out with the harvest on local farms but more permanent migration occurred with the construction of the Leeds to Liverpool Canal, the railways and then within the mills to break strikes.  The large Irish heritage population in the town is symbolised by the number of catholic churches and the notable fact that per capita Blackburn has the most church schools in England. 

The final major wave of immigration has taken place since the end of the 1950s/start of the 1960s when Indian and Pakistani immigrants came from the Gujarat and Kashmir areas. As they already worked within the textile industry they easily found jobs at a time when there was a labour shortage in Blackburn. The town suffered a major period of depression and unemployment at the start of the 1980s, with competition from abroad all but ending the viability of the textile industry.  Men from the Asian heritage community, being in the most basic, low paid jobs, were worst hit with unemployment in this section of the community exceeding 40% in 1983.

Today Blackburn has successfully regenerated itself following past declines.  There is a strong highly skilled industrial sector and a significant commercial and service sector.  The town centre and housing in the town have seen major reconstruction, which continues to this day.  The town’s football team, Blackburn Rovers, with a long and highly regarded history as one of the founder members of the Football League, returned to top flight football in 1992, won the football championship in 1995 and has spent the bulk of time since then in the Premiership.  Blackburn remains the smallest town to support a Premiership football club but the fact that it does is perhaps the best illustration of Blackburn’s belief in itself and ability to punch above its weight.