Reserved for our September talk

All our talks are hosted on YouTube.

A Grand Picnic – local aspects of the Freemasonry movement

Eddie Forkgen

12th August 2021 / 0h 54m

Eddie tells us about some local angles on the Masonic movement, its history and organisation. He is keen to demystify some beliefs about it and to give some insight into its objectives.

A particular anecdote is that a lodge based around the Horwich locomotive works had a day out to hold a picnic at the home of a very eminent freemason.

The NHS at 70 + the Covid 19 outbreak – through audio diaries

James McSharry

8th July 2021 / 1h 07m

The project was set up to capture thousands of audio diaries of the experiences and observations of people involved with the NHS at its 70th anniversary in 2018. Patients, doctors, nurses, ancillary staff, relatives: all had dimensions of information to add to the project.

While it was running, the Covid-19 outbreak came along, and the project was extended to cover people involved with Covid as well.

The new Local History Database

http://www.westhoughtonlocalhistorypresentationsandphotos.com

Garth Ratcliffe and Phil Wood of WLHG

10th June 2021 / 0h 57m

WLHG has a wealth of archive material in presentations, photographs, articles and other items. The group has started the process of putting this on line for the public, local people and others with an interest to browse.

This presentation shows how the web site works and what sort of material is available on it.

The Westhoughton Town Trail

Garth Ratcliffe, vice-chairman of WLHG

8th April 2021 / 1h 01m

The town trail is a walking route around a number of our interesting buildings and the sites of past events in the area around Market Street. Garth takes us around the key places in the town trail, and a walk along Market Street, showing us the changing uses of the many shops over the last few decades.

The Burnden Park disaster, on its 75th anniversary

Phil Mason, Chaplain of Bolton Wanderers FC

11th March 2021 / 1h 05m

Phil Mason is Bolton Wanderers Football Club’s Chaplain and Head of the Community Trust.  He has kindly agreed to speak to the Westhoughton Local History Group about the history and founding of Bolton Wanderers Football Club.  This includes stories about the founders and the reason for the name and why it changed in 1877.

He will also recount the story of the Burnden Park Disaster that took place on 9^th March 1946 leaving 33 people dead and many with serious injuries.  With records from the day, eye-witness accounts and quotes from the enquiry, he will share the impact of the disaster and how it changed football regulations forever.

Crime City

Joe O’Neill, Westhoughton man and author

11th February 2021 / 1h 17m

Every city gets the criminals it deserves. Manchester in the second half of the nineteenth century was no exception.

The city was a furnace, forging a new world and a new man, transforming all those poured into its great crucible. There had never been anywhere like Manchester and this unique place created a unique underworld, unlike London’s and totally different from those of other emerging industrial centres. The city sucked in people not only from the surrounding countryside but also from every impoverished and persecuted country in the world and flung them together into an explosive mix.

To understand the Manchester underworld at this time you must first understand Manchester.

The Bolton Workhouse and workhouse children

Dave Burnham

14th January 2021 / 1h 07m

Bolton, like many towns, had a large section of the population in poverty. There were unmarried mothers, abandoned children and there were workhouses.

Dave describes the social conditions which brought this about and the initiatives by several notable people to improve the lot of the poor. Over a long period in the 19th and 20th centuries, legislative changes occurred which have striven to make improvements.

The Pretoria Pit disaster, 21st December 1910

Garth Ratcliffe, vice-chairman of Westhoughton Local History Group

21st December 2020 (110th anniversary) / 0h 44m

The dark winter morning of 21^st December 1910 saw the Pretoria Pit Disaster, located on the Hulton Estate between Westhoughton and Atherton, (then in) Lancashire in the north-west of England.  With the loss of 344 lives, this was the third-worst mining disaster in British history.

This is an illustrated presentation by Garth Ratcliffe of Westhoughton Local History Group.  It tells the events which occurred that morning, the rescue effort and subsequent changes in the industry.  He also talks about his family connection and personal interest in the event.