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The town's name, (in full, Bolton-le-Moors) has been recorded over the years with many derivations of spelling including Bothelton, Boulton and Bolton-super-Moras. However, the exact origins are not totally clear from historical records. There have been three main hypotheses - one is that because of its location in the valleys of confluencing moorland rivers, it is derived from "Bowl Town"- another suggesting it is a derivation from the Saxon words "bolt" and "tun", meaning "arrow" and "stockade" respectively. A final suggestion is from the words "boul" and "town", where boul means a monument or central feature, though the boul itself is unidentified. A further possibility is that "bol" derives from the Norse for farm and "ton" from the Norse for town.
Evidence of a Saxon settlement exists in the form of religious objects found when the present Victorian parish church was built.
The town was given a charter to hold a market in Churchgate in 1251 by King Henry III of England. It was then made into a market town and borough by a charter from the Earl of Derby, William de Ferrers, on January 14, 1253.
During the English Civil War, Bolton supported Parliament and the Puritan cause, unlike most of the rest of Lancashire. The town was twice attacked unsuccessfully until the third assault on May 28, 1644. Prince Rupert's army along with troops under the Earl of Derby, attacked the town. There were 1,500 dead, and 700 taken prisoner. It became known as the Bolton Massacre.
The town's position on the west of the Pennines provides a damp climate. It is this feature which probably led to Flemish weavers, fleeing the Huguenot persecutions in the 17th century, to eventually settle here, as moisture-laden air allows for the spinning of cotton with little breakage. The cotton industry was to provide the catalyst for the town's expansion between the 14th and 19th centuries. Large, steam-powered textile mills eventually dominated the town's skyline, providing the major employment and defining the rhythm of the working week, so much so that an annual shut-down for maintenance in late June became the Bolton Holidays. There were also some large iron foundries in the town as well as other engineering works, many connected with the cotton industry.
Bolton was Worktown in the Mass-Observation project which has left us with many photographs taken around the town by Humphrey Spender as part of that project.
Dieser Artikel basiert auf dem Artikel Bolton aus der freien Enzyklopädie Wikipedia und steht unter der GNU-Lizenz für freie Dokumentation. In der Wikipedia ist eine Liste der Autoren verfügbar.