51 Facts About Oldham

Today Oldham is predominantly a commuter town, and the improvement of the town centre is the focus of a project for transforming Oldham into a centre for further education and the performing arts.

Toponymy of Oldham seems to imply "old village or place" from Eald signifying oldness or antiquity, and Ham a house, farm or hamlet.

Oldham is however known to be a derivative of Aldehulme, undoubtedly an Old Norse name.

From its founding in the 9th century until the Industrial Revolution, Oldham is believed to have been little more than a scattering of small and insignificant settlements spread across the moorland and dirt tracks that linked Manchester to York.

The climate, geology, and topography of Oldham were unrelenting constraints upon the social and economic activities of the human inhabitants.

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At 700 feet above sea level and with no major river or visible natural resources, Oldham had poor geographic attributes compared with other settlements for investors and their engineers.

The speed of this urban growth meant that Oldham, with little pre-industrial history to speak of, was effectively born as a factory town.

Oldham became the world's manufacturing centre for cotton spinning in the second half of the 19th century.

In 1871, Oldham had more spindles than any country in the world except the United States, and in 1909, was spinning more cotton than France and Germany combined.

The manufacture of spinning and weaving machinery in Oldham belongs to the last decade of the 19th century, when it became a leading centre in the field of engineering.

John Platt was elected in 1865 to become a Member of Parliament for Oldham, and was re-elected in 1868; he remained in office until his death in 1872.

Oldham served a seven-year apprenticeship with Sir Charles Barry, before starting a structural engineering practice in Oldham in 1847 that went on to become the pre-eminent mill architect firm in Lancashire.

Oldham established his own practice in 1883 and designed over a hundred mills in several countries.

The Oldham Coalfield stretched from Royton in the north to Bardsley in the south and in addition to Oldham, included the towns of Middleton and Chadderton to the west.

The Oldham Coalfield was the site of over 150 collieries during its recorded history.

At its height in the mid-19th century, when it was dominated by the Lees and Jones families, Oldham coal was mainly sourced from many small collieries whose lives varied from a few years to many decades, although two of the four largest collieries survived to nationalisation.

Oldham was frequently disturbed by bread and labour riots, facilitated by periods of scarcity and the disturbance of employment following the introduction of cotton-spinning machinery.

Annie Kenney, born in nearby Springhead, and who worked in Oldham's cotton mills, was a notable member of the Suffragette movement credited with sparking off suffragette militancy when she heckled Winston Churchill, and later the first Suffragist to be imprisoned.

Three days in late May 2001, Oldham became the centre of national and international media attention.

Oldham later formed a township within the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the hundred of Salford.

The town was made part of a parliamentary borough, in 1832, though it was in 1849 when Oldham was incorporated as a municipal borough, giving it borough status in the United Kingdom, and in 1850 the Borough Council obtained the powers of the improvement commissioners.

Under the Local Government Act 1972, the town's autonomous county borough status was abolished, and Oldham has, since 1 April 1974, formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, within the Metropolitan county of Greater Manchester.

Oldham held the constituency for the Conservative Party until the 1906 general election, when he won the election for Manchester North West as a Liberal MP.

Saddleworth and the South Pennines are close to the east, whilst on all other sides, Oldham is bound by other neighbouring towns, including Ashton-under-Lyne, Chadderton, Failsworth, Royton and Shaw and Crompton, with little or no green space between them.

Oldham's topography is characterised by its rugged, elevated Pennine terrain.

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The geology of Oldham is represented by the Millstone Grit and Coal Measures series of rocks.

The urban structure of Oldham is irregular when compared to most towns in England, its form restricted in places by its hilly upland terrain.

Visitor to Oldham will find it essentially a mean-looking straggling town, built upon both sides and crowning the ridge of one of the outlying spurs which branch from Manchester, the neighbouring 'backbone of England'.

The territory of Oldham is contiguous with other towns on all sides except for a small section along its eastern and southern boundaries, and for purposes of the Office for National Statistics, forms the fourth largest settlement of the Greater Manchester Urban Area, the United Kingdom's third largest conurbation.

Large portion of Oldham's residences are "low value" Victorian era Accrington red-brick terraced houses in a row formation, built for the most part from 1870 to 1920, to house the town's cotton mill workers.

One of the oldest recorded named places of Oldham is Hathershaw, occurring in a deed for 1280 with the spelling Halselinechaw Clugh.

Oldham, considered as a combination of the 2001 electoral wards of Alexandra, Coldhurst, Hollinwood, St James, St Marys, St Pauls, Waterhead and Werneth, has an average age of 33.

Today, Oldham has large communities with heritage from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and parts of the Caribbean.

Years Oldham's economy was heavily dependent on manufacturing industry, especially textiles and mechanical engineering.

In 1900 Oldham had the highest concentration of chip shops in the country, one for every 400 people.

Oldham's Old Town Hall is a Grade II listed Georgian neo-classical town hall built in 1841, eight years before Oldham received its borough status.

Oldham has never been on a main-line railway route, and canals too have only been able to serve it from a distance, meaning that "Oldham has never had a train service worthy of a town of its size".

Oldham had electric tramways to Manchester in the early 20th century; the first tram was driven from Manchester into Oldham in 1900 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester.

Oldham is about 4 miles south of the major M62 motorway, but is linked to it by the M60 at Hollinwood, and A627 via Chadderton.

Oldham Athletic have achieved both league and cup successes, particularly under Joe Royle in the 1990s.

Oldham has league cricket teams with a number of semi-professional league clubs including Oldham CC, and Werneth CC, both playing in the Greater Manchester Cricket League .

Oldham CC was one of the founding members, in 1892, of the Central Lancashire Cricket League, which closed in 2015.

University Campus Oldham is a centre for higher education and a sister campus of the University of Huddersfield.

The University Campus Oldham presented actress Shobna Gulati and artist, Brian Clarke with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters at the Graduation Ceremony of November 2006, for their achievements and contributions to Oldham and its community.

Royal Oldham Hospital, at Oldham's northern boundary with Royton, is a large NHS hospital administrated by Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

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Oldham, though lacking in leisure and cultural amenities, is historically notable for its theatrical culture.

Oldham has a thriving bar and night club culture, if you consider one nightclub as a thriving nightlife.

Since then it has established itself as a cultural focus for Oldham and has developed one of the largest and most varied permanent collections in North West England.

Annual Oldham Carnival started around 1900, although the tradition of carnivals in the town goes back much further, providing a "welcomed respite from the tedium of everyday life".

Oldham has had a pattern of success in the "best city" category in the national Britain in Bloom competition, winning in 2012 and 2014, and in several following years and gaining a gold award in 2019.

Notable musicians from Oldham include the Inspiral Carpets, N-Trance and Mark Owen of boyband Take That as well as the founding members of the rock band Barclay James Harvest.