THE VENERABLE BEDE, writing in A.D. 731 states that Oswald, King of Northumbria was killed by Penda in a place called Maserfelth on the 5th of August A.D. 642. Baines 'Gazetteer of Lancashire' for 1825 describes Ashton-in-Makerfield as, 'A thriving township where the poor are industrious and their employers prosperous.' The changes spanned by these dates have been tremendous, and in a small way reflect the development of our country. Lying as it does on the western route from Warrington to Wigan, Ashton has seen in turn Celt, Roman, Saxon, Danish and Norman invader.
The name itself, a composite one, has puzzled historians as to its origin. Various meanings have been ascribed to the word Makerfield in its various spellings. Wyld, in his 'Handbook of Lancashire Place Names,' gives as his interpretation 'unenclosed land,' another authority , the great cultivated field,' but the generally accepted view is that the name is of Celtic derivation, 'Magwyr' - a wall or ruin, from the Latin maceries, maceria. The old British form must have been 'Macer' - a defence or earthwork ('Place names of Lancashire,' Vol. 8 Chesham Soc., by Eilert Ekvall). It is interesting to note that on a Tithe Map for 1798 are two fields marked as 'The Mackerfields.' The addition of Ashton is a Saxon one - Northumbria having been conquered by them in the 6th century - and means the settlement or 'tun' by the ash trees, which then had a religious significance.
After the Norman conquest, Ashton became a berewick or small division of the Manor of Newton, which was conterminous with the fee or barony of Makerfield, and a sub-division of the West Derby Hundred. Newton is described in Domesday as having 5 hides (of land) . . . St. Oswald of the same vill had 2 carucates of land . . . the other land of this manor, 15 men called drenghes held for 15 manors which were berewicks . . . there is a wood 10 leagues long, and 6 leagues and two furlongs broad, and there are aeries of hawks.'
Life in the berewick of Ashton after the Norman Conquest would be the typical manorial life of the Middle Ages, and names associated with this remain today in the following: Manor Farm, Tithebarn Road, Town Fields, the Greens, and until recently, the Pinfolds. The crosses, too, Ashton Cross, Fourfooted Cross (Bryn Cross), Stubshaw Cross, had their social significance.
No account of Ashton would be complete without reference to the Gerard family - we still have Gerard Street, Gerard Arms, Cansfield Grove and Lord Gerard's Park to remind us of them. Their history is tied up with that of Ashton, and their ancestry can be traced for centuries. William Gerard, a direct ancestor, in 1288 paid homage for his lands to Edward, Earl of Chester, afterwards Edward II. The name of a Gerard reappears through the centuries as High Sheriff of Lancashire. We see a Gerard in the French Wars of the 15th century on Flodden Field in 1513; a prisoner in the Tower of London in 1571 for helping Mary, Queen of Scots; one of the two free baronets created by James I in 1611; a pioneer colonist in Maryland in 1634; on the Royalist side in the Civil Wars; Cupbearer to Charles 11 in 1634; forming 'The Defencibles' (a Napoleonic Home Guard) in 1798; Sir Robert Tolver Gerard created a peer in 1876.
Roger Lowe, a local mercer (grocer) who kept a diary from 1663 to 1678, throws some interesting sidelights on life in Ashton during the 17th century. The favourite sports, apparently, were cockfighting, bowling, and horse racing. He mentions a race from Golborne Stocks to Ashton. Of Ashton's industries at this time he speaks of the collier, the locksmith, the hingemaker, the naylour, the webster, the hour-glass maker, the maltster, and the millers of Bryn. Two interesting names are the Hearthman (Tax Collector), and the huntsman to Esquire Gerard. One extract shows how he went round the village to see 'what people would give towards the reliefe of such needie persons as had suffered loss by the Great Fire of London.'
The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and early 19th centuries saw the beginnings of the Ashton we know, in the sinking of coal mines, the growth of the hingemaking industry, and in the opening of factories, for spinning and weaving. Although the textile industry has now declined in Ashton, we still have reminders of its former importance in such names as Factory Houses, The Steam Engine (Stoneycroft Terrace), Dam Lane, Reservoir Street, etc.
Space does not allow one to trace the history of St. Thomas' Church from the first reference to it in 1515 when it was a Chapel of Ease of the Parish Church of Winwick; of the ejection of the Rev. James Wood in 1662 for refusing to conform to the new Prayer Book of Charles II; of the building of Holy Trinity Church in 1837 because of the increasing population. Nor of the story of the Rev. Father Arrowsmith and the enshrined holy hand, the building of St. Oswald's Church and the various Nonconformist Chapels.
The story of education in Ashton can be traced from the Grammar School established in 1588 on Seneley Green on land provided by Sir Thomas Gerard, to the 'Academies' of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and to the formation of the Ashton Sunday School Committee in 1812 and the three schools opened by them in Haydock, in the Townfield, and in the Seneley Green School. Then came the day schools of the Church of England and the Catholic Church, and later through the generosity of the Evans family of Haydock the British School. Today in addition there are the Secondary Modern Schools (1925), and the Grammar School in its present site from the beginning of this century.
In these brief notes we have seen Ashton-in-Makerfield grow from a Saxon tun to a berewick of a manor, to a modern thriving township and well ordered community: from a population of 3,696 in 1801 to its present population of 19,230.