John Rushton's Notes on Nonconformist Churches and Chapels

Eleven notebooks compiled by John Rushton on various Catholic and Nonconformist churches and chapels in Lancashire and Cheshire.

The contents of the notebooks are as follows:

• 1: Notes on dissent in Lancashire, concerning churches and chapels of Papists, Unitarians, Independents, Baptists, Moravians, Quakers, Methodists, etc.; some paper cuttings; miscellaneous notes; 64 folios, the remainder blank;
• 2: Ecclesiastical Commission papers, printed, with manuscript notes; miscellaneous notes; copies of letters, etc.;
• 3: Statutes relating to ecclesiastical institutions, printed, with manuscript notes, lists of dissenting chapels, etc.;
• 4: As 3;
• 5: Licensed chapels, tithes commuted under 6-7 Will. 4, c. 71, Queen Anne's Bounty, printed and manuscript;
• 6: Lancashire churches, population, etc., manuscript lists;
• 7: Lancashire and Cheshire churches, manuscript lists;
• 8-11: Interleaved portions of F.R. Raine's edition of Francis Gastrell, Notitia Cestriensis: or historical notices of the diocese of Chester, Chetham Society, vols 8, 19, 21 and 22 (1845-50), with manuscript notes on churches in Lancashire, consecrations and rebuildings.

John Rushton (1798-1868) was the first archdeacon of Manchester. He was born at Newchurch in Rossendale, Lancashire, on 5 May 1798 and held curacies at Langho near Blackburn and Newchurch in Pendle. He became a Doctor of Divinity in 1844 and was the first archdeacon of Manchester from 1843 to 1854. Rushton was rector of Prestwich near Manchester, 1847-1854, vicar of Blackburn from 1854 until his death, and an honorary canon of Manchester Cathedral from 1849 until his death. He died at Blackburn vicarage on 21 Febuary 1868 and was buried at St Leonard's Churchyard, Walton-le-Dale.

The manuscript is available for consultation by any accredited reader.

Presented to the John Rylands Library by John Rushton's daughter, Mrs Helen Connor of Chulmleigh, in March 1922, along with the Frederick Connor Manuscripts (English MSS 705-705a).

Description compiled by Henry Sullivan, Jo Klett and Elizabeth Gow with reference to Frederic Boase, Modern English biography (Truro: Netherton and Worth, 1901).

Catalogued in the Hand-List of the Collection of English Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, 1928-35 (English MS 706).

Rushton's visitation returns for c 1840-1850 are held at Manchester Archives and Local Studies.