Local Information for Accrington
Accrington, in the County of Lancashire, is a small former mill town in the industrial north-west of England. Its name is thought to be a corruption of 'acorn-ring-town', although the old oak woods that once encircled the town have long-since gone, victims of the Industrial Revolution.
Since the redrawing of the political boundaries in 1974, the town has formed part of the Borough of Hyndburn — a merging of Accrington together with the smaller 'satellite' towns of Oswaldtwistle, Church, Clayton-le-Moors, Great Harwood and Rishton, into one political 'seat'.
The 2001 census gave the population of Accrington town proper as 35,203. The figure for the built-up area ("Accrington Urban Area") was 71,224, up 1.1% from 70,442 in 1991. For comparison purposes that is approximately the same size as Aylesbury, Carlisle, Guildford or Scunthorpe urban areas.
For many decades, the textile industry was the central activity of the town. Mills and dye works provided work for the inhabitants, but often in very difficult conditions. There was regular conflict with employers, most famously in the 1842 'Plug riots' where a general strike spread from town to town, as thousands of strikers walked over the hills from one town to another to persuade people to join the strike. The strike joined up with the chartist movement, but was not successful in its aims.
The town's other famous association is with Accrington Stanley FC the butt of many (largely affectionate) jokes. The team's name is often invoked as a symbol of British sport's legion of plucky but hopeless causes (much like British ski-jumping's 'heroic failure' Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards). The club entered the Football League in 1921 with the formation of the old Third Division (North); after haunting the lower reaches of English football for forty years, they eventually went into enforced liquidation and were ignominiously ejected from the League in 1962. The club was reformed in 1968 and currently plays in the 'non-league' Nationwide Conference divisions. An earlier club, Accrington F.C., were one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888. However, their time in league football was even less successful, and considerably briefer, than that of Accrington Stanley: they dropped out of the league in 1893, and folded shortly afterwards due to financial problems.
The town of Accrington thus has the unique 'distinction' of having lost two separate clubs from league football, over the years |
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