Lancashire. Isolated by dense forests and scarcely marked by the Romans, this north-western area of England remained remote and desolate even at Domesday; the coastline of dunes, marshes, and mosses had discouraged intensive settlement from across the Irish Sea, although combined Norse/Anglian place-names still persist. Fully recognized as one of the English shires by 1194 and a county palatine since 1351, the palatine rights were subsequently vested in the sovereign as duke of Lancaster. Its relative remoteness later sheltered recusancy and Jacobitism.

Cloth-manufacturing was initially a subsidiary employment in the upland farms, encouraged by the soft water and mild, moist climate, since the Pennine hills entrap east-moving clouds; linen (west) and wool (east) had become increasingly important by the 17th cent. The invention of machines for spinning (Hargreaves's spinning jenny, Arkwright's water frame, Crompton's mule) and development of steam-power in the later 18th cent. encouraged exploitation of the coalfield and a move from a domestic to a factory system, with increasing concentration on the more easily worked cotton. Aided by improved communications and transport (canals, then railways), and growth of Manchester as a business centre and Liverpool as an Atlantic port, the expansion in cotton enabled Lancashire to dominate the British textile industry. Commerce, cotton, chemicals, and engineering generated industrial development, massive growth in population, and local wealth but at the expense of scarring of the valleys, the health of the work-force, and child labour, despite growing trade unionism. Church-building was matched by equally rapid growth of nonconformist chapels.

The gradual loss of vitality of Lancashire since 1880 has been attributed less to ‘entrepreneurial failure’, aggravated by economic depression between the world wars, than to a reduction in export demand as rival overseas industries developed. Glass, soap, and shipping prospered, but as textiles and mining declined, unemployment, urban decay, and out-migration accelerated. Museums have replaced mills. However, arable farming with some reversal of enclosures has made a significant return in the north and west, since the drained mosses yielded rich soils, while market gardens flourish; coastal towns such as Blackpool have become tourist resorts. Cricket and association and rugby league football retain passionate support, but, despite its regional distinctiveness, the county (shorn in 1972 of Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and its southern Lakeland fringe) barely withstands a drift back to its former position on the periphery. In the local government reorganization of the 1990s the county retained its status, but no fewer than sixteen areas were made unitary authorities—Blackburn, Blackpool, Bolton, Bury, Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, St Helens, Salford, Sefton, Trafford, Warrington, and Wigan.

A. S. Hargreaves