Burnley, United Kingdom

Following the Roman period, the area became part of the kingdom of Rheged, and then the kingdom of Northumbria. Local place-names Padiham and Habergham show the influence of the Angles, suggesting that some had settled in the area by the early 7th century; sometime later the land became part of the hundred of Blackburnshire.

There is no definitive record of a settlement until after the Norman Conquest of England. In 1122, a charter granted the church of Burnley to the monks of Pontefract Abbey. In its early days, Burnley was a small farming community, gaining a corn mill in 1290, a market in 1294, and a fulling mill in 1296. At this point, it was within the manor of Ightenhill, one of five that made up the Honor of Clitheroe, then a far more significant settlement, and consisted of no more than 50 families. Little survives of early Burnley apart from the Market Cross, erected in 1295, which now stands in the grounds of the old grammar school.

Over the next three centuries, Burnley grew in size to about 1,200 inhabitants by 1550, still centred around the church, St Peter's, in what is now known as "Top o' th' Town". Prosperous residents built larger houses, including Gawthorpe Hall in Padiham and Towneley Hall.

In 1532, St Peter's Church was largely rebuilt. Burnley's grammar school was founded in 1559, and moved into its own schoolhouse next to the church in 1602. Burnley began to develop in this period into a small market town, with a population of not more than 2,000 by 1790. It is known that weaving was established in the town by the middle of the 18th century, and in 1817 a new Market House was built. The town continued to be centred on St Peter's Church, until the market was moved to the bottom of what is today Manchester Road, at the end of the 19th century.

In the second half of the 18th century, the manufacture of cotton began to replace wool. Burnley's earliest known factories – dating from the mid-century – stood on the banks of the River Calder, close to where it is joined by the River Brun, and relied on water power to drive the spinning machines. The first turnpike road through the area now known as Burnley was begun in 1754, linking the town to Blackburn and Colne eventually leading to the area of Brun Lea developing into a town, and by the mid 19th century, there were daily stagecoach journeys to Blackburn, Skipton and Manchester, the latter taking just over two hours.

The 18th century also saw the rapid development of coal mining on the Burnley Coalfield: the drift mines and shallow bell-pits of earlier centuries were replaced by deeper shafts, meeting industrial as well as domestic demand in Nelson, Colne and Padiham, and by 1800 there were over a dozen pits in the modern-day centre of the town alone.

The arrival of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1796 made possible transportation of goods in bulk, bringing a huge boost to the area's economy and the town of Burnley was born. Dozens of new mills were constructed, along with many foundries and ironworks that supplied the cotton mills and coal mines with machinery and cast and wrought iron for construction. The town became renowned for its mill-engines, and the Burnley Loom was recognised as one of the best in the world.

A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Burnley Barracks in 1820.

Disaster struck Burnley in April 1824, when its only local bank, Holgate's Bank, collapsed, forcing the closure of some of the largest mills. Hardship continued for a few years, with wages repeatedly reduced between 1824 and 1826.

By 1830, there were 32 steam engines in cotton mills throughout the rapidly expanding town, an example of which, originally installed at Harle Syke Mill, is on display in the Science Museum in London.

Around 1840, a traveller described the town as ugly, stating that: "parts of it were so situated that good architectural effects might have been obtained had the disposition and the resources co-existed".

The Great Famine of Ireland led to an influx of Irish families during the 1840s, who formed a community in one of the poorest districts. At one time, the Park District (modern-day town centre, around Parker St.) was known as Irish Park.

In 1848, the East Lancashire Railway Company's extension from Accrington linked the town to the nation's nascent railway network for the first time. This was another significant boost to the local economy and, by 1851, the town's population had reached almost 21,000.

The Burnley Building Society, incorporated in Burnley in 1850, was, by 1911, not only 'by far the largest in the County of Lancashire... but the sixth in magnitude in the kingdom'.