Wigan Album

J.M.Ainscough was the mayor of Wigan 1922-23. He was born and brought up in Standish Market Place at what was later Sam Hale's grocers and butchers, opposite the Black Bull. No doubt that is when he first thought of how much the view of the church and market place would be improved if the Spite Row houses were demolished.

What an ad!
A smashing layout in fine style; the goods for sale are printed in those delightful bite-size chunks while the shop front is depicted encouragingly ('let's take a look inside, then').

St Wilfrid's Baptism Register records his Baptism on 19th April 1854 - son of James and Sarah - father's occupation was Farmer. Would he have been born in Market Place if his father was a farmer?

Rev Long, yes. In those days all the land behind the Market Place, to the north, was farm land as far as James's Square. No council estate then! If you look on the census returns around that time (1861 or 71) you will see that James Ainscough, the father of J.M. Ainscough, was farming from that house.

Is the Ainscough mentioned here anything to do with the flour millers from Burscough? They had a huge mill at the side of the Leeds/Liverpool cut. I rampaged thru their derelict house once as a teenager at the top of Junction Lane!

I can imagine money for purchases put into tubes and sent whizzing to the cash office!
A lovely frontage....knocks the spots off Poundland :O)

Rev Long, from "J.M.Ainscough - a Memoir" by his daughter Margaret Ainscough (pub. J.Starr, Wigan 1937):
"After their marriage at Eccleston Church [1853] James and Sarah Ainscough went to live at Standish,on the north side of the Market Place. In 1755 it was the home of Mistress Mary Smalley......In 1853 a row of old sycamore trees stood in front of the house, and behind the house and farm buildings were the the fields which James Ainscough farmed. These included the Kirk Croft, Great Field and Yarn Croft......At this house his only child, James Martland Ainscough, was born on February 25th 1854."
I believe there is a copy of this book in the Wigan History Shop.

Thanks for the information, folks. It all looks very different now.