Wigan Album

Is that how The Oddfellows Hall in Standish got it’s name?

I was only a young girl when I worked in a chemists in Standish but I remember a lot of names of roads from the prescriptions we used to get in, and there was a Bentham Road....would it have been named after William Bentham, I wonder?

Indeed, Linda. You'll notice William's son, Robert George, is also commemorated on the headstone - being killed in WW1. He would probably have been named on the Lodge's Roll of Honour, which listed all members who served and all who died in the war. It was unveiled in the Black Bull pub, presumably with sentiments such as 'They will be held in everlasting remembrance' in 1922... but has disappeared. Whether it was still around when the Oddfellows quit their Hall in Church Street, and was taken away for safety... or left to its fate, is unknown. I only know about it because of the report of its unveiling in the Wigan Observer of the time.

IRENE. Bentham Rd was named after the family that owned the land it was built on, they were farmers, the farmhouse Broomfield House on Bradley Lane is still occupied. If you remember the Palace Cinema on High Street in Standish the Bentham's owned that.

Thankyou Roy. It was 1970-1973 when I worked at the chemists and I don't recall a cinema at all. I worked on High Street so the cinema must have gone by then.

Irene if my memory serves me right, when you came out of the chemists and turned left, go forward and I think the first street on the left was Smalley Street and the pictures was on the opposite corner.

Hi Irene, i thought after i had posted that it was probably before your time.

Linma, sorry you're quite a way off with Smalley Street, the cinema was on the corner of Cross Street and High Street.

Roy, you’re right and I’m wrong, it’s an age thing.

Curious thing about the Bentham name - St Wilfrid's Registers show the name as Bentam in the 17th Century (when their online Registers begin) - but it becomes Bentham in the 18th century - with some Marriages recording Benthom in the 1720s only.

Hi David, having spent more than twenty years tracing my family tree going back to the 1200's and beyond and accumulating hundreds of copies of church documents which include many alternative and misspellings of surnames, it was obvious that in many cases the 'person' involved could neither read nor write, therefore, although they knew their name they couldn't spell it and the cleric wrote what he heard or thought he had heard or his version of the name. An example of one of my own surname mistakes was the marriage of my 8th Gt Grandfather Henry Huxley in 1671 his name in the Shropshire Parish Records became Huksly.

Roy
I have noticed the same with place names but I then wonder what is the correct spelling if it kept changing

Hello Roy and Tom,can you imagine how many misspellings there's been about my my maiden name...McGovern.

The Oddfellows Hall was on Church Street Standish, recently demolished to make a car park for and at the back of the Vet's on the High Street, there is an alleyway through from Potters Bar carpark . Some of the stones with names on are set into the carpark wall.