Wigan Album

This picture is similar to that put on by Dave Cockrell.
Hawkley Hall pictured here was built in the 17th century to replace the original 14th century moated hall.
Many generations of Molyneux' lived there and in 1832 the mining rights were leased to Thomas Jenkinson, a grocer, and James Richard Grimshaw, linen draper, both from Wigan, for a period of 40 years. They were allowed to dig clay to make bricks and to erect structures necessary for mining, 'to get coal from the five-foot and four-foot mine lying within and under the component parts of Hawkley Estate comprising Hawkley Hall Farm, Little Hawkley Farm and the Ben Johnson.'
Jenkinson and Grimshaw,Coal and Cannel Merchants and Proprietors were listed in the 1834 Trade Directory and in 1835 they also took over the lease of the farm. Grimshaw's name is listed under Hawkley Colliery in the 1848 and 1851 Trade Directories. (Wigan Archive Service)
As someone has commented on one of the other Hawkley pictures, there were several houses on the estate and a community of people lived and worked there. On the censuses the buildings are usually called Hawkley Hall, Hawkley Farm and Hawkley Cottage but Delph House Farm and Delph House were probably also included. I have also seen Hawkley Yard and Glass House mentioned.
The 1841 census shows Thomas Jenkinson age 50, a Coal Proprietor, living alone in Hawkley Hall, while James Grimshaw, occupation Coal Proprietor, at Mount Cottage (next to Orrell Mount) with his family. Ten years later he had moved on because the following census in 1851 shows James Grimshaw,(age 53, born in Manchester) in residence at Hawkley Hall with his family. Maybe the coal had run out because he is listed as 'Farmer of 180 acres'.
Jenkinson and Grimshaw were the first of many tenants of Meyrick Bankes of Winstanley Hall who had bought the hall, farm,cottages, quarries and mines, 210 acres in all, in 1840.
By 1871, when Thomas Duckworth had the tenancy he is listed as 'farmer of 170 acres, employing 5 labourers' but ten years later James Stephenson (age 61, born in Anderton) had only 160 acres.
In 1901 the hall was occupied by several siblings called Hodge who were still there in 1911 and apparently stayed until the Jamesons farmed there. In fact an old friend told us that he remembered one of the Hodges boarding there when the Jamesons were there. It seems that Jack Jameson's dad bought Hawkley Hall in 1943 from the Bankes family.
I've found all the tenants of Hawkley in the censuses from 1841 through to 1911 so I can pass on any information if you have an interest in anyone around Hawkley or Worsley Mesnes in those years.