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Preston began as an estate belonging to a priest. It was called priest's tun (tun was the Saxon word for farm or estate). Later the name changed to Preston.
Preston becomes a town and has a weekly market.
There is a leper hospital dedicated to St Mary Magdalene.
The main industry in Preston is textiles: wool and linen production.
Alderman w. Suddell because he is deaf, is allowed to sit in any seat he deems convenient at St John’s Parish Church. He is not fined the violation charge of 12 pence for not sitting in his appropriate pew. The Mayor, Councillors and Aldermen all have designated seating.
First Workhouse is established near Avenham Lane.
Preston is commonly called Proud Preston.
Wool and linen production gives way to cotton.
Sir Richard Arkwright, credited for inventing the spinning frame is born in Preston.
The first cotton mill or spinning factory opens in Preston by William Collison. This marks the beginning of Preston’s industrial expansion. The factory stands in Moor Lane.
A new Workhouse is built partly to ‘provide a comfortable asylum for the deserving whom age, disease or infirmity have disabled from pursuing their various employments.’
148 persons are fed at the Workhouse for a weekly cost of 1s. 6 ¼ d.
1,154 persons are fed for 9 3/4d. a week each at the Workhouse.
Penwortham Workhouse is erected.
Walton-le-Dale Workhouse is erected.
‘Surgeon’s Court derives its name from its position at the rear of properties fronting Lune Street which throughout the 19th Century were occupied by surgeons. It is said that local people were ‘entertained’ by the screams of unfortunate patients having their limbs amputated. For a few coppers you could have a ring-side views!’
Preston has a population of 11,887.
The public Dispensary is established in Everton Gardens for the accommodation and the relief of the sick and infirm poor. The poor obtain free medicines.
The public Dispensary moves to Fishergate.
The Benevolent Society was instituted for the purposes of visiting and relieving sick and distressed poor at their respective habitations.
House of Recovery established on a site near Trinity Church.
Longton Workhouse is erected.
Ribchester Workhouse is erected
Wood Plumpton Workhouse is erected.
Hutton Workhouse located on Pope Lane erected.
Howick Workhouse is erected.
The House of Recovery, a fever hospital is opened. It has moved from its original site to just to the south of the workhouse.
Preston’s Poor Law Union formed. Shortly after this the Howick, Hutton and Longton Workhouses shut
There are approximately 40 cotton mills in operation.
The powerloom weavers employed at Ainsworth’s Church Street mill Met at Chadwicks’s Orchard (the present site of the market in Orchard Street) early in the morning. The meeting was intended to discuss an internal dispute at the mill, but Chartist sympathizers and agitators either from among Ainsworth’s weavers, or who had infiltrated the meeting, urged the operatives to stop work immediately and to strike in sympathy with workers in other areas.’
Violence happens….
Lawrence Pilling, a steam loom weaver of Moss Rose Street off Fylde Road, suffered terrible injuries to the leg, the musket ball having seriously splintered the bone, resulting in amputation shortly afterwards…’
42 cotton mills in use employing 20% of the population.
The Dispensary is doing excellent work to help the poor, but the town’s population is growing so fast that it is not meeting the demands for health. care.
Preston has a population of 69,361.
The Ribchester Workhouse is adapted to include special accommodation for lunatics and imbeciles.
75 cotton mills in use.
Deepdale Workhouse is able to accommodate 480 adult inmates. There is an infants’ school attached.
Deepdale Workhouse becomes overcrowded and many inmates are sleeping two to four people in a bed.
Work opportunities for blind people were started in a cottage in North Road by John Catterall, a temperance reformer. The famous teetotaler Joseph Livesey assisted the scheme financially.
Watling Street Road Workhouse built in Fulwood to accommodate up to 1,500 inmates. Following the building of this, the House of Recovery and Wood Plumpton Workhouse close.
The Preston Royal Infirmary, the town’s first hospital is finally built.
It is documented at Deepdale Workhouse that in the male ward that ‘1 blind and infirm and 1 case with bronchitis’ are sleeping in the same bed.
The North Lancashire Blind Welfare Society is founded in the Preston Corn Exchange, when a group of local dignitaries joined together to try and help blind people, many of whom wandered the streets without work.
Mr. T.B. Addison opens a new Workhouse.
The Preston Workhouse (to become Sharoe Green Hospital) opens.
The Royal Infirmary opened.
The Whittingham Asylum opens.
First record of formal training for nurses at Preston Royal Infirmary
Whittingham Railway opens. It is a private light railway operated by Lancashire County Council serving the local mental asylum at Whittingham. The railway transports goods, passengers and staff between Grimsargh and the hospital grounds.
The Preston Docks open.
The Cross Deaf and Dumb School opens with just 16 pupils
Home for the Blind, built on the corner of Black Bull Lane opens.
Queen Victoria grants permission for a number of deaf schools, including Preston, to use the prefix ‘Royal’ in its title and the Cross Deaf and Dumb School becomes known as the Royal Cross School for the Deaf.
The Royal Cross Deaf School is extended and can now accommodate up to 90 children.
Preston’s population is nearly 120,000.
Cotton Industry begins to decline
The 4th Preston (Royal Cross School) is registered. It is the World’s first Deaf Boy Scout Troop.
It was suggested that blind workers could be taught to make mattresses and bedding and the members of the League for the Blind said ‘Preston being a sea faring town, the making and renovating of mattresses for sailors bunks ought to be sought after’.
The boys of the 4th Preston (Royal Cross School) Boy Scout Troop build their Scout house.
World War I. Preston becomes a major railway centre and key mobilization base.
Private William Young of the 8th Service Battalion, East Lancahsire Regiment saves the life of his sergeant in France but is shot in the chest and also shot in the face that completely removes his lower part of his jaw.
The London Gazette confirms that Pte. Young is to be awarded the Victoria Cross.
Thousands of Preston people turn out and line the route from the station to the Town Hall to accord a fitting welcome to Private Young, V.C., on his return home after being awarded the highest and therefore the most-coveted decoration the King has power to bestow on officers and men of all ranks of the British Army and the Navy.
Pte. Young makes what would now be described as a ‘celebrity appearance’ at Deepdale Football Ground. Preston North End plays a game against the Munition Workers from Dick, Kerr and Company, in aid of war charities such as the Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital for Wounded Soldiers on Moor Park, the Free Buffet for Soldiers and Sailors at the railway station, and the local fund for the welfare of prisoners-of-war. Pte. Young ‘kicked-off’ the match before 1,500 spectators and North End won 6-0.
Pte Young leaves Preston and returns to Exeter Hospital.
Private Henry Norman Houghton is enlisted in Clitheroe.
Pte. Young returns to Preston for a ten-day leave.
Private Young dies whilst being operated on by surgeon Captain H. D. Gillies, Royal Medical Corps. This operation was sadly the last of many pioneering reconstructive surgeries whereby Captain Gillies attempted to replace Pte. Young’s shattered jaw with a denture after which he hoped Pte. Young would be able to speak and to eat solid food. H. D. Gillies was the first surgeon to employ the skills of artists and photographers to document and plan surgical procedures and is widely accepted as the father of modern day facial reconstructive surgery.
Private Young’s local funeral has a special significance and attracts a great deal of National publicity. It gives to the town of Preston quite a unique standing in the history of the Victoria Cross. The Victoria Cross is on display at the Museum of Lancashire, Stanley Street, Preston.
[…] The Government shocked by the number of blinded serviceman [during World War I] began to apply a more active part in the welfare of the blind. At a National Conference attended by delegates of the Blind Institute the then Chairman of St Dunstans Sir Arthur Person, made a top secret announcement that’ the National Air Board required 1,000 intelligent blind men as ‘detectors’ on the approach of aircraft. They would be employed at listening posts connected with anti-aircraft defenses. Their presence would lead to the release of men able to perform other military duties, but more than that they were peculiarly fitted for the work as in their case their sense of hearing was developed to a greater degree of ‘sensitivity’’. The delegates were asked to recommend suitable volunteers.
During the Battle of Passchendaele, Pte. Henry Norman Houghton has his left leg blown off by shell at hip and left forearm is smashed. At Roehampton they wanted to amputate the arm but didn’t and used salt packs and profuse bleeding so no gas gangrene developed. He later transferred to Calderstones where his left arm was operated on by a surgeon that pieced the smashed bones together and took muscles from his good leg to graf into the left arm.
Private Gilbert Wilkinson of the 2nd/5th Battalion, The East/Lancashire Regiment, 66th Division is wounded, although the Battalion War Diary does not give any casualties for that day but several men were killed or wounded on the day before. Pte. Wilkinson is in the 83 General Hospital for six months whereby pioneering surgery is done on his face skilfully replacing the missing cheeks by using skin grafts. Pte. Wilkinson received the Victory Medal, the British War Medal and a Silver War Badge.
After this year, the cotton industry, which dominated the town for so long collapses.
Aircraft manufacturing begins in Preston.
At the end of the First World War the West Annex of Whittingham becomes a military hospital for sick and wounded soldiers.
Pte. Houghton is discharged from the army, Preston.
Pte. Houghton is issued his Silver War Badge No. B305981.
Preston’s economy changes from typical mill town. Diversification includes the new administrative centre of the County Council. The Town has become a major route centre of dock, railway yards and road distribution. Also a major market and service centre for agriculture.
The Blind Institute assures the Ministry of Health that there were ‘no blind beggars in Preston. Every blind person in the town able to work is either employed in the workshops or in their own home, having been trained by the Institute and supplied with the necessary equipment and materials.’
The Whittingham Asylum becomes known as the Whittingham Mental Hospital.
An annual event ‘The Crippled Children’s outing’ occurs. LEP 17 January 2001
The Royal Cross Deaf School begins admitting children who had become deafened after infancy.
Sharoe Green transferred to Preston County Borough to be known as Fulwood Public Assistance Institution.
Sharoe Green’s main hospital is founded.
Commencement of World War II and re-armament.
Blind and partially sighted children from Liverpool evacuated to the Derby School.
Children from the Anerley School for Deaf Boys in London evacuated and stay briefly at the Royal Cross School for the Deaf.
Rayon factory opens
Kenneth Wells is blinded during World War II when he served in ENSA. He then became billed as the Blind Trumpeter performing in music halls on the variety stage. Soon after coming to Preston he was appointed Appeals Organiser. The Lancashire Evening Post reported after he died in 1971, he had raised thousands for the Preston and District Institute for Blind Welfare.
The Lancashire Daily Post was able to announce that Preston had a school for the partially sighted ‘the first of its kind in England’.
The NHS is formed and now poor people who often went without medical treatment are now being treated by professionals free of charge.
Albert Edward Dock is the first dock to introduce roll on roll off traffic.
The school for the partially sighted opens extended buildings and provides for 94 children from all over the North of England, Wales, Shropshire and Nottingham.
Cotton mills continue to close after the war boom. Cheap imports from abroad are blamed.
The visitors book shows that the work of the Institute for the Blind has received international recognition with visitors recorded from Australia, New Zealand, US and Yugoslavia and school leavers were entering the trades and professions such as physiotherapy, carpentry, shorthand, typing, gardening, shop assistant etc.
Immigrants from India, Pakistan and west Indies come.
The Preston and District Spastics Group is formed. LEP 17 September 1993
Galloway Home opens. It is the only rest home in the Preston area specializing in care for the blind.
Preston Handicapped Workshop and Social Centre at Deepdale-road catering for the physically handicapped and the blind opened.
Cotton industry ceases.
The Government publishes as report called ‘A Hospital Plan for England and Wales’. The plan recognizes Preston as the main sub-centre in the North West region outside of Manchester and that the district general hospital proposed for the district should also be home to certain regional specialties. A project team is established and the 47-acre site in Fulwood is identified as a suitable location.
The Health Committee formulated a policy of making residential provision in the community for mentally handicapped adults on the basis of small family type homes, and Brookfield Hostel was the prototype housing with four adults of each sex. Subsequently the committee felt that hostels could be provided at lower cost by modifying the interior of a standard three unit housing block.
Ribbleton Hostel is opened to house mentally handicapped adults. Designed by the Borough Surveyor it accommodates 5 adults of each sex […] The hostel houses a warden in a two bedroom flat and provides a bedroom for relief staff during holidays and sickness.
The Preston and District Spastics Group forms its own constitution.
The Croft, a half-way house in the rehabilitation of deaf has 24 residents when it opens. LEP 30 June 1980
The Corporation offers a new scheme due to increased spending powers and encouragement under the Chronically Sick and disabled Persons Act. The departments spent £8,400 on special installations such as telephones, televisions, hand rails and ramps. LEP 17 January 1971
Pte. Gilbert Wilkinson dies.
Preston Corporation’s handicapped buisiness Centre in Deepdale-road is visited by Prime Minister Mr Heath. LEP 18 August 1972
Over 1,000 blind people are in Preston. LEP 21 August 1973
A Braille guide is to be published to help blind people find their way around a changing town centre. LEP 21 August 1973
David Halpin becomes the first wheelchair-bound social worker in the country. LEP 1st July 1974
Announcement that a TV film featuring mentally handicapped children in the Preston area is to be made with the help of the Lancashire social services department.
Announcement of a special residential home for disabled men and women to be built and it is the only one of its kind in Lancashire. It is projected to be a 26-room unit located near Sharoe Green Hospital, Fulwood. LEP 4 September 1975
Disablement Services Centre on Royal Preston Hospital site.
New county special school in Moor Park opens
Preston Lions launch Preston’s first ‘talking newspaper’ for the blind. LEP 19 February 1979
Sharoe Green is a substantial 500-bedded General Hospital with facilities that include a young disabled unit.
The Connolly Centre for the mentally ill in Mona Street is officially opened.
24 residents enrolled at The Croft, same as 10 years prior. LEP 30 June 1980
A ‘social training unit’ opens at the Deepdale Centre, Preston for the mentally handicapped which meant they could run their own ‘home’, learn how to cook meals from their own menus, operate a washing machine, make cakes and pastry, and do the ‘hoovering’.
The Preston Docks are closed by Act of Parliament.
First patient to be treated at Royal Preston Hospital in the outpatient Physiotherapy Department.
Social Services in Lancashire purchase 20 Vistel machines that will help totally deaf people to communicate with each other by telephone. LEP 4 May 1983
Royal Preston Hospital’s first year in operation treats 122,040 outpatient attendances and 44,443 new attendances in the Accident and Emergency Department.
Her Royal Highness, Diana, Princess of Wales. officially opens Royal Preston Hospital.
The Preston health chiefs approve a £220,000 package of various projects that will boost care for the mentally handicapped in Lancashire.
A new £50,000 extension opens at the Deaf Welfare Centre, St Paul’s Road.
It is announced that a new dial-a-ride scheme is to be offered and there is hope that it will help hundreds of disabled people who cannot get out of their homes. The scheme called “CLAD Way” will be run on a membership basis with disabled people receiving a card and a number. LEP 30 April 1984
Les Roberts gains Preston Council approval to build North’s first purpose-built riding centre for disaled youngsters. A charitable trust is to be set up and then run by Mr Roberts. It is projected that as many as 70 donkeys will be giving rides to the areas handicapped children. LEP 6 July 1985
3 key schemes to help the mentally handicapped in Lancashire are backed by the county council and health authorities – providing day centres in Preston, Lancaster and Wyre. LEP 2 December 1985
The Preston and South Ribble Access and Mobility Group forms. LEP 16 December 2000
The Derby School for the partially sighted closes because the education authorities adopted a policy of integrating handicapped pupil into mainstream schools.
A new complex, the first of its type in the country, a product of a close partnership between North British Housing Association and the local Welfare Association for the deaf opens. It is a two-storey complex that is an alternative to traditional care. Deaf residents live in 17 of the 41 units with the elderly and disabled occupying the others. LEP 11 April 1987
The Blind Institute based at Derby School, moves to the Galloway Home on Liverpool Road, Penwortham.
The Preston and District Spastics Group revises its constitution. LEP 17 September 1993
Preston Spastics Group has opened the doors on the town’s first residential care centre for spastic adults. The Derby Lodge Centre in Black Bull Lane is planned to house up to 24 adults between the ages of 18 and 60 from the Preston Area. LEP 15 June 1989
Kerland Foundation Centre in New Hall Lane opens. It designs programmes of stimulation therapy for children all over the North West. LEP 2 December 1989
A Preston workshop for the mentally ill celebrates its 12th birthday and a £6,500 cash boost. LEP 20 April 1990
A resource and information centre to be set up to be opened at the end of 1991.
A steering committee of both blind and sighted people formed to decide how the centre should be set up. It was planned to contain 600 pieces of equipment and aids to help the blind. It would serve more than 3,000 people from Ormskirk to the Lake District.
The original site of the Royal Cross Deaf School closes. The Royal Cross Primary School opens in Ashton-in-Ribble, a small unit for approximately 25 deaf and hearing-impaired children.
Preston Mobility Centre in Chapel Yard car park opens. The shop mobility scheme plans to integrate the existing dial-a-bus service allowing disabled and elderly to borrow scooters and wheel chairs for town centre shopping. LEP19 November 1990
North Lancashire Blind Welfare Society celebrates 125 years.
Moor Lane Day Centre celebrates 10 year anniversary. LEP 8 August 1992
Preston Disablement Services Centre wins a new Government award designed to recognize high quality of service for customers.[…] The Disablement Services Centre provides a specialist service for people of all ages with permanent mobility problems needing artificial limbs and wheelchairs. LEP 29 September 1992
Preston Disablement Services Centre caters for 20,000 wheelchair patients and 1,650 artificial limb patients.
A new magazine is produced exclusively for blind people in Lancahsire. It is a one-hour taped magazine called the Lancashire Eye and is distributed to 350 listeners in the area.
Foundation for Rehabilitiation (Freer) developing Expertise, Education and Research opens. It is based on the Sharoe Green Hospital site. LEP 12 January 1994
Royal Preston Hospital and Sharoe Green Hospital officially become The Preston Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Becoming a Trust enables the two hospitals to become better placed to respond to the many changes within the NHS and produce an even better service for patients.
A mass rally is planned by disabled and mentally handicapped people from all over Lancashire in protest at plans to charge them to use day care centres. LEP16 February 1995
Members of the former Preston and District Spastics Group vote to change their name to Preston and District Scope, in line with similar groups across the country.
The Preston-based Mary Cross Trust, well known throughout the country for more than 100 years for its work with deaf people officially changes its name to Deafway to move with the times and immediately tell people what the work is about. LEP 27 September 1997
The Pukar Disability Resource Centre opens at its new premises. Pukar is a disability resource centre for the ethnic disabled.
The Preston and South Ribble Access and Mobility Group shuts. LEP 16 December 2000
Census indicates 130,000 people living in the Preston City Council area and184,836 people living in the Preston sub-area.
Children ages 0-18 with disabilities and their families database was set up in line with the Children Act 1989 and Data protection act 1998. By 2008 the service included 2000 Lancashire families. The service provides a free FIND Newsletter and there is access to an online FIND Service Directory.
The Preston Journey group is set up after a complaint to the Preston PCT from a family and this concluded that the complaint was due to communication breakdown in the Preston area.
Galloways Home for the Blind shuts in July leaving 20 people to move out.
Preston is made a city.
The Guild Hall plays host to a special forum to give help and advice about services available for people with disabilities in Preston.
Sharoe Green Hospital closes.
A new Medical Rehabilitation Unit opens at Royal Preston Hospital housing specialists staff trained in rehabilitating stroke patients.
The North West Physical Disability Partnership Board is created.
Preston Carers Centre forms becoming a registered charity. It moves from its temporary accommodation at Disc to its own premises.
A planning application is received by Preston City Council from Carey Baptist Church Pole Street for a Listed Building Consent for construction of a disabled access ramp
Members of the North West Physical Disability Partnership Board together with Lancashire County Council launch a new web site www.lpdpb.org.uk. This website was created to improve information sharing, consultation, and to assist in shaping public services accessible for disabled people. It is also the first website in Lancashire and in the UK to be created and run by people with physical disabilities.
A replacement inpatient mental health unit is considered. The Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust feels that Ribbleton Hospital is the most appropriate site of those available in central Lancashire. It is anticipated that completion of the new facility will be no sooner than 2011. It is unlikely that work will start on the final site until 2016.
Andrew Fairhurst is named Disabled Athlete of the Year (sponsored by MWR Solicitors) for taewondo, at the 2008 MWR Preston Sports Awards presentation night at the Guild Hall.
The History Zone Installation is launched.