Oswaldtwistle

• 1. Introduction

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  Robert Peel was born in Oswaldtwistle in 1723 and built his fortune in calico printing. A particularly successful pattern he developed featured a sprig of parsley. The design gave him a nickname that followed him for life: 'Parsley Peel.' The family he established in this Lancashire township would, within three generations, leave a mark on British history far beyond the cotton trade.

  Oswaldtwistle sits in the Hyndburn borough of Lancashire, three miles southeast of Blackburn and contiguous with Accrington. The name combines 'Oswald' with 'twistle,' an old English word meaning where brooks meet. Legend says the name honours Saint Oswald, King of Northumbria, who once passed through. A more likely explanation is that the 'Oswald' records the name of an Anglo-Saxon farmer who worked the land.

  By 2021, the town's population had fallen to 10,815. Yet within that compact geography, Oswaldtwistle was once a hub of cotton production. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which passes through the town, was the artery that carried its produce outward.

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• 2. Three Robert Peels

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  Parsley Peel had not always worked alone. In 1760, he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Jonathan Haworth, and together they established the Brookside Mill Calico Works in Oswaldtwistle. The remnants of that mill are still visible today in what is now Bury Meadow Nature Reserve.

  His son, a second Robert Peel, was also born at Peelfold in 1750. He took the family's textile interests beyond Lancashire, operating cotton mills in both Bury and Burton on Trent. He accumulated enough wealth and influence to enter Parliament and receive a baronetcy.

  The third Robert Peel in this line, born at Bury, chose politics as his full vocation. He founded the Metropolitan Police and rose to become Prime Minister. James Hargreaves, who also lived in Oswaldtwistle, was working in a workshop about a mile from Brookside Mill during those same years. His invention would change cotton spinning across Britain.

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• 3. The Power Loom Riots

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  From the 1820s onwards, Lancashire's textile factories began adopting looms powered by steam engines. The change eliminated many hand-weaving jobs and drove wages down; hunger followed in the mill towns.

  On the 26th of April, 1826, cotton workers in Oswaldtwistle marched on the factory at White Ash. That was the Brookside Mill, and they destroyed the looms and other equipment inside. The unrest ran for three days and spread to every cotton town in central Lancashire. Under the moorland to the south of Oswaldtwistle, in the Burnley Coalfield, another industry had been at work for decades.

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• 4. Coal Under the Moors

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  The Aspen Colliery sat alongside both the canal and the East Lancashire line. It had its own canal basin and a dedicated railway siding. Mining at the site is thought to have commenced in the early 19th century. The colliery closed in 1930.

  What the Aspen Colliery left behind is still visible. Two stone-built engine beds and a bank of 24 beehive type coke ovens remain on the site. Beehive coke ovens convert raw coal into coke, and this particular bank is now protected as a scheduled monument.

  In the 1840s, Broadfield Colliery ran a surface tramroad to the printworks at Foxhill Bank by way of Moscow Mills. Sough Lane Colliery had a tramroad connecting it to Knuzden. Town Bent Colliery also operated in the area. During the Second World War, prisoner-of-war camps near Oswaldtwistle held Italian internees in particular.

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• 5. Lives Shaped Here

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  Eddie Paynter, born in Oswaldtwistle in 1901, played 20 Test cricket matches and 352 first-class matches. Jackie Bray, born in 1909, played 257 games for Manchester City and was capped five times for England. Mike Duxbury, born in 1959, played 391 games primarily for Manchester United and earned 10 England caps.

  Ethel Holdsworth, born in 1886, built a career across multiple disciplines: working-class writer, feminist, socialist, poet, journalist, and children's author. Nicholas Freeston, born in 1907, wrote poetry as a Lancashire voice while working in a local cotton mill. S.M. Holden, born in 1862, stood as a parliamentary candidate for the National Prohibition Party in 1923.

  Basil G. Catterns, born in 1886, rose to become both Chief Cashier and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. Polly James, born in 1941, played Beryl Hennessey in The Liver Birds. Raymond Clark, born in 1942, was known as 'Ossie' throughout his career in fashion; the nickname came from Oswaldtwistle itself. He died in 1996. Sir John Tomlinson, born in 1946, built a career as an English operatic bass.

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• 6. Mills and Moors

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  The world's largest pear drop is kept at Oswaldtwistle Mills, made by a confectioner called Stockley's Sweets. The mill itself is a former textile building converted into a craft fair. An exhibition inside describes mill life as it was lived a hundred years ago.

  The Civic Arts Centre and Theatre, with a capacity of 457 seats, opened its ground floor as an arts venue in August 2010. It is known locally as the 'Friendly Theatre.' The first production performed there was Romeo and Juliet, directed by Joanne Haworth. It has since hosted comedy evenings featuring Jason Manford and John Bishop, as well as productions by resident theatre groups.

  On Oswaldtwistle Moor, plans for a wind farm were first proposed in May 2007. Councillors approved the project in March 2010, and in October 2012, twelve turbines were commissioned as the Hyndburn Wind Farm. In January 2017, the town was paired with Whitburn in West Lothian, Scotland, under a Carnegie Trust UK pilot scheme for twin towns. After a gap of sixteen years, an Oswaldtwistle Carnival committee was formed in June 2014. The first event in the revived series was held that summer.

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