Place:


Widnes Lancashire

 

Names from historical writing:

The following appear as names for Widnes. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
WIDNES John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.

    • Names for administrative units:

    These names were used for units associated with Widnes. Click on the links for details of the units and their names:

    Name Unit Type Source
    E200678 Local Government District (MB)
    LANCASHIRE SOUTH WEST WIDNES Constituency (PDivCon) 1891 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Parliamentary Counties and Boroughs, and their Divisions; Inhabited Houses and population in 1891'.
    LANCASHIRE WIDNES Constituency (PDivCon) Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
    Constituency (CCon) Boundary Commission for England, First Periodical Report (London: H.M.S.O., 1954)
    SOUTHWEST LANCASHIRE WIDNES Constituency (PDivCon) Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
    WIDNES Constituency (CCon) Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
    Constituency (PDivCon) F.W.S. Craig (ed.), British Parliamentary Election Results 1885-1918 (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1974)
    Local Government District (MB) F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 212.
    Parish-level Unit (CP/Tn) F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 212.
    Sanitary District (USD) F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 686.
    Urban Labour Market Great Britain Historical GIS Project
    WIDNES ST AMBROSE Ecclesiastical Parish (EP) F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 212.
    WIDNES ST MARY Ecclesiastical Parish (EP) F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 212.
    WIDNES ST PAUL Ecclesiastical Parish (EP) F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 212.

    NB: These are all the names of all the administrative units which we have associated with Widnes, and you must judge whether all or even any of them are variant names for the place. They may well include the names of other locations or areas:

    • For cities, the associated administrative units will usually include parishes, especially ecclesiastical parishes, one of whose names is the name of the city followed by a saint's dedication, with just the saint's name as another variant. Parish names will sometimes also include "places" within towns.
    • Districts usually contain more than one settlement, and some districts had their names changed to take the name of a completely different settlement. As we link each administrative unit to just one of our "places", usually the last place the unit was named after, in these cases the name for a completely different place will appear on this page.
    • Similarly, a unit may sometimes be named after a particular settlement it contains and sometimes to indicate its location within a higher level unit. This was very common among British parliamentary constituencies in rural areas, one name referring to their main town and another indicating that they were in, say, the southern part of the relevant county.

    Every name listed here is linked to the particular historical source in which it appears, but we cannot claim that these are all the historical names of Widnes, or that our references are to the first usage of the names. Similarly, we have tried to ensure that names included here are not transcription errors by ourselves, but it is possible they are the result of errors made when the historical sources were printed, or the result of visiting authors or census officials mis-hearing local names.

    How to reference this page:

    GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Widnes, in Halton and Lancashire | Place names, A Vision of Britain through Time.

    URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/469/names

    Date accessed: 22nd April 2025