Friday, December 1, 2006

Blackburn

: ''This article is about Blackburn in Lancashire, England. For other uses of the name, see Nextel ringtones Blackburn (disambiguation).''

Abbey Diaz Image:BlackburnCathedral.jpg/thumb/right/300px/Free ringtones Blackburn Cathedral capped by a recent snowfall

'''Blackburn''' is a town in Majo Mills Lancashire, Mosquito ringtone England, with a population of about 140,000. It was a key centre for the Sabrina Martins textile industry during Nextel ringtones industrial revolution and is popularly known as the home of Abbey Diaz Blackburn Rovers F.C./Blackburn Rovers Football Club.

Politics
Blackburn is administered by the Free ringtones Blackburn with Darwen Majo Mills Unitary Authority, which is presently controlled by the Cingular Ringtones The Labour Party (UK)/Labour Party. It sends one bomber mohiyedine Member of Parliament/MP to conflicts are British House of Commons/Westminster, the affliction is Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs/Foreign Secretary, centers only Jack Straw (politician)/Jack Straw. Previous MPs for Blackburn incluce former Labour cabinet minister no randomized Barbara Castle, who represented the town in Westminster from high get 1945 to among scholars 1979.

Blackburn Rovers
The forward rashard FA Premier League/Premier League why such Football (soccer)/football side colleague will Blackburn Rovers F.C./Blackburn Rovers is based at the directors arranged Ewood Park stadium. The club has done much to raise the profile of the town, winning the groups by FA Premier League/Premier League in worsen the 1995 and the his overturning League Cup in apprentice he 2002. Blackburn is known to fans of on read The Beatles as the town featured in the song "greater willingness A Day in the Life". An article in the elegance lightly Daily Mail about a plan to fill potholes in the town caught not out John Lennon's eye as he was writing the song, giving birth to the lyric: "I read the news today. Oh, boy. 4000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire". This lends itself to the title of the unoffical just calls fanzine of Blackburn Rovers, which is called "4000 Holes".

History
In 1887, ''John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles'' described Blackburn like this:

:"Blackburn. parl. and mun. bor., par. and township, NE. Lancashire, 9 miles E. of Preston and 210 miles NW. of London by rail par., 48,281 ac., pop. 161,617; township, 3681 ac., pop. 91,958; bor., 6974 ac., pop. 104,014; 4 Banks, 2 newspapers. Market-days, Wednesday and Saturday. It is one of the chief seats of cotton manufacture, besides producing calico, muslin, &c., there being over 140 mills at work. There are also factories for making cotton machinery and steam engine/steam-engines. B. has heen associated with many improvements in the mfr. of cotton, among which was the invention (1767) of the "Spinning Jenny" by James Hargreaves, who died in 1770. There are several fine churches and public buildings. A Corporation Park, Blackburn/Corporation Park (50 acre/ac. in area) is on the outskirts of the town. Several lines of railway converge here, and pass through one principal station belonging to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Ry. Co. B. returns 2 members to Parliament." [http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/Travellers/place_page.jsp?p_id=955]

Features
*Corporation Park, Blackburn/Corporation Park
*Witton Country Park, Blackburn/Witton Country Park
*Blackburn Cathedral
*Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
*Lewis Textile Museum
*Blackburn Railway Station features a 24ft mural by Stephen Charnock, which depicts eight famous faces associated with the town, including Mahatma Gandhi, who visited nearby Darwen in 1931.
*Ewood Park football stadium
*Blackburn Arena, home of the Blackburn Hawks ice hockey team
*Thwaites/Thwaites brewery has has produced real ale in Blackburn for nearly 200 years
*A section of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal runs through the town
*The River Blakewater, which gives its names to the town, merges with the River Darwen before joining the River Ribble.

Education
= Colleges =
*http://www.blackburn.ac.uk/
*http://www.stmarysblackburn.ac.uk/

= Secondary Schools =
*Al-Islah Schools (independent)
*Beardwood High School
*Jamiatul-Ilm Wal-Huda UK School (independent)
*http://www.olsj.blackburn.sch.uk/
*Pleckgate High School
*http://www.qegs.blackburn.sch.uk/ (independent, with 6th form)
*Queen's Park Technology College
*St Bede's Roman Catholic High School
*St Wilfrid's CofE High School and Technology College (with 6th form)
*Tauheedul-Islam Girls' High School (independent)
*Westholme school(independent, with 6th form)
*Windsmoor House School (independent)
*http://www.wittonpark.blackburn.sch.uk/

Coat of arms
image:arms-blackburn.jpg/thumb/right/200px/Arms of the former Blackburn Borough Council
The coat of arms show in the picture here, has many distintive emblems, these are described below:

*Three bee/bees in flight. The bee is an emblem of skill, perseverance and industry. “B” also stands for Blackburn; and further, as the Peel family sprang from this neighbourhood and bears a bee in flight on its shield, the idea naturally suggests itself that Robert Peel/Sir Robert Peel had adopted the Blackburn bee.
*The shield is silver or white, and thus emblematical of calico, the product of the Blackburn bees.
*The broad wavy black line represents the Black Brook (Blakewater) on the banks of which the town is built.
*The silver bugle horn was the crest of the first Mayor of Blackburn, William Henry Hornby, It is also the emblem of strength.
*The gold lozenges, or fusils (diamond shaped), are the heraldic emblems of spinning, derived from the Latin “fusus” or “fusilium,” meaning a spindle, and they refer to the invention of the “Spinning Jenny” in 1864 by James Hargreaves, a native of the district. They also denote the connection of Joseph Feilden with Blackburn, as Lord of the Manor, as he bore lozenges on his shield.
*The background of green is there to remind us of the time when Blackburn was one of the Royal Forests in the time of Edward the Confessor.
*The shuttle is the emblem of weaving, the trade which has contributed more than any other to the prosperity of the town.
*The dove taking wing with an olive branch in her beak (the emblem of peace) attached to the thread of the shuttle, represents the beneficial results emanating from the art of weaving.

Famous Blackburnians
The following people were born or brought up in Blackburn:


= The arts =

* Fashion designer '''Wayne Hemingway''' spent most of his childhood in Blackburn, moving there after being born in Morecambe in 1961. He attended the local private school for boys (QEGS - see above) [http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire/lifestyle/2003/06/04/hemingway.shtml].
*Film maker '''Michael Winterbottom''', director of 24 Hour Party People, was born in Blackburn.
*Actor '''Ian McShane''', famous for playing antiques dealer Lovejoy in the BBC drama series of the same name, was born in Blackburn on 29 September 1942 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/faces/ian_mcshane.shtml].
*'''Kathleen Harrison''', one of the greatest British film character actresses of the Forties and Fifties, was born in Blackburn on 23 February 1892. She found a new audience on television in the Sixties with the hugely successful comedy-drama ''Mrs Thursday''.
*Actor '''Jon Walmsley''' was born in Blackburn on 6 February 1956. He gave his voice to the character of Christopher Robin in the 1968 Disney film version of Winnie the Pooh and went on to portray Jason Walton in the TV series ''The Waltons'' from 1972 to 1981.
*Musician, singer and composer '''Tony Ashton''' was born in Blackburn on 1 March 1946. A gifted organist, Ashton came to fame with his trio Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, best known for their 1971 smash hit "Resurrection Shuffle". He also played on sessions with Jon Lord of Deep Purple and with Jerry Lee Lewis.
*Writer '''Josephine Cox''' was born in Blackburn, setting many of her novels in Lancashire. Her annual sales in Britain total nearly one million copies.
*Actor '''Steve Pemberton''' was born in Blackburn in 1967 and is most famous for co-writing BBC television comedy The League of Gentlemen. He has variously been involved in theatre production, performance and direction, and is a founder member of 606 Theatre.
*'''Alfred Gregory''', official photographer for the 1953 ascent of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, was born in Blackburn.
*Broadcaster '''Russell Harty''' was born in the town on 5 September 1934. He will probably be best remembered for an edition of his chatshow in which he was physically assaulted by the black American singer, Grace Jones.
*'''Wilfred Greatorex''', writer and television script editor, was born in Blackburn on 27 May 1922.

= Sports =
*Four times Superbike World Championship winner '''Carl Fogarty''' was born in Blackburn on 1 July 1966.
*'''Bill Fox''', chairman of Blackburn Rovers and president of the Football League from 1998 until his death in 1991, was born in Blackburn on 6 January 1928.
*Blackburn Rovers captain '''Ronnie Clayton''' was capped 35 times as an England international.
*Rock climbing/Rock climber '''John Sumner''' was born in Blackburn on 13 March 1936. Sumner was the preeminent exploratory climber in his chosen domain of mid-Wales, climbing cutting-edge routes on the remote crags and cliff-faces south of Snowdonia starting in the mid-1950s.
*England Rugby union player '''Will Greenwood''' was born in Blackburn on 20 October 1972.
*The 1985 World Professional Snooker Champion '''Dennis Taylor''' moved to Blackburn from Northern Ireland in 1966 at the age of 17.

= Business =
* The industrialist '''Jack Walker''' was born in the town on 19 May 1929. The steel magnate ploughed his fortune into his beloved Blackburn Rovers F.C./Blackburn Rovers, leading to their FA Premier League/Premier League title success in 1995.

= Science =
*Mathematician '''David Fowler''' was a leading authorities on the history of mathematics in ancient Greece. Born in Blackburn on 28 April 1937, Fowler studied at the Russell School, near Morecambe Bay and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University/Cambridge.
*'''Arthur Maitland''' was a pioneering figure in laser physics research. At St Andrews University, he very quickly established a group working on gas lasers, recognising that the gas-discharge laser had enormous potential for practical use. He was born in Blackburn on 7 December 1928

Books about Blackburn
*Jeremy Seabrook, "City Close-up: Blackburn", Penguin Books, 1973 [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140037217/qid=1101666879/sr=1-46/ref=sr_1_0_46/202-4420309-5128661]
*William Woodruff, "Billy Boy: The Story of a Lancashire Weaver's Son", Edinburgh University Press, 1993 [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1853310476/qid%3D1101668180/202-4420309-5128661]
*William Woodruff, "The Road to Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood", Abacus, 2002[http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349115214/qid=1101668288/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/202-4420309-5128661]
*William Woodruff, "Beyond Nab End", Abacus, 2003 [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349116229/qid=1101668288/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_10_2/202-4420309-5128661]
*David Allin, "Blackburn Since 1900" [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0948946180/qid=1101666397/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_10_5/202-4420309-5128661]
*Derek Beattie, "Blackburn: The Development of a Lancashire Cotton Town", Keele University Press, 1992 [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1853310212/qid=1101666568/sr=1-11/ref=sr_1_0_11/202-4420309-5128661]
*Jim Halsall, "Blackburn in Times Gone By" [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1872895395/qid=1101666724/sr=1-40/ref=sr_1_0_40/202-4420309-5128661]
*Matthew Cole, "Blackburn's Shops at the Turn of the Century" [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/187289528X/qid=1101666724/sr=1-39/ref=sr_1_0_39/202-4420309-5128661]
*M. Baggoley, "Blackburn in Old Photographs", Sutton Publishing, 1996 [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0750912626/qid=1101666879/sr=1-50/ref=sr_1_0_50/202-4420309-5128661]

External links
* http://www.cottontown.org, a website telling the story of the rapid social and economic changes that occurred as Blackburn and Darwen began to expand in line with the United Kingdom textile industry.
*Jeremy Seabrook, "http://www.guardian.co.uk/northsouth/article/0,2763,866540,00.html", ''The Guardian'', 30 December 2002 (The far right is feeding on the dislocation of the industrial north )

Tag: Towns in Lancashire