BOLTON (BoLToN-LE-MooRs), municipal, county and par liamentary borough, Lancashire, England, m. N.W. of Man chester. Pop. (I8gi) '46,487; (1931) 177,253. It is served by the L.M.S. railway, and divided by the Croal, a small tributary of the Irwell, into Great and Little Bolton; while, as the full name implies, it is surrounded by high moorland. Although of early origin, its appearance, like that of other great manufactur ing towns of the vicinity, is wholly modern. The earliest form of the name is Bodleton or Botheltun. The manor was granted by William I. to Roger de Poictou, and passed through the families of Ferrers and Pilkington to the Hartingtons of Hornby Castle, who lost it with their other estates for their adherence to Richard III. In 1485 Henry VII. granted it to the first earl of Derby. The manor of Little Bolton seems to have been, at least from Henry III.'s reign, distinct from that of Great Bolton, and was held till the i7th century by the Botheltons or Boltons. The site of the church of St. Peter has long been occupied by a parish church (there was one there in the i2th century), but the existing build ing dates only from 187o. In 1251 William de Ferrers obtained from the crown a charter for a weekly market and a yearly fair, but gradually this annual fair was replaced by four others chiefly for horses and cattle. The New Year and Whitsuntide Show fairs arose only during the i9th century. During the Civil War Bolton sided with the parliament, and in 1643 and 1644 the royalist forces assaulted the town.
From early days Bolton was famous for its woollen manufac tures. In Richard I.'s reign an aulneger, whose duty it was to measure and stamp all bundles of woollen goods, was appointed. The industry flourished so greatly that when, in 1566, deputies were appointed to assist the aulnegers, Bolton is again named. Leland in his Itinerary (1558) recorded the fact that Bolton made cottons, which were in reality woollen goods. Real cotton goods were not made in Lancashire till 1641, when Bolton is named as the chief seat of the manufacture of fustians, vermilions and dimities. Velvets were first made here about 1756, by Jeremiah Clarke, and muslins and cotton quiltings in 1763. The inventors of spinning machinery, Arkwright and Crompton, were both born in the parish. Spinning factories were erected, the first in Bolton about 1780. In 1851 there were 66 cotton mills with 86o, 000 throstle spindles at work. The cognate industry of bleaching has been carried on since early in the i8th century, and large iron works grew up in the latter half of the i9th century. In 1791 a canal was constructed from Manchester to Bolton, and by an act of parliament (1792) Bolton Moor was enclosed.