PRESTON, Lancashire, • market and manufacturing town, muni cipal and parliamentary borough, and the seat of a Poor-Law Union, in the parish of Preston, is situated on the right bank and near the head of the :estuary of the river Ribble, where it receives the Darwen and the Lostock, in 53' 46' N. lat., 2' 42' W. long., distant 22 miles S. by W. from Lancaster, 217 miles N.W. by N. from London by road, and 210 miles by the North-Western railway. The population of tho borough in 1851 was 69,542. The borough is governed by 12 alder men and 36 councillor., one of whom is mayor; and returns two members to the Imperial Parliament The living is a vicarage in the archdeeconry of Lancaster and diocese of Manchester. Preston Poor Law Union contains 28 townships, with an area of 68,035 acres, and a population in 1851 of 95,751.
Preston is a place of high antiquity, and is supposed to have been named Priest's town from Its religious houses, of which vestiges still appear. Its origin is traced to the decay of Ribchester, the Roman station Rigodunnm, 11 miles np the river. The town was held by Tut*, brother of Harold IL, and became a borough by prescription. It received 18 royal charters, from the time of Henry 11. to that of Charles IL The place was partly destroyed by Robert Bruce in 1322. In the parliamentary war It declared for the king, and was besieged and taken by General Fairfax. In 1715 the Jacobite insurgents, under Foster, entered the town, and erected barricades for its defence, but after a brave resistance were forced to surrender.
The town is built on an eminence rising 120 feet from the Ribble. It occupies an area about a mile and a half square. There are some good terraces and squares, and the houses are in general well built. The town is lighted with gas, and for the most part well-paved and supplied with water. The river is crossed by Walton bridge, on the London road, a structure of three arches, erected in 1782; and about a mile and a half below it, Penwortham bridge, on the Liverpool road, consisting of five arches, and about a century old. A viaduct of the
North Union railway has five arches, and rises 68 feet above the stream.
Preston contains 10 Established places of worship. The parish church, originally dedicated to St. Wilfred, was rebuilt in 1770, and dedicated to St. John. St. George's church is a brick building, erected in 1723. The church of the Holy Trinity was built in 1814. St. Peter's, erected in 1824, and St. Paul's in 1825, both in the modern gothic style, were built by grants from the parliamentary commissioners. The Roman Catholics have four chapels, one of which is a very elegant building; the Wesleyan Methodists three; the Baptists three ; the Independents two ; the Primitive, Episcopalian Primitive, and Association Methodists, Lady Huntiugdou's Connexion, Unitarians, Quakers, Swedenborgian:I, and Mormons one each. The Free Grammar school, founded in 1663, of which the mayor and corporation are patrons, has an income from endowment of about 150/. a year, and had about 130 scholars in 1852. There are eleven National and five Infant schools, a Blue-Coat school, and a school for the deaf and dumb. The Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge has one of the finest structures in the town, with a library of 5000 volumes, and an excellent museum. There are a literary and philosophical institution, an agricultural society, and three public libraries, the Palatine, Dr. Shepherd's, and the Law library, which are accessible to all classes of readers. The other principal buildings are —the guildhall, a handsome brick bOilding in the centre of the town; a fine court-house, erected in 1826; assembly rooms; a neat theatre; the custom-houso, corn-exchange, cloth-hall, and market-house ; the dispensary and house of recovery; public baths and wash-houses, built by the corporation, and opened in 1851; an extensive range of barracks, at Fulwood, about a mile from the town ; the union work house ; the borough prison; and a largo county penitentiary. There are nine almshouses in the place, a savings bank, and several benefit and provident societies.