The Manchester Genealogist

Crickets Lane Fever Hospital Ashton under Lyne

Members will know that the unfilmed census covering most of Ashton under Lyne town (Public Record Office reference HO 107/2233) has been transcribed by volunteers of the Society and issued on microfiche. This part of the project was undertaken in its early stages when the team had to rely on natural daylight to decipher the very badly stained originals. Consequently, many of the entries were unreadable but the microfiche shows all the recaptured data. The returns for the Fever Hospital in Crickets Lane, Ashton under Lyne were particularly badly hit with only 8 of the 70 residents fully identified.

When the work was transferred to the Public Record Office at Kew, we were allowed to use artificial and ultra-violet (UV) light on the final batch of unfilmed returns including St. George's, Blackley and Prestwich, and Pendleton and Pendlebury. The results had to be seen to be believed and the 'recapture' rate went up significantly. I had an opportunity last February to recheck some of the Ashton returns using UV light and filled in all the missing names for the Fever Hospital. The complete list is shown below. Names of the residents are shown in alphabetical order for ease of searching.

The team at Kew is currently transcribing the filmed returns for Ardwick Township and Chorlton on Medlock (HO 107/2220) and hopes to complete this work by the end of next year. Those members who have attempted to peer through the gloom of the microfilm covering this area will no doubt appreciate the difficult task, but we are confident that more than 75% of the original entries will be recaptured. We shall then turn our attention to those parts of the unfilmed returns which previously had low recapture rates so that as much as possible of the 1851 returns will be of use to family historians and researchers alike. *

*Ray Hulley, Census Co-ordinator

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