City of Salford: History
Although the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford was a 20th-century creation, the area has a long history of human activity, extending back to the Stone Age. Neolithic flint arrow-heads and tools, and evidence of Bronze Age activity has been discovered in Salford. The northerly section of Watling Street, a Roman road from Manchester (Mamucium) via Bury to Ribchester (Bremetennacum), passes through the city; a hoard of over 550 bronze Roman coins dating between 259 AD and 278 AD was discovered in Boothstown; and a Romano-British bog body, Worsley Man, was discovered in the Chat Moss peat bog.
In 1142, a monastic cell (small monastic house) dedicated to St. Leonard was established in Kersal. The 12th century hundred of Salford was created as Salfordshire in the historic county of Lancashire and survived until the 19th century, when it was replaced by one of the first county boroughs in the country. Salford became a free borough in about 1230, when it was granted a charter as a free borough by the Earl Ranulph of Chester. The cell in Kersal was sold in 1540 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A 16th-century manor house, called Kersal Cell, was built on the site of the priory. In the English Civil War between King Charles I and parliament, Salford was Royalist. Salford was also noted as Jacobite territory; its inhabitants supported Charles Edward Stuart's claim to the Kingdom of Great Britain and hosted him when he rode through the area during the Jacobite rising of 1745.
During the Industrial Revolution, Salford grew as a result of the textile industry. Although Salford experienced an increase in population, it was overshadowed by the dominance of Manchester and did not evolve as a commercial centre in the same way. On 15 September 1830, Eccles was site of the world's first railway accident. During a stop in Eccles to take on water, William Huskisson, Member of Parliament for Liverpool, had his leg crushed by Stephenson's Rocket; at the time he was in conversation with the Duke of Wellington, who was opening the railway, and did not get out of the way of the train in time. Although Huskisson was taken to Eccles for treatment he died of his injuries. The six-foot-tall Oglala Sioux tribesman, "Surrounded By the Enemy", died here from a bronchial infection at age twenty-two in 1887 during a tour of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and was buried at Brompton Cemetery. In 1894, the Manchester Ship Canal was opened, running from the River Mersey to Salford Quays; when it was complete it was the largest navigation canal in the world. Along the route of the canal, it was necessary to create an aqueduct carrying the Bridgewater Canal over the Ship Canal. The Barton Swing Aqueduct, designed by Sir Edward Leader Williams, is 100 metres (330 ft) long and weighs 1,450 metric tons (1,427 long tons; 1,598 short tons).
At the start of the 20th century, Salford began to decline due to competition from outside the UK. A survey in 1931 concluded that parts of Salford were amongst the worst slums in the country. Salford was granted city status in 1926. During World War II, Salford Docks were regularly bombed.
In the decades following the Second World War there was a significant economic and population decline in Salford. In 1961 a small part of Eccles was added to the city. …