Bob Dobson has been writing his columns for this publication for over a year now and never ceases to amaze us with his knowledge of local history.

In this, his seventeenth article, Bob delves into the origin and history of some of our best-known street names and the history surrounding them.

LOCAL STREET NAMES (17)

Bob Dobson’s 17th contribution to understanding why our streets have their names.

I am not in touch with the names given to our streets in recent times, so seeing a sign advertising new houses in Peel Fold in Ossie came as a surprise. A pleasure too, to see that the family which has had most influence on our street names has been remembered.

Pleasure also to see that we now have a Winterson St in honour of popular novelist and TV panellist Jeanette Winterson.

Nowadays, it is the council which decides on the names of streets, though they can be approached by companies and individuals.

When the town’s population was increasing rapidly and the number of houses being built was rocketing, most names were chosen by the landowner or the builder of the houses.

Amongst the builders who have streets named after them are Ramsbottom St, Cunliffe St (now gone, it ran where now the Arndale Centre is), Halliwell St. Holden St, Booth St, and Waddington Rd. Amongst the streets named by the landowners after tradesmen, professionals or business associates honoured by the landowners are Addison St, Moore St., Tasker St, Ashworth St (one was in Accrington and another is in Baxenden), Bradshaw St (one in Church, another - two in fact - in Accrington, honour Aaron Bradshaw, a consulting engineer), Foster St, and Crossland St.

American presidents Washington, Garfield and Grant each have a street named after them. Likewise, Accrington’s mayors, Entwisle, Barlow, Grimshaw, Moorhouse and Rawson. I have long wondered why the first mayor, John Emmanual Lightfoot, hasn’t ‘merited’ a street being named after him.

It’s not too late for it to happen. Two gents who I would like to see honoured are William ‘Bill’ Turner, who did so much to keep alive the story of the Accrington Pals and William George Edge, a Merchant Navy captain whose ship was sunk off the Azores in WW2 and who kept his crew alive for many days crossing the ocean in blazing sunshine before landing in South America.