This timeline features different events from the long and fascinating history across the different areas that now make up the borough of St Helens.
1086 -
Newton-le-Willows (as Neweton) is mentioned in the Domesday Book
1212 - The manor of
Billinge is held by Adam de Billinge
1220 -
Rainhill is passed from the Eccleston family to Roger of Rainhill
1246 - Rainhill Hall is built
1257 - A charter is granted by Henry III to Robert Banastre for a weekly market and a fair at
Newton-le-Willows
1415 - The
Windleshaw Abbey Chantry Chapel, built by Sir Thomas Gerard, is inaugurated
1465 -
Wargrave (as Allgreve) is mentioned in The Legh Survey.
1539 - First mention of a church in
Billinge as a chapel of ease
1541 - First mention of a church in
Rainford1552 - There is a reference to St Elyn's Chapel, 'consisting only of a 'challis and a lytle bell', a chapel of ease for travellers from Prescot to Warrington
1559 - The first two MPs in the area are returned by Newton to Parliament, Sir George Howarde and Richard Chetwoode
1569 - The first
Eccleston Hall is built
1629 - The Ye Olde King's Head public house is built in Hardshaw (demolished in 1878)
1634 - Newton Hall is built by the Blackburne family
1648 - Oliver Cromwell defeats the Duke of Hamilton and his forces in a Civil War battle at Red Bank, Newton/Winwick
1678 - Quakers establish the
Friends' Meeting House in St Helens (one of the oldest friends' meeting houses still in use)
1692 -
Garswood Hall is built by the Saunders family
1702 - The congregational church is built in Rainford
1714 - Sarah Cowley dies and leaves the bulk of her estate for educational purposes in St Helens (The Cowley Trust)
1721 - The Foot O'th Causeway Inn is built in Billinge
1726 - The Turnpike Road opens from Liverpool to Prescot
1730 - The
Red Lion Hotel is built in St Helens
1745 - The
Eagle and Child Inn is built in Billinge
1746 - The Turnpike Road is extended to St Helens
1757 - The Sankey
Canal opens, built by Henry Berry (the first canal of the industrial age)
1759 - The Black Bull Inn is built in St Helens
1761 - A patent is granted to Jonathan Greenall of
Parr for a newly invented fire engine for drawing mines, coal pits and land from water
1762 -
Greenalls Brewery opens
1773 - The British cast plate Glass Company is established at Ravenhead
1779 - The Parys Mountain Company (copper smelters) comes to St Helens
1798 - The
St Helens Foundry is established by Lee Watson (later bought by Robert Daglish)
1800 - The first
Wesleyan Chapel is erected in St Helens
1805 - Sherdley House is built by Michael Hughes
1810 - The streets of St Helens are now lit by oil lamps
1823 -
Sir David Gamble is born on the 3rd February
1825 - The first post office in St Helens opens
1826 -
Pilkington Glass is founded
1828 - Thomas Moore & Company glass bottle manufacturers establish a glass works at Kendricks Cross, Rainhill
1829 - Mr J.C. Gambles's chemical works is founded
1829 - The
Rainhill Trials take place (an important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways)
1830 - The
Sankey Viaduct opens (the first major viaduct of the railway era)
1830 -
Earlestown Railway Station opens (the waiting room on the Liverpool-bound platform is the oldest station building in the world)
1832 - The
Vulcan Foundry was founded by Charles Tayleur in partnership with George Stephenson. Later parts of the engineering works survive on Wargrave Road.
1834 - Charles Rawlins sets up a smalt factory in
Sutton1839 - St Helens Town Hall is built in
Market Place1840 - The Melling family open the first iron foundry in
Rainhill1844 - St Helens Waterworks Company is founded
1845 - A board of commissioners is created by St Helens Improvement Act covering
Windle,
Parr and
Eccleston with responsibility for roads, lighting, paving, sewering etc.
1845 - Mr R.J.
Seddon, the first Prime Minister of New Zealand, is born in Eccleston
1846 - Kurtz chemical works opens at Hardshaw Brook
1851 -
Rainhill Hospital opens, renamed through the years as the Lancashire County Lunatic Asylum, the County Lunatic Asylum, the County Mental Hospital, the Rainhill Mental Hospital then finally Rainhill Hospital until its closure in 1991. At one time it was the largest and busiest psychiatric hospital in Europe.
1852 - The 'St Helens Intelligencer', the first newspaper in St Helens begins publication
1857 - Liverpool St Helens Football Club is founded (the world's oldest open rugby club)
1859 - Thomas Beecham opens a factory in St Helens and begins producing
Beecham's Pills. It is the world's first factory that had the sole purpose of making medicines
1868 - St Helens becomes a Municipal Borough and is granted a
Charter of Incorporation by Queen Victoria, uniting the four townships of
Eccleston,
Parr,
Sutton and
Windle
1868 -
Sir David Gamble becomes the first mayor of St Helens borough
1870 - Rainhill Gas and Water Company is formed
1871 - St Helens Town Hall burns down
1872 - St Helens
Hospital is established (then known as St Helens Cottage Hospital)
1873 - St Helens
Rugby Football Club is founded
1875 - Edward Cannington joined with John Shaw to form the Sherdley Glass Works under the management of
Cannington, Shaw & Co
1876 - The new St Helens
Town Hall is built
1877 - Beecham's Clock Tower is built
1878 - There are disastrous colliery explosions at Queen Pit and
Wood Pit,
Haydock
1879 - Celebrated conductor and founder of the London Philharmonic, Sir Thomas Beecham is born
1881 - Horse drawn
trams begin running in St Helens
1882 -
Peasley Cross Hospital opens
1884 - The
Providence Hospital opens
1885 - St Helens becomes a Parliamentary Borough, Mr Henry Sefton-Karr being the first MP
1886 - The foundation stone for
Haydock Cottage Hospital is laid by Mrs Josiah Evans
1887 -
Victoria Park opens to the public
1887 - 'St Helens Lantern' is first published
1889 - The new
Theatre Royal opens on Corporation Street
1890 - Emmanuel Church is built at the Holt, Rainhill
1893 -
Taylor Park is presented to the town by Mr. Taylor
1896 - The
Gamble Institute is opened
1899 - The current
Haydock Racecourse opens
1899 - The first electric
tram runs in St Helens
1899 - An explosion at Kurtz Chemical Works
1905 - A Statue of
Queen Victoria is unveiled outside St Helens Town Hall
1905 - Famed footballer Lily Parr is born in Union Street, Gerrard's Bridge, St Helens
1911 - The first purpose-built
cinema in St Helens opens (the Scala Cinema, Ormskirk Street, originally called the Electric Theatre)
1913 -
Ravenhead Glass merged with five other glass manufacturers, forming UGB (United Glass Bottle Manufacturers Limited)
1923 -
Haydock Male Voice Choir is established
1923 - St James Eccleston built (as Lane End Mission)
1927 - St Helens Trolleybus system opens 11 July
1929 - The Grade II listed St Mary's
Lowe House Catholic Church is built
1930 - An explosion at
Lyme Colliery
1948 - St Helens is twinned with
Stuttgart and becomes the first British town to twin with a German city after World War 2
1963 - The first
Newton-le-Willows Town Show takes place
1964 - The distinctive blue-glass tower block of
Pilkingtons HQ is completed
1968 - The borough of St Helens celebrates its 100th anniversary
1974 - St Helens becomes a Metropolitan Borough which includes
Haydock,
Rainhill,
Newton-le-Willows and
Rainford, as well as parts of
Billinge, Ashton-in-Makerfield and Whiston
1982 - The Hardshaw Centre opens
1988 - The
Citadel Arts Centre opens (closed June 2019)
1991 - North West Museum of Road Transport opens
1993 - Parkside Colliery closed (the last remaining deep colliery in the Lancashire Coalfield)
1998 - St Mary's Market opens in its current location
2000 - The
World of Glass opens
2001 - The
Theatre Royal re-opens after refurbishment
2007 - A major redevelopment of St Helens Central train station is completed
2009 - Jaume Plensa's
Dream is unveiled at an opening ceremony in Bold Forest Park, the former Sutton Manor Colliery site
2012 - St Helens
Rugby League Club (Saints) move to Langtree Park (later renamed Totally Wicked Stadium)
2012 - Screenwriter, novelist and actor Frank Cottrell-Boyce (from Rainhill) wrote the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics
2014 - The bridge linking the town centre to the grounds of St Helens
Rugby League Club is renamed 'The
Steve Prescott Bridge'
2015 - Vera Page Park is opened (a local park renamed after a local resident)
2018 - The borough of St Helens celebrates its 150th anniversary
This timeline does not cover every event in the history of the borough. Please
get in touch if you have a suggestion of an event to be added.
