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Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, which had a population of 211,699 in the 2011 census.

Located within the historic boundaries of the county of Lancashire. Rochdale's recorded history begins with an entry in the Domesday Book of 1086 under
"Recedham Manor". The ancient parish of Rochdale was a division of the hundred of Salford and one of the largest ecclesiastical parishes in England, comprising several townships. By 1251, Rochdale had become important enough to have been granted a Royal charter. Rochdale flourished into a centre of northern England's woollen trade, and by the early 18th century was described as being "remarkable for many wealthy merchants".

Rochdale rose to prominence in the 19th century as a mill town and centre for textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the first industrialised towns. The Rochdale Canal—one of the major navigable broad canals of the United Kingdom—was a highway of commerce during this time used for the haulage of cotton, wool and coal to and from the area. The socioeconomic change brought by the success of Rochdale's textile industry in the 19th century led to its rise to borough status and it remained a dominant settlement in its region. However, during the 20th century Rochdale's spinning capacity declined towards an eventual halt.

Rochdale is the birthplace of the modern Co-operative Movement, to which more than one billion people worldwide belonged in 2012. The Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society was founded in 1844 by 28 local residents as a response to the high cost and frequent adulteration of basic foodstuffs by shopkeepers at the time. The Pioneers were notable for combining the notion of the patronage dividend alongside investing trading surplus for member benefit, especially in education. The Rochdale Principles, the set of ideals which underpinned the society, are still used, in updated form, by the International Co-operative Alliance. The Rochdale Pioneers shop was the precursor to The Co-operative Group, the largest consumer co-operative in the world.

Rochdale Town Hall—a Grade I listed building—dates from 1871 and is one of the United Kingdom's finest examples of Victorian Gothic revival architecture.

History

Etymology

The town is recorded as ''Recedham'' in the Domesday Book and ''Rachetham'' in 1193. Variations of ''Rechedham'' continue into the thirteenth century when the first element's termination is dropped as ''Rachedam'' became ''Racheham''. This change was soon followed with the suffix ''-ham'' (homestead) changing to ''-dale'' (wide valley). ''Rachdale'' is recorded as a name for the town in 1242, but may have been used earlier as a name for the valley, Hundred and Parish.Mills, A.D.: ''A Dictionary of English Place Names'', 2nd Edition, page 289, s.n. Rochdale. Oxford University Press, 1998 The Doomsday Book's rendering of the name led Eilert Ekwall to suggest a derivation from ''reced'', an obscure Old English element meaning "hall". This etymology is described as "highly problematic" and not accepted, as the word ''reced'' is only used in poetic contexts and the etymology would be unique in Anglo Saxon England. This etymology would also require the name of the River Roch to be a back-formation from the name of the town, with more robust etymologies all stating that the Anglo-Saxon settlement borrowed a pre-existing Brittonic name for the river.

The early forms of ''Rachet-ham'' and ''Reched-ham'' may record a compound ''ro-ced'' or ''ro-cet''. The first element is either from the common intensive prefix ''rö-'' (Modern Welsh ''rhy-'', Cornish re-) meaning "great" and found in other river names such as the Ribble and the Rother or ''rag-'', (Modern Welsh ''ar-'') meaning "opposite" or "adjacent to". The second element would then almost certainly be ''cę:d'' or ''cet'', (Modern Welsh ''coed'') meaning "wood". This would give the town's name a meaning of "Homestead on the river of the great wood" or "Homestead on the river opposite the wood".

Another etymology focused on the early forms similarities to ''Rheged'', the Cumbric-speaking kingdom in North West England during the Middle Ages. Although this etymology is used to support the theory that this part of Lancashire may have been the centre of a separate kingdom known in Medieval Welsh literature as "South Rheged" or "Argoed" (opposite the wood), it remains unproven as the kingdom's boundaries have not been identified. A further suggestion is that the name "rheged" simply means "area" in the Cumbric language (related to ''Regio'' in Latin and ''Region'' in Modern English) and that the kingdom of Rheged and the river Roch merely shared a common Celtic name.

Although the name of the river is still pronounced (with a long vowel sound), Rochdale is pronounced (with a shorter ''o'' sound).

Early history

A Roman road, leading from Mamucium (Manchester) to Eboracum (York), crossed the moors at Blackstone Edge.

During the time of the Danelaw, Rochdale was subjected to incursions by the Danes on the Saxons. The castle that Castleton is named after, and of which no trace remains, was one of twelve Saxon forts possibly destroyed in frequent conflicts that occurred between the Saxons and Danes during the 10th and 11th centuries.

At the time of the Norman Conquest the manor was held by a Saxon thegn, Gamel. Rochdale appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Recedham'' and was described as laying within the hundred of Salford and the county of Cheshire. At that time, Rochdale was under the lordship of Roger the Poitevin. Before 1212 Henry II granted the manor to Roger de Lacy whose family retained it as part of the Honour of Clitheroe until it passed to the Dukes of Lancaster by marriage and then by 1399 to the Crown. John Byron bought the manor in 1638 and it was sold by the poet, Lord Byron, in 1823, to the Deardens, who hold the title. Rochdale had no manor house but the "Orchard" built in 1702 and acquired in 1745 by Simon Dearden was the home of the lords of the manor after 1823. It was described as "a red-brick building of no architectural distinction, on the north side of the river opposite the town hall" and sometimes referred to as the Manor House. It was demolished in 1922.

In medieval times, Rochdale was a market town, and weekly markets were held from 1250 when Edmund de Lacy obtained a grant for a market and an annual fair. The market was held outside the parish church where there was an "Orator's Corner".

Industrial Revolution

The manufacture of woollen cloth, particularly baize, kerseys and flannels, was important from the reign of Henry VIII. At this time the industry was rooted in the domestic system but towards the end of the 18th century mills powered by water were built. Water power was replaced by steam power in the 19th century and coal mines, mostly drift mines, were opened where coal from the lower coal measures outcropped around the town. The Deardens who were lords of the manor were among the local coal owners. By the mid-1800s the woollen trade was declining and the cotton trade which took advantage of technological developments in spinning and weaving growing in importance. Rochdale became one of the world's most productive cotton spinning towns when rose to prominence during the 19th century as a major mill town and centre for textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the first ever industrialised towns. By the end of the 19th century there were woollen mills, silk manufacturers, bleachers and dyers but cotton spinning and weaving were the dominant industries in Rochdale. The socioeconomic change brought by the success of Rochdale's textile industry in the 19th century led to its rise to borough status and it remained a dominant settlement in its region. However, during the 20th century Rochdale's spinning capacity declined towards an eventual halt.

The Rochdale Pioneers opened the first Cooperative shop in Toad Lane in 1844. The reformer and Member of Parliament, John Bright (1811–1889), was born in Rochdale and gained a reputation as a leader of political dissent and supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League. The Baron Street drill hall opened in around 1865.

Post-industrial

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