{{short description|Military installation in Burnley, Lancashire, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox military installation |name = Burnley Barracks |image = Burnley Barracks - 1851 OS.jpg |caption = A plan of the barracks in 1851 |type = Barracks |map_type = United Kingdom Burnley#United Kingdom Borough of Burnley#Lancashire |pushpin_map_caption = Location within Burnley##Location within Burnley Borough##Location within Lancashire |location = [[Burnley, Lancashire]] |coordinates = {{coord|53.7892|-2.2610|type:landmark|display=inline,title}} |ownership = [[War Office]] |operator = {{army|United Kingdom}} |built = 1820 |used = 1820-1898 |architect = |built_for = |garrison = |occupants = }} '''Burnley Barracks''' was a military installation at [[Burnley]] in [[Lancashire]], England. Built for cavalry, but later used for infantry and storage, military activities at the barracks declined in the late 19th century.
==Background== The time of the [[French Revolutionary Wars]] (1793-1802) was comparatively prosperous for Lancashire workers as although technology had reduced the importance of some traditional jobs, overall there was plenty of work and wages were high. During the [[Napoleonic Wars]] (1803-1815) that closely followed, exports diminished but this did not cause great hardship locally. However the peace led to a period when prices remained high but wages continuously fell.<ref>{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |page=266}}</ref> Although [[Manchester]] and surrounding towns had been effected by the [[Luddite]] riots, it was not until 1818 that disturbances are recorded in Burnley. In September a Lancashire-wide strike of [[Spinning (textiles)|spinners]] and [[Weaving|weavers]] saw large crowds on the streets and the [[Magistrate (England and Wales)|magistrates]] called troops from Manchester to disperse them. A few days later a mob attacked the [[constable]] and "broke open" the prison to release those arrested.<ref>{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |pages=271, 275–6}}</ref> Alarmed by the situation, the local authorities in 1819 not only constructed a new prison, but took the decision to station troops in the town with temporary barracks established at Lane Bridge.{{efn|name=Lane Bridge|Lane Bridge no longer appears on maps, but those from the 19th-century show it be the area to the south of the bridge on Parker Lane.<ref name="Lancashire and Furness">{{cite map |url=https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/384106/432204/10/101393 |publisher=[[Ordnance Survey]]|title=Lancashire and Furness |series=County Series |scale=1 : 10,560 |edition=2nd |year=1848}}</ref>}} A protest meeting in early August subsequently saw the only speaker arrested, whereas a similar one two weeks later in Manchester is remembered as the [[Peterloo Massacre]].<ref>{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |pages=277–9}}</ref>
==History== {{Quote box |width=24em |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=center |quote=They (the unemployed) must lie down and die for anything I know; for if they would beg, I know of none who would give anything; and if they would rob or plunder, they have the soldiers of Burnley ready to give them their last supper.<ref>{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |page=272}}</ref> |source=The diary of William Varley, [[Higham, Lancashire|Higham]] weaver; 1826}}
In 1820 the government offered funds toward a permanent barracks in the [[Blackburn Hundred]] and [[Thomas Dunham Whitaker]] with his fellow magistrates eventually opted for land at Burnley offered by [[Robert Townley Parker]].<ref>{{citation| last=Lewis| first=Brian| title=The Middlemost and the Milltowns: Bourgeois Culture and Politics in Early Industrial England| publisher=Stanford University Press| year=2002 |pages=70–71}}</ref> The site was located on a ridge close to the Gannow tunnel on the [[Leeds and Liverpool Canal]] and between the old and newer roads to [[Blackburn]].{{efn|name=Roads|What today is Barracks Road became known as Blackburn Old Road after Padiham Road was constructed by a [[turnpike trust]] (Blackburn, Addingham and Cocking End) in the 1750s.<ref name="Bennett 1949">{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |pages=284–85}}</ref>}}<ref name="Lancashire and Furness">{{cite map |url=https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/384106/432204/10/101393 |publisher=[[Ordnance Survey]]|title=Lancashire and Furness |series=County Series |scale=1 : 10,560 |edition=2nd |year=1848}}</ref> Nearly half of the £5,500 cost of building the barracks was funded by local landowners and businessmen hoping it would prevent rioting.<ref name=Bennett4>{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=four| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1951 |pages=230–1}}</ref>
Conditions across Lancashire had reached the lowest point by 1826, with the situation in Burnley so severe that [[The Times]] reported that people were digging-up the carcases of diseased animals for food. Although the [[power-loom riots]] that year affected the [[Accrington]], Blackburn and [[Rossendale Valley|Rossendale]] areas, there is nothing in the court records of the [[assizes]] or [[quarter session]]s to suggest Burnley was caught-up in the trouble.<ref name="Bennett 1949">{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |pages=284–85}}</ref> However it was from these barracks that artillery was despatched to Old Clough Mill in [[Weir, Lancashire|Weir]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rossendalefreepress.co.uk/news/local-news/1826-weavers-bloody-battle-1711847|title=Weavers Bloody Battle|publisher=Rossendale Free Press|date=3 March 2003|accessdate=9 December 2015}}</ref>
The rise of [[Chartism]] saw riots in [[Colne]] in April and August 1840, with a [[special constable]] killed by a mob armed with sharpened iron rails during the second. In both cases troops marched from Burnley and the violence ceased with their arrival.<ref>{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |pages=288–89}}</ref> In November 1841, the barracks was the site of double-murder suicide. Private Robert Morris, a [[mess]] waiter and servant to Lt. O'Grady, had formed an intimacy with Isabella Hadden, the daughter of the mess-master. On a Sunday evening, Morris fatally stabbed Hadden and O'Grady in the officer's bedroom using a carving knife, before also killing himself.<ref>{{citation| title=The Annual Register of the year 1841| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2ts7AQAAMAAJ| volume=83| year=1842| pages=107–8}}</ref> During the [[1842 General Strike]], in August, troops were called to disperse a mob attempting to stop work at a coal mine to the west of the town. The following day a group of 3,000 marched to [[Skipton]] and the military was again sent to intervene, with one soldier severely injured by the stone-throwing crowd.<ref>{{citation| last=Bennett| first=Walter| title=The History of Burnley| volume=three| publisher=Burnley Corporation| year=1949 |pages=292–3}}</ref> The construction of [[Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington and Colne Extension Railway|the railway]] in the second half of the 1840s led to rapid development around the site and the local station, originally only a temporary terminus, was re-opened as [[Burnley Barracks railway station]] in 1851.<ref name=butt>{{cite book|last=Butt|first= R.V.J.|year=1995|title=The Directory of Railway Stations|publisher=Yeovil: Patrick Stephens}}</ref><ref name=LT2014/> Up to 1861, the Barracks had been used exclusively by the [[cavalry]], usually two troops on six-month [[Detachment (military)|detachments]]. However it was then without a [[garrison]] for four years and afterwards it was only occupied for progressively shorter periods with [[infantry]] regiments sometimes based here. Among the various regiments of [[lancers]] and [[hussar]]s stationed at the barracks are the [[Scots Greys]], [[5th Dragoon Guards]] and the [[6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons]], and infantry such as the [[33rd Regiment of Foot]], [[Connaught Rangers]] and [[Black Watch]]. For a time during the [[Crimean War]], an Italian regiment from [[Piedmont]] was quartered here.<ref name=Bennett4/>
In 1873 a system of recruiting areas based on counties was instituted under the [[Cardwell Reforms]] and the barracks became the [[Regimental depot|depot]] for the linked [[30th (Cambridgeshire) Regiment of Foot]] and [[59th (2nd Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot]], and the Burnley-based [[5th Royal Lancashire Militia]].<ref name=depots>{{cite web|url=http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/depot/1873.htm |title=Training depots |publisher=Regiments.org |access-date=27 October 2016 |url-status=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071218194948/http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/depot/1873.htm |archivedate=18 December 2007 }}</ref> Rioting during the Burnley weavers strike in 1878 again saw troops deployed with 87 cavalry and 302 infantry supporting the police on the third day of trouble.<ref>Bennett pp.122-5</ref> Following the [[Childers Reforms]], the 30th Regiment and the 59th Regiment amalgamated to form the [[East Lancashire Regiment]] with its depot at the barracks in 1881.<ref name=depots/> With the barracks in a poor state of repair, the East Lancashire Regiment re-located to [[Fulwood Barracks]] in [[Preston, Lancashire|Preston]] in 1898.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lancashireinfantrymuseum.org.uk/fulwoodbarracks/|title=The Lancashire infantry museum|access-date=6 April 2014|archive-date=30 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141230084247/http://www.lancashireinfantrymuseum.org.uk/fulwoodbarracks/|url-status=dead}}</ref> The site was sold soon afterwards,<ref name=Bennett4/> with the clearance of many buildings during the 1960s and 70s, and the construction of the [[M65 motorway]] in 1981, greatly changing the area.<ref name=LT2014>{{cite web|url=http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/bygones/11255883.display/|title=A little look by request at railway stations|publisher=Lancashire Telegraph|date=4 June 2014|access-date=9 December 2015}}</ref>
==Layout== The first [[Ordnance Survey]] map of the area from 1848, shows the rectangular barracks located east of the town, with buildings around a central open space and entrances mid-way along the south-western boundary and at the northern corner.<ref>{{cite map |publisher=[[Ordnance Survey]]|title=Lancashire and Furness |series=County Series |scale=1 : 10,560 |edition=1st |year=1848}}</ref> A survey in 1846-7 listed the stone-built barracks as containing: 36 sleeping rooms,{{efn|name=survey|As the survey only lists the facilities for enlisted men, only the servants' bedrooms are included in the officers quarters.}} a [[laundry|wash-house]], two [[kitchen|cook-houses]], a hospital for 16 patients and a reading room. Water was provided by three wells and {{convert|34,000|impgal|L|0}} rainwater collection system.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/parliamentarypa98commgoog#page/n311/mode/2up|title=Parliamentary accounts and papers|publisher=UK Parliament|date=23 July 1847|accessdate=9 December 2015}}</ref> In 1863 a [[Request for tender|tender]] was advertised for a two-year project requiring a range of building trades.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=QytJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA94 "Trade News. Tenders."] ''The Building News and Engineering Journal'', Vol. 10, January 30, 1863, p. 94.</ref>
==Incidental== Sir [[James Yorke Scarlett]] who rose to prominence in the Crimean War, was a lieutenant colonel in the 5th Dragoon Guards in 1835 when he married Charlotte Hargreaves, a Burnley coal heiress, with the town becoming his adopted home.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/5813457.Scarlett_s_300__Balaclava_heroes/ |title=Scarlett's 300: Balaclava heroes |date=21 October 2004|work=Lancashire Telegraph|accessdate=12 December 2015}}</ref>
==Media gallery== <gallery> Image:Burnley Barracks from Cavalry St bridge.jpg|A surviving section of the walls at the northern corner of the barracks, as viewed from the Cavalry Street bridge. Image:Burnley Barracks north 2.jpg|A view along the surviving section of north-west wall. Today part of the [[A671 road|A671]] and the roundabout on the southern side of the motorway junction run across the site. Image:Barracks Road, Burnley.jpg|This section of Barracks Road (which spans the railway) is at what used to be the western corner of the barracks site. Image:Burnley Barracks west.jpg|Looking south-east along the former route of Barracks Road show that nothing remains at this corner. </gallery>
==References== '''Notes''' {{notelist|notes= }}
'''Citations''' {{reflist}} {{commons category}} {{portal|Lancashire}} {{Borough of Burnley culture}}
[[Category:Installations of the British Army]] [[Category:Buildings and structures in Burnley]] [[Category:1819 establishments in England]] [[Category:1898 disestablishments in England]] [[Category:History of Burnley Borough]] [[Category:Military installations established in 1820]] [[Category:Military installations closed in 1898]] [[Category:Former barracks in England]]