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1500's
1565 - Rochdale Grammar School
established
1600's
1610 - Clegg Hall built
1700's
1740 - Toad Lane School founded by
Samuel Taylor
1762 - James Leach, the Lancashire composer, was born in Wardle 1784 - First Sunday School begun by James Hamilton, a tinplate worker 1789 - Moss School - or - Free English School endowed by John Hardman and built 1791 - First factory chimney erected in Rochdale 1795 - Bread riots in Rochdale 1800's 1804 - Rochdale Canal opened, December 21 1808 - Lord Byron became Lord of the Manor of Rochdale 1810's 1810 - Hope Chapel erected 1811 - John Bright born at Greenbank, Rochdale 1814 - First National School established 1815 - June 17 Thomas Livsey born in Regulator Inn, Blackwater Street 1819 - Roger Fenton, the world's first accredited war photographer, was born 1820's 1825 - William Heap established the Caldershaw Old Mill 1828 - Hope Chapel School opened 1829 - Trinity Methodist Church opened 1829 - First lamplighter appointed - John Oats 1829 - Riots in Rochdale following weavers' strike. Union Secretary deported for life. 1830's 1831 - Casson's soda water first produced 1833 - A Co-operative store opened briefly at 15 Toad Lane 1837 - Baillie Street School opened 1840's 1841 - Leeds and Manchester Railway opened 1841 - Summit Tunnel opened. 1842 - Rochdale Railway Station opened 1843 - Pablo Fanque's Circus, referred to in "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" by the Beatles, visited in February 1844 - 21 December Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society opened shop at No. 31 Toad Lane 1850's 1850 - John Milne born at 147 Drake Street, a world famous seismologist credited with inventing the seismograph 1854 - Boiler explosion at Williamson's Bridgefield Mill killed 10 people and injured 20 more 1855 - Rochdale Cemetery opened 1856 - Rochdale Observer established 1860’s 1864 - Thomas Livsey died on January 25. 40,000 people lined the route of the funeral 1866 - Co-op Central Stores opened at 45 - 51 Toad Lane 1867 - The Prince of Wales Theatre opened. Was later renamed Theatre Royal 1870's 1871 - Rochdale Town Hall completed and opened 1872 - First Free Public Library opened September 18 1872 - James Nuttal began constructing fish and chip ranges 1875 - John Ellis born, son of Joseph and Sarah Ellis of 18 Broad Lane, for 23 years a public executioner. 1877 - Rochdale's Union Workhouse at Dearnley (now Birch Hill Hospital) completed 1879 - Rochdale to Bacup railway line opened 1880’s 1881 - Thomas Robinson's Machine Manufacturing Works established the world's first factory canteen 1883 - Steam trams began operating 1883 - Rochdale Town Hall tower destroyed by fire 1884 - First purpose built Public Library opened October 30  1889 - John Bright died 1889 - New Rochdale Station opened 1890’s 1890 - John McNaught built the world's largest mill engine at the Ellenroad Mill.  1894 - Fossil tree found at Sparth Bottom 1895 - Oldham Joint Company Bank opened on September 30 1896 - Jack Howarth aka Albert Tatlock - born 1896 - The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank opened on July 4 1898 - Gracie Stansfield (Fields) born on January 9 in Moleworth Street 1899 - The White Angel statue donated by Ellen MacKinnon 1900's 1901 - June 11 Music Hall Star, Norman Evans, was born. The family lived at 5 Ventnor Street, Castlemere 1903 - River Roch covered through the centre of Rochdale 1903 - Art Gallery and Museum opened on April 3 1904 - Tram lines laid in Drake Street  1905 - The last steam tram ran May 8 1905 - First electric tram reached Littleborough 1905 - Falinge Park opened 1906 - Rochdale celebrates Municipal Jubilee 1906 - General Booth, then 77, visited Rochdale 1906 - March 11, a steam valve burst at John Bright and Brother's Fieldhouse Mill, killing 3 people 1907 - Rochdale's Boer War Memorial unveiled on June 29  1908 - Foundation stone for the Hippodrome Theatre laid on June 6. 1908 - The Old Circus, Rochdale's first static cinema closed. Gracie Fields gave her first stage performance in there. 1905.- Two years later Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel performed there. 1910's 1916 - Coal Bank Mill in Norden destroyed by fire 1916 - The Dunlop Rubber Company opened the world's largest factory under one roof employing 3200 people 1920's 1922 - Cenotaph completed - designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens  Hull 10 - 9 1923 - In March the Empire cinema showed "The Shiek" starring Rudolph Valentino 1929 - On July 8 the Pavilion cinema showed the first full length "talking and singing" film, "Lucky Boy" starring George Jessel 1930's 1933 - Jock McAvoy, the Rochdale Thunderbolt, won the British Middleweight Championship  1935 - Work began on Watergrove Reservoir 1935 - Fire destroys Hornets' main grandstand 1937 - Gracie Fields granted Freedom of the Borough 1938 - Gracie Fields received C.B.E. 1938 - Royal Cinema built 1939 - Grandstand at the Athletics Ground collapses during Cup semi-final between Salford and Wigan killing 1 person and injuring 14 1940's 1941 - Air raid wrecked shops and offices in Sudden. Two high explosive bombs were dropped during a raid on Thursday, January 9. 1947 - Passenger service between Bacup and Rochdale ended June 16 1950's 1950 - Bright's Nursery on Whitworth Road opened on January 10. It was, at the time, the world's largest privately run nursery 1952 - Cyril Smith elected to Rochdale Council 1952 - Clover Mill destroyed by fire 1954 - Theatre Royal destroyed in a fire in November 1960's 1965 - C.W.S. purchased Cassons 1966 - Cyril Smith elected Mayor of Rochdale - received M.B.E. 1968 - The last steam train to make a scheduled trip from York to Manchester passed through Rochdale 1970's 1971 - Rakewood Viaduct opened in October. It is 840 feet long and rises 140 feet above the valley bottom 1972 - Cyril Smith became Liberal MP 1978 - Gracie Fields opens shopping precinct in Rochdale 1978 - September 15 Gracie Fields opened the Rochdale Exchange Shopping Centre 1980's 1984 - Fire broke out in the Summit Tunnel  1988 - Cyril Smith knighted1990's 1991 - Cyril Smith became Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester 1992 - Cyril Smith stood down from Parliament April 23, 1999 - A dramatic police chase
came to a stop a mile from the Rochdale city centre.
Police began pursuing a
suspicious car on the M61 near Bolton. The occupants of the car opened fire on the police car and this precipitated a 50 mile chase, during which the occupants of the car fired on a number of passersby, injuring several of them. Armed with a handgun and a Kalishnikov rifle, the fugitives twice changed cars and kidnapped a 27 year-old woman bystander. The chase ended near Rochdale when the driver finally lost control crashing the stolen BMW into a lamp pole. 2000's March 9, 2000 - The
Co-operative Wholesale Society and the Co-operative
Retail Services merged to create a £4.7 May 19, 2000 - 55
year-old John Davies, a former homeless person, was
awarded the Regional Award for Lifetime May 24, 2000 - The
Swing Cottage Guest House, in Littleborough, was
presented with the "Bed and Breakfast of June 16, 2000 - Two
Rochdale area men awarded O.B.E.'s. Geoffrey
Eldridge - for his work as Administrative August 18, 2000 - Fire at the Rex Mill in Middleton, next door to British Vita Foam.   September 4, 2000 -
Police in Rochdale investigated the brutal murder of
65 year-old Ellen Jawczak whose body September 8, 2000 -
Computer services entrepreneur and philanthropist,
Peter Ogden, provided Balderstone October 30, 2000 - The
final 7 miles of the Manchester orbital motorway
were opened. The new stretch of December 15, 2000 - A
gang of four men with strong Scottish accents robbed
a newsagents owned by Bill Bennet January 7, 2001 - A 7
year-old girl from Rochdale was tragically killed
when she plunged 210 feet down a waterfall  |