Leigh, Lancashire : Place names

Names from historical writing:

The following appear as names for Leigh. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name	Author	Source
LEIGH	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
LEIGH	John Marius Wilson	Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
WEST LEIGH	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.

Names for administrative units:

These names were used for units associated with Leigh. Click on the links for details of the units and their names:

Name	Unit Type	Source
E05015001	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E05015002	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E05015003	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E14000785	Constituency (BCon/PBCon/CCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
E14001329	Constituency (BCon/PBCon/CCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
E200632	Local Government District (UD/MB)
E63008365	Built-up Area	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Built Up Areas (December 2024) Boundaries EW)
LANCASHIRE LEIGH	Constituency (BCon/PBCon/CCon)	Boundary Commission for England, First Periodical Report (London: H.M.S.O., 1954)
LANCASHIRE SOUTH WEST LEIGH	Constituency (PDivCon)	1891 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Parliamentary Counties and Boroughs, and their Divisions; Inhabited Houses and population in 1891'.
LEIGH	Built-up Area	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Built Up Areas (December 2024) Boundaries EW)
	Constituency (BCon/PBCon/CCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
	Constituency (PDivCon)	F.W.S. Craig (ed.), British Parliamentary Election Results 1885-1918 (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1974)
	Ecclesiastical Parish (EP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 179.
	Local Government District (UD/MB)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 688.
	Local Government District (RD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 688.
	Parish-level Unit (CP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 179.
	Parish-level Unit (CP/AP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 179.
	Poor Law Union/Reg. District (RegD/PLU)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 682.
	Registration sub-District	1911 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Registration Counties, Districts and Sub-districts with their constituent civil parishes. - Urban or Rural District in which each parish is situated; Area; families or separate occupiers, and population, 1901 and 1911; and population enumerated in Institutions, large establishments, and on vessels, &c., 1911'.
	Rural Deanery	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 868.
	Sanitary District (USD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 685.
	Sanitary District (RSD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 685.
	Urban Labour Market	Great Britain Historical GIS Project
LEIGH AND ATHERTON	Constituency (BCon/PBCon/CCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
LEIGH CENTRAL AND HIGHER FOLDS	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
LEIGH SOUTH	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
LEIGH ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST	Ecclesiastical Parish (EP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 179.
LEIGH WEST	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
SOUTH WEST LANCASHIRE LEIGH	Constituency (PDivCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
WEST LEIGH	Registration sub-District	1851 Census of Great Britain, Table [1], 'Ages of the People'.
WESTLEIGH	Registration sub-District	Registrar General, Annual Report (HM Stationery Office)

NB: These are all the names of all the administrative units which we have associated with Leigh, and you must judge whether all or even any of them are variant names for the place. They may well include the names of other locations or areas:

For cities, the associated administrative units will usually include parishes, especially ecclesiastical parishes, one of whose names is the name of the city followed by a saint's dedication, with just the saint's name as another variant. Parish names will sometimes also include "places" within towns.
Districts usually contain more than one settlement, and some districts had their names changed to take the name of a completely different settlement. As we link each administrative unit to just one of our "places", usually the last place the unit was named after, in these cases the name for a completely different place will appear on this page.
Similarly, a unit may sometimes be named after a particular settlement it contains and sometimes to indicate its location within a higher level unit. This was very common among British parliamentary constituencies in rural areas, one name referring to their main town and another indicating that they were in, say, the southern part of the relevant county.

Every name listed here is linked to the particular historical source in which it appears, but we cannot claim that these are all the historical names of Leigh, or that our references are to the first usage of the names. Similarly, we have tried to ensure that names included here are not transcription errors by ourselves, but it is possible they are the result of errors made when the historical sources were printed, or the result of visiting authors or census officials mis-hearing local names.