Description
Gorton, a township and a suburb of Manchester, 3 miles ESE of that city, with a station on the M.S. & L.R. main line, another (Bellevue) on the Sheffield and Midland Joint line, and a third at Hyde Road. The western portion of the township is included within the municipal limits of Manchester. The population of that portion outside the limits, and which forms an urban sanitary district, is 15,215. Area of entire township, 1484 acres; population, 41,207. The chief occupations of the population are cotton-spinning and weaving, and the various branches of mechanical engineering. Gorton has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Manchester, and is traversed from north to south by the Manchester and Stockport Canal. The township includes the ecclesiastical parish of St James (population, 11,269), St Clement Longsight (6421), All Saints (7595), which is chiefly within the limits of Manchester, and St Marks (12,507), which is entirely within those limits. All four are rectories in the diocese of Manchester; value of livings, £800 yearly with residence. Gorton contains a Roman Catholic church and Franciscan monastery, as well as Congregational, Unitarian, Baptist, and Wesleyan Methodist chapels. A free library was opened in 1894.
Gorton Parliamentary Division of Lancashire was formed under the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885, and returns one member to the House of Commons. Population, 77,690. The division includes the following:-Manchester (part of) -Gorton (so much as is not included in the municipal borough of Manchester), Openshaw; Ashton-under-Lyne (part of)-Denton, Haughton.
Parish Church
