WORSLEY, a chapelry in the parish of ECCLES,
hundred of SALFORD, county palatine of LANCASTER,
6 miles (W. by N.) from Manchester, containing 7191
inhabitants. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the
archdeaconry and diocese of Chester, endowed with
£600 royal bounty, and £1400 parliamentary grant,
and in the patronage of the Trustees of the late Earl
of Bridgewater. The chapel has a Sunday school attached,
which is attended by three hundred children.
There is a place of worship for Wesleyaa Methodists.
In the 10th of George II., an act was obtained for
making navigable the river called Worsley brook, but
the design was not carried into effect; and, in the 32nd
of the same reign, the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater
obtained an act, and, subsequently, other acts, enabling
him to construct a series of canals from his extensive
collieries here to different places, affording the means of
conveying coal, &c., through a populous manufacturing
district: the underground canals and tunnels at Worsley
are said to be eighteen miles in length, and their
construction to have cost £168,960. Twelve poor children
are instructed for a rent-charge of £5, bequeathed
by Thomas Collier, in 1706. Worsley Archers' Society,
formed in August 1826, consists of twenty-four members,
who hold their meetings every Wednesday at the
Grapes' Inn, from the first Wednesday in April to the
first in October.