St Helens

My constituency of St Helens South covers the following areas:

Bold, Eccleston, Rainhill, Sutton, Parr,
Thatto Heath, Town Centre, West Park, Windle

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St Helens is a wonderful town which is vibrant, expanding and steeped in history.

St Helens is home to one of the best Rugby league teams in the world, St Helens RLFC, World Championship Winners 2007.

I am extremely proud to represent St Helens South in Parliament and if you need help and advice, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with my office.

A Brief History of St. Helens

St. Helens remained a small village until the Industrial Revolution radically altered its nature. Coal was first documented as being mined in Sutton in the sixteenth century though there is a possibility that pits had been dug in the area many years previously.

During the seventeenth century the plentiful supplies of coal were transported by pack-horse to provide fuel for the refining processes of the Cheshire rock salt industry and also other trades in Liverpool. The success of the local coal industry was ensured by the extension of the Liverpool to Prescot turnpike road to St. Helens in 1746 and the opening of Britain’s first true canal, the Sankey Navigation in 1762. From that date the town became an ideal location for heavy industry, having excellent supplies of fuel in the form of coal and a good transport system in terms of road and canal. Thus St. Helens became associated with the famous names of Pilkington Bros., the Patent Alkali Co; Daglish’s Foundry; Cannington Shaw & Co and many others.

The nineteenth century also saw the arrival of “railway mania” and 1829 saw the “Rocket” win the famous Rainhill Trials in the south of the modern borough. This century also witnessed a vast growth in industry and population but unfortunately brought associated housing and social problems. Although attempts were made to resolve some of these issues a solution proved elusive as the town lacked any cohesive administrative unit. Matters were improved in 1845 by the establishment of the St. Helens Improvement Commission which was an early form of local government established to combat some of the social ills of bad housing, drainage, provision of water and many other issues affecting the daily life of local people. In 1868 the town became a municipal borough which improved, strengthened and extended the role of local government.

The twentieth century brought many changes especially with the loss of most of the town’s heavy industry and the closure of all the coal mines. Local government boundaries were also radically changed in 1974 when the old borough was enlarged and became St. Helens Metropolitan Borough. It now included many of the old surrounding Lancashire urban districts some of which were of greater antiquity than St. Helens.
Today all these communities comprise the modern borough of St. Helens which has a population of about 178,500 people.